Victoria

I

The Story of My Life

No one likes the feeling of being suffocated, whether it be physical, mental, or emotional.

No one likes the feeling of being consciously and continuously isolated and being deemed a liar because people want to protect themselves from phenomenons they think cannot possibly be true.

I couldn't have cared less about it, despite being looked upon as though I were some kind of specimen in a laboratory and treated as a plague that must be stayed away from at all costs. However, it didn't mean I could continue living that way.

I knew it wasn't normal, and I was sure no one in my family could possibly ever do what I managed to. I was afraid of it, so scared that even at the tender age of three, instead of running around and enjoying my life without a care in the world, I would sit alone and simply think. 

I never spoke to anyone much, and I never made any friends back at home. It wasn't because I didn't want to, it's because everyone was too simple-minded. The kids could hardly speak anything at all, and the adults spoke to me in a voice that would just get on my nerves. 

People eventually started calling me a 'shut in' and this had started going around in our small town, the rumors getting layered with a new lie every time they were passed from one mouth to a newly listening ear. 

Public speaking was my family profession, and so it had been since the very beginning. Extrovertedness ran in our family and was passed down from generation to generation like a prized and precious heirloom, so when my parents caught wind of the whispers floating around, their first reaction was denying it all - 'It wasn't possible for a child of the Wraith family to lack talents in the art of public speaking, I just hadn't yet found the topic I was most passionate about.'

And behind all the drama and self-consolation, mum and dad tried their best to get me to open up, but I simply couldn't. I was unable to.

How could I have wasted my time in something as trivial as trying to put forth my opinion for people who wouldn't have even cared about it if the public speeches made by the Wraith family weren't for the 'high society' crowd? How could I have, now that my mind sought refuge and peace in only one thing - magic? The abilities and differences that I once feared, had now cultivated into something I knew I could not live without. I remember it had almost started off as touching a healing wound - it hurt every time you did and yet you would find yourself touching it again and again. 

I was five by the time I fully accepted the beauty of my abilities. I could make flowers bloom with a wave of my hand and the biggest rocks crumble to dust with a simple touch. I could kindle a fire with my bare fingers and plunge the town into darkness by blowing out a single candle in my room. I could cover the sun with clouds and bring myself shade at day and clear the skies to gaze at the stars at night, all by simply wishing it would happen.

And as the extent of my abilities grew right before my eyes, too drunk on the happiness I got from it, I moved further and further away from being the 'ideal' extroverted child my parents wanted me to be.

It was then that my parents felt that there could actually be a problem with me. It was then that they finally asked me if everything was okay, if I was going through something a child of my age shouldn't be experiencing. They told me I could tell them if something was bothering me, that they loved me and would never judge me for anything no matter what, that they loved me and that they would always love me.

But I suppose in their 'anything' they didn't consider the possibility of their child turning out to be a freak.

It was a beautifully simple and innocent piece of my magic that stemmed from the purest and most caring emotions within me.