Red Lightning - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

“Look mommy! Look what I can do!” I said, proud of myself as I made a sword levitate besides me. My eyes sparkling from my happiness, I eagerly awaited my mother’s reaction. I stared into her eyes and to my surprise, she didn’t share my joy. As I watched her expression go from surprise to sadness, then anger, I slowly bent my head in shame. Why wasn’t she happy? Wasn’t this what people call discovering your talents? The sword disappeared and a single tear gently rolled down my cheek.

“Why aren’t you happy, mommy?” I asked.

“Don’t you ever do that again!” She yelled as she slapped me across the face, her hand leaving a painful , burning mark on my face. My father instantly grabbed my mother’s wrist as I backed away from her and put my own hand on my face.

“For Christ's sake, what's gotten into you?! To hit our son like that!” My father yelled.

“He...He’s a monster, Daniel! Didn’t you see? He’s a mage!” My mother protested.

“He’s still our child,” my father said in a much calmer tone, “He doesn’t even realise what’s going on!”

“He’s a mage, a mage! Do you know what that means?! The world hates his kind!” My mother yelled.

“I know, I know,” my father sighed, “but violence isn’t going to solve anything! We’ll just have to accept him the way he is.”

She looked at me one last time with hatred in her eyes before shaking her head and turning her back on me, forever. She denied my existence by ignoring me and sought comfort with my sister, who was twelve years older than me. My father didn’t react quite as emotionally. He tried to raise me well, but he too remained distant. I constantly lived in my sister’s shadow. She was the child my parents wanted, not me. It still hurts to know that the people who were supposed to teach me how to love were the ones that hated me the most. Growing up in that kind of family situation sure as hell takes its toll.

I’m 17 now. You’d barely recognise me if you compared me to the kid I was eleven years ago. My once sparkling green eyes have turned into a cold stare that chills those who fear mages to the bone, making them think they’re staring into the eyes of a killer. My innocent smile faded away and now, heh, my expression is melancholic at best. My desire to live a happy life has completely disappeared and turned into something of a death wish, largely because of my surroundings. People on the street either point and laugh at me or back away in fear once they notice the markings on my body. That’s right, every mage alive today has to be marked, branded like an animal with three pentagrams: one on each hand and another in the neck. The current laws state that at least one of these has to be clearly visible at all times to fully ensure the safety in public areas. Makes me wonder who would actually do such a thing, killing someone in front of hundreds of potential eye witnesses, I mean. Useful or not, I guess I got kind of lucky: as your typical Goth I quite like the pentagrams from an aesthetical point of view. If I ever decided to get a tattoo myself, it’d probably have been something along these lines anyway.

Today, I get to attend one of those family reunions just about every teenager hates. Imagine what it’s like sitting through one of those if your entire family hates you for not being human. As usual, I just sat there along with the rest of them and ate my meal in silence while the others told jokes and shared all kinds of interesting experiences with each other. Generally speaking I just let my mind drift off and daydream for however long we’re staying, but that all just proved to be an impossible task today. I finished up my meal and headed for the bathroom. I didn’t really have to take a leak or anything, but I just wanted to escape the crowd for a minute. I knocked on the door and waited for a response. There was no reaction, so I went ahead and claimed my rightful place in the bathroom. I looked up at the ceiling and let out a sigh as I leaned against the wall. I felt the cold tiles against my back and closed my eyes. It felt refreshing after spending hours in a room warm enough to compete with Hell itself. I wanted to stay inside a bit longer to enjoy the silence, but someone knocked on the door and asked if anyone was inside.

“Almost done,” I said. I counted to 7 before opening the door, just because it would’ve looked suspicious if I opened it right away. I walked out of the bathroom and was almost pushed aside by my cousin, not that she’d have the strength to do so, but being the attention whore she is she just had to make a drama out of having to wait. She seems to think of herself as some kind of a VIP wherever she goes, quite an attitude for a child her age even if I say so myself. As I walked back to my seat I overheard my sister, now well in her twenties, talking to her fiancé about how she forgot her phone in the car. Recognising this as the ideal opportunity to get out of this hellhole for a while, I stopped near her and told her I’d go get it for her. She jumped up a bit when I started talking, kind of like a character from a horror movie who thinks the murderer is right behind her while it’s just a friend stopping by to say hello.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” I said.

“It’s alright,” she searched for her car keys in her back pocket and handed them to me, “Thanks for helping out.”

She smiled. I couldn’t tell whether or not she was sincere, but at the very least she tried to behave normally around me. I can’t say the same about the rest of my family; they act as though every sign of life from my part meant that I was going to kill them. It’s kind of funny, really. Whenever I move, like now, an eerie silence fills the room. It’s even worse now that I actually have to walk past a handful of people. About a dozen of prying eyes observed me as I made my way towards the door, when another of those clichés took place: my uncle poked fun at me.

“There’s got to be one hell of a girl waiting for you if you’re this hasty to leave,” he was the only one to laugh at his joke. While it wasn’t exactly funny to begin with, the others were probably too busy pissing their pants because someone actually had the guts to talk to me. They were nervously awaiting my next move and judging by the look on their faces they most likely thought the old man sealed the fate of everyone in that house by mocking me.

“Actually, I’m just going to pick something up for my sister,” I said calmly, “Though I wonder why you can’t seem to talk about anything other than sex. Are all of those beers getting to your brain, or are you just that fucking stupid?”

Most of my family members gasped dramatically, the beast had spoken! As expected, my mother wasn’t quite as impressed.

“Damn it, apologize right now!” She screamed. I ignored her, put on my jacket and slammed the door shut behind me. I could still hear the people inside talking about me, wondering why I had gotten so aggressive all of a sudden. Aggressive? Come on. If it was anyone but me who said it, everyone in the room would have agreed with the statement! But no, the fact that I am a mage alone is apparently enough of a reason for everyone to side with the one who provoked me! The same people who now stood up for him were the ones complaining about his behaviour just days ago. He blows all of his money on alcohol, cigarettes and even hookers, he’s a married man for God’s sake! Does my family truly detest me so much they even prefer that kind of asshole over me? The bastard pissed the entire family off at one point, and now...Christ, why can’t someone just do the world a favour and kill this bunch of hypocrites?!

“As you wish,” a voice behind me echoed into the distance. The phrase was followed by an outburst of laughter. I summoned a sword and turned around, only to find that nobody was there. I tightened my grip on the blade’s handle and scanned the area for anything suspicious, but found nothing.

“I could've sworn someone was here just now,” I said to myself as I made the sword I had created disappear.

After taking a deep breath I turned back around and made my way towards my parents’ house, which is where my sister had parked her car. It wasn’t that far of a walk, though. In fact it wasn’t much of a walk to begin with, but it provided me with a break from all of the things going on back at the family reunion. I dread my return already, whenever I walk through that door again I’ll inevitably trigger a lecture on my mother’s part. And for what? A simple response to my uncle’s attempt at insulting me. it’s not like I’d have stepped on his heart when I said what I did. Even if that was the case, the man deserves to feel hurt. People like him are only capable of thinking of themselves, it’s like they don’t even realise that their actions have an influence on the people around them! If anything people like him needed to be taught a lesson. I was just about halfway down the lane by then when I suddenly heard an odd, continuous whistling sound in the distance. To my disbelief, I saw some kind of a fireball travelling through the air at an incredible speed. A meteorite? At first I didn’t really think it would be possible, but then I reminded myself of the voice I heard earlier and started panicking. Was this...? My thoughts were interrupted by a bright explosion that forced me to hold my arm out in front of my eyes. As the light started to fade I began to run towards the crash site, my aunt’s house. Even though I could clearly see the destruction from where I was standing at first, I just had to get closer. There was no way I was going to believe what I just saw if I couldn't get a closer look. My heart pounded faster with every passing second, were they really dead?

I stood there, near the edge of the fire, just gazing at the flames that danced in front of my eyes. Unable to grasp the idea that not only my parents, but my entire family and whoever was inside of the other houses caught in the blast, were killed in mere seconds. I felt the tears welling up in my eyes and the desire to just yell at the top of my lungs and then...Nothing. No sadness, no pain, nothing. If anything, I felt relieved. Then it struck me, was this how it felt to be a monster?