I see emotions. Wait! that is not correct. I smell emotion. That does not seem right either. Anyway, that is what I experience whenever I am around living creatures. I seem to be able to taste their emotions. That does not sound right, just like the rest. 

There is an insurmountable degree of difficulty in conveying a sensation that you experience to someone who has never experienced it before. How would you even begin to describe the notion of taste to someone who has not tasted anything in their life? It feels like that is an almost impossible task. But then again, it would not be nearly as difficult for one to accept the fact that there might be some sensory perception that one person has that another does not. That is the case with me now, but it had not always been that way.

"Hey, kid!" says the comically large man, with a bald head and several scars decorating his face. The fact that all the scars make him look less ugly says a lot about his looks. The man looked like he was straight out of a book about a generic scary gang member. The fact that he was indeed a member of such a gang does not help in any way help reduce the stereotype. "Keep up, will ya!" he continued.

Frustration with a hint of anger is what the ugly giant is feeling now. If you miss out on the whole emotion-sensing, the scowl on his face is a dead giveaway. 

"Sure thing, Ugly," I replied. 'Ugly' in this case was not even an insult. It is what everyone calls him. People have long forgotten what his real name is. At least that is the case for me, not that I ever recollect anyone calling him by his real name in the first place. The taunting tone with which I replied did not go past him, as I could almost see some veins pulsating on his bald head. I could feel my lips twist upwards to form a smirk, which I had no intention to hide.

"Don't start another one you two! We have a business to attend to," says another big man in a neutral tone. Although he approached middle-age and was muscular, he could be considered decent looking. At least he did not look like a typical goon like the rest of them. That is the vice-leader of the little gang for you. The only person mature enough to keep everyone in line. I could feel the disappointment emanating from the two people who remained uninvolved till now. They were probably just sad that it did not blow up a bit more.

"We are just kidding around, Victor. The walk was getting pretty boring." I replied with a slight smile hanging on my lips. Victor seemed like he wanted to say something more, but decided against it. He knows that words are not useful against me as I have a knack for twisting and turning them around. 

I am 16 years old this year. With a height of five feet and ten inches, and a thin built, any outsider would wonder why I am not getting beaten up mercilessly by the goons. The reason is simple, it's because I am part of the gang. I would even go as far as to call myself the chief strategist. Being the only literate person in the gang, anything that requires a bit of intelligence falls on my shoulders. But that alone is not enough to stop you from getting beaten up, as demonstrated when I first joined. Being nice is not considered a virtue when you are among such people. It just gets you more harassed. But if you hold your ground, show them you know what you are worth, and do not back down from physical threats, you get respect. I did not have to guess what they were thinking, as I could feel a sense of respect they started developing for me when I first started to stand up for myself through their emotions.

As we continue the walk in silence, I took the time to look around the village, which I haven't done in a long time. Although I call it a village, it is not as if the houses are made of mud and clay, with little to no development overall. People own decent looking houses made of stone or bricks, and there are enough stores that sell commodities for daily use, without which our little gang would have long gone broke. The reason I call it a village is because there are hardly a thousand people living here. Almost everyone knows one another, not that it is a bad thing. But you do get bored of seeing the same faces over and over every single day. Being a town on the borders of the Apricus kingdom, we are too far away from the capital for them to care about us. I have to say that the feeling is mutual. The only thing that I guess we should be thankful for the kingdom is not starting any new wars since our little village would be first in the line of casualties.

People find the slight coat of fog that seems to persistently cover the village to be gloomy. That when coupled with the cold tends to make the people around the area quite lethargic. Although there is no rain worth speaking of, the place always has a very damp feeling. While other people find it gloomy, I find the atmosphere to be quite pleasant.

While we continue walking, I can feel the apprehension emanating from the people along the path. I would not blame them since these goons that I am walking with prefer to punch first and talk later. That reminds me of how I started sensing emotions. 

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It all happened four years ago. I  was in the only orphanage in the village.  My parents had died when I was very young, too young for me to recollect anything about them. Hence, unlike the three other children with me in the orphanage who used to cry on occasion, I was never too sad over my loss. Back then, although I did wish for a loving family when I saw happy children with their parents, I was just grateful that the people in the orphanage were kind enough to look after me. 

It all changed on a winter night four years ago. I woke up in the middle of the night due to a mild headache. I thought that once I have something to drink, I should be able to go back to sleep. It was only later I found out how wrong I was. The pain that started as something mild progressively became worse and worse. I tried to endure the pain as long as I could, but I did not persist too long. Soon I found the orphanage workers rushing over, and I barely noticed that I had started screaming at the top of my lungs due to the unbearable pain. It felt as if someone thrust a spatula within my head, and were stirring the insides of my brain. That is all I remember before I lost consciousness.

I fully regained consciousness a year later, and the pain was gone completely. I was apparently in and out of a coma several times during the year. Whenever I seemed to be waking up during the period, the pain also accompanied me, leading me to slip back into a coma. The pain I experienced is something that I wouldn't even wish upon my worst enemy.

I have nothing but gratitude for the orphanage that took care of me during that time. Two years ago, my current gang colleagues had visited the orphanage to extort money that they did not have in the first place. Without diving too deep into the specifics, I had convinced the leader of the gang that I would render my services to them in exchange for leaving the orphanage alone.  Thankfully I had been taught reading, writing, and mathematics to a certain extent, and the gang had no literate person in their ranks. It is a wonder they had survived so long without keeping any accounts whatsoever. Even crime has to be organized.

Soon I gained enough recognition and trust to implement some changes. They at least acknowledged that my suggestions make more sense in the long term. We had to start with a campaign to change our image. Otherwise, the town might very well revolt one day and that would be the end for us. From simple extortions, we changed our policy to collect 'Protection Fees' only. And instead of targetting the most vulnerable in society, we changed our targets to well-off businesses. The criteria was that they could afford to part with some part of their income. In return, we did help them catch people that vandalized their property, damaged goods, etc. Although our business has taken a more positive turn in terms of our attitude, the villagers are stilled frightened to some extend. The looks of my colleagues play no small role in I believe. But then again, some fear is required to run this business.

I thought that the pain that I had suffered when I was twelve would never recur. At least that I what I had hoped for with every fiber of my being. But a year ago, I got a mild headache again. I would not mistake the headache for a common one. The thought of experiencing the pain once more terrified me. But unlike last time, the headache receded after a couple of minutes, but I felt a quiet message left in the back of my mind. 'It' wanted me to practice the abilities of my mind. I am not sure how I understand the message since there is no actual voice inside my head. But I could tell there is something foreign inside me that wants me to do it. I could feel that 'It' wasn't something living. 'It' was not sentient. 'It' felt more like a residual instinct. An unfulfilled wish that stuck to the back of my mind. I tried ignoring it, hoping it was all in my head. But a couple of days later, the headache came back again, this time it was stronger and lasted longer. 

I somehow knew that if I refused to train the power of my mind, the same power that helps me read emotions, the pain would eventually come back. I felt it would be wrong to experiment on people, and I would not have any way to explain what I was doing. Hence, I started going to the nearby swamp to try it on small critters like frogs. I found that I am not only capable of sensing the emotions of the critters, but also manipulate them to a certain extend. I cannot control them in any way, but I can induce some degree of primal emotions like fear and pleasure, that modify their behavior to a certain extent. My gut instinct was correct and the headache did not recur once I started practicing.

A month ago, I got a small bout of a headache again. I found that this time 'It' wanted me to learn something else that is supernatural. This time, it feels like I have been given more time and room to fulfill 'It's' wish. This may be because I did not put up a resistance against the idea in my head. But I have no clue on how to go about doing it. The wish itself is so vague that I can't make heads or tails out of it. And as far as I know, I am the only person in the village that got mixed up with the supernatural. So the only way for me to fulfill the wish would be to leave and travel around and hope to stumble upon something. I have a feeling that as long as I try to accomplish the task, the headache will not come back. Besides, I need to find a way to get rid of this headache for good. I don't want to dance to the tone of something foreign inside my head. The answer to this also has to lie in the supernatural world, so this journey seems inevitable.

Furthermore, now that I have a taste for the supernatural, the ordinary life that I have been living feels very lackluster. It was quite fun to be part of a gang but compared to the allure of the unexplored mysteries of the supernatural world, the prospect of such a life seems dull.