Alina: Light & Shadows

Chapter 1

They say that on the night I was born, the sky was shrouded in clouds so dense that not a single star could be seen.

It was an omen, they said. But my mother always laughed when she told that story, as if fate had a twisted sense of humor.

“The world knew you were coming,” she’d say, “and it decided to give you a dramatic entrance.”

I never saw it that way, of course. I was just a baby, oblivious, already prone to causing trouble from my very first breath.

According to the midwife, I was born with a scream that shook the walls of the house, so loud that even the candles flickered and went out. No one knows if it was because of my cry or the sudden wind that swept in through the open window.

“A dramatic beginning for a dramatic life,” some said, shaking their heads with a mix of concern and disbelief.

My birth, it seems, was anything but ordinary. In fact, from that moment on, it seemed I was destined to walk a fine line between disaster and miracle.

I was the last in a long line of ordinary people.

My mother was a farmer, my father a carpenter, yet the village elders whispered of ancient prophecies, of star alignments and sealed fates.

But me? I was just a child who couldn’t even hold a stick without dropping it.

The early years of my life were a string of accidents that seemed to emphasize how out of place I was.

Every step I took left a trail of small disasters. I like to remember the time, when I was five, and tried to help my mother cook.

A simple task, really: chopping a carrot. Somehow, I managed to drop the knife on the floor, which miraculously bounced up to the ceiling before landing straight into the freshly baked bread. My mother looked at me with an almost supernatural calm, took the knife, and said, “Perhaps you’ll handle the cleaning today.”

As I grew, I realized the whispers behind my back grew louder.

The village women looked at me with suspicion, and the men chuckled quietly, as if they knew something I didn’t.

They talked about me as if I were a puzzle, a mistake of nature. “She has no powers,” some said. “She can’t even perform basic magic.”

And it was true. During lessons with the other young apprentices, my attempts at spells always turned into small disasters. Once, trying to levitate a feather, I ended up making it explode into a thousand pieces of light.

But there was one thing no one could deny: there was something inside me, something that defied logic and understanding.

The moments of pure clumsiness sometimes turned into flashes of uncontrollable power.

Once, during a storm, I fell into a river, and instead of drowning, the water parted around me, as if it was protecting me.

I don’t remember how, but I came out without a scratch, while the rest of the village was flooded. No one dared to talk about that event, but the looks directed at me became even more uncertain.

Often, I wondered who I really was. I wasn’t the heroine from the legends they told me as a child. I wasn’t the prodigy girl my family hoped I’d be.

But there was a part of me that desperately wanted to understand why all of this was happening. Why did every attempt I made to fit in end in disaster? Why did I feel a power within me, yet every time I tried to use it, it ended up destroying everything?

It’s funny to think that it all started that night, the night the stars hid and the earth shook under my parents’ feet.

My mother told me that not only was the sky dark that night, but a pale light briefly passed through the village, illuminating everything.

“As if the world was waiting for you,” she’d say.

I’ve always wondered if it was true. If I was really that special or simply the result of a series of coincidences.

But there’s one thing I know for sure: that night, the world changed. Not in an obvious way, not immediately. But somehow, something inside me ignited. A spark, a small flame that I didn’t even know I had.

And maybe, that spark would become something greater. Or maybe it would slowly burn out.

But there was no turning back anymore.

And so my life began, not with the glory of a hero, but with the dull sound of a candle being snuffed out and the heavy silence of a starless night.

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Hello everyone! I hope you enjoyed this first chapter and that it sparked your curiosity!

I can’t wait to continue with the story—I can see it unfolding in my mind like a movie.

If you liked it, feel free to leave a star and a comment!

Thank you so much, and see you in the next chapter!