One (A SPM AU BASED ON LN2)

The Woods: Part 1

~ Many Years Ago ~

I was about twelve years old when I met him. The first person to show me kindness, that is.

A young boy, about my age, thirteen years old to be exact, was sitting atop a tree in front of the bright, glowing moon in the deep, lush forest. The sky filled with darkness, but the moon acted as a spotlight, trained on him as he sat atop that branch.

It was like he was searching for something up there, though what, I did not know. I never truly asked him what he was doing there.

He was a regular-looking boy. There was not a single unique thing about his appearance. Just by looking, you could safely assume that he was only human. He had a normal, pale skin tone. He was also rather scrawny. At the time he had been a few inches taller than me. He wore a long, brown trenchcoat that cut off around his knees. He was also wearing a brownish-grey shirt and brownish-grey trousers. He never had worn shoes, most likely due to the fact that he didn't have the money to pay for footwear.

Oh, and he always wore a brown paper bag over his head, with two eyeholes cut into it so he could see. 

There he sat, living in a world away from my own. Our paths should have never crossed, but sometimes fate was funny in that way. Sometimes fate would bring two people who were worlds apart together.

I lived in a complete other section of the world, among a tribe of ancients known as the Tribe of Darkness. Adults in the world held much power, children being small and inferior. They saw us as empty canvases which were to be molded to their likings. 

I never saw any other children. Most adults didn't wish to have any, due to the fear of a one being born.

What is a one, you ask? Well, back in the day, when any child was born, they were assigned a number based on their potential for power, one being the most powerful and a hundred being the least. Most humans had a number in the eighties or nineties, while most ancients or magic users had an average of twenty to thirty.

There hadn't been a one born in the records since the Pixl Queen. They were marked as highly unstable and dangerous, so if one were to be born, the law would require that they be terminated immediately. Yes, it was quite gruesome, but that was the way the world was back then. It was nothing more than a safety precaution.

I was born a six, making me the lowest number the tribe had seen and documented in centuries, which yes, was a huge honor, however, it also made many people... suspicious. My father was a proud man, taking pride in my number, but also being extra protective of it. He was often curious about my potential, taking me in to see many doctors in the area so they could test on me, just to make sure I wouldn't grow to do anything crazy with my potential power.

There were a lot of strict rules I was to live by during my youth. My kind was under no circumstances to repulse with humans. We were to stay away from them, for fear of what mixing high and low numbers could do. The low numbers were to stick with the low numbers and the same with the high numbers. It was just the way of the world. 

I, of course being a child, never asked questions. When people told me how the world was, I always nodded along, assuming that the adults knew everything. They were older and wiser, so who was I to doubt them?

It was mid-fall after I had turned twelve, my powers had still yet to fully come to me. In fact, they hardly came to me at all, which was odd since I had been born and labeled as a six. I was technically the most powerful person around, yet I couldn't use any of these said powers.