Aether's Legacy | Elysium [Dreamnotfound]

Welcome to AGE: Part I

A danger to society—it's what they called him at eight years old.

It hadn't been his fault.

His mind was jumbled. His trembling hands were clutching his sides. Thousands of microscopic ants crept beneath his skin, aching to release this strange pent-up energy pumping through him. He could hardly breathe over the disinfectant stinging his white cage like it was trying to cleanse him of this new sickness taking over his body.

He hadn't meant to do it. He wasn't even sure how he had done it.

But he remembered his teacher's terror-stricken expression the second the book on his desk had started floating mid-air. He remembered the way his classmates yelped and backed away. He remembered the way the pretty girl who sat in front of him pointed and shouted something about George being one of them.

He had never wanted to be one of them.

It had taken fifteen minutes for his parents to burst into the room they had locked him in. His mother was the first to sprint toward him and press his face against her fluffy winter coat. His teacher couldn't even look him in the eye as they left the classroom. He couldn't understand why everyone was so afraid of him.

It was when his parents drove him to a far-away place from their house in London that his mother turned to him with a sad smile and caressed his cheek.

"We're going to get you checked out, honey. It's going to be alright. We're going to fix you."

Fix me? I don't need fixing, had been his first thought.

The people in white suits ripped him away from his parents, and even though George struggled against their grip, reached out in confused sobs, and shouted for them, his parents only watched him.

And now, entrapped inside white walls with blinking red dots at every corner, there was nowhere to go.

He squeezed his eyes tight. He wished to wake up. But when he opened his eyes, he was still there.

George's eyes locked onto the boy with chestnut hair and brown eyes that stood before him—the one who wore white pajamas and whose feet were barefoot. His fingers hovered over the glass. The boy mimicked him.

It was when he leaned closer that the white light on the ceiling reflected against the boy's eyes. What appeared an unfamiliar memory flashed in his mind. Blinding light. White-eyes. The dreadful sensation of the floor disappearing beneath him.

His breath hitched. He stumbled back and tripped over his own feet. He reached across the floor for something—someone to hold.

But he was alone.

He hugged his knees to his chest and stared at the boy inside the glass—the one that everyone feared.

The tempered glass faded. Behind it, his parents were clutching to each other with lines of tears on their cheeks. There was a man beside them. He was wearing a long white coat and specs that made his eyes big. He was talking, but George couldn't hear him.

It must have been bad news, however, because his mom cupped her nose with both hands and collapsed her weight onto his dad's arms as if they had just found out their only son was dead. Maybe he was. Maybe this was the heaven they spoke so fondly of. If so, heaven didn't look very nice.

The man stared into George's eyes with pity. The glass faded back. The reflection that greeted him every morning stared back at him with the face of a stranger.

He clutched his ankles tight and pressed his head into his knees with aching eyes. He rocked back and forth, attempting to soothe the chaos swarming his head.