Emotionless-Kato's Misery

Chapter 4

There was a long silence. 

"We have time, you can tell us," Ashton persisted. 

"If they don't want to tell us they don't have to," Kelsie objected.

"Whatever, they're already really shady anyway," Hosah muttered.

"I think they should tell us!" Aarid said defiantly.

"Guys it's really not that big a deal," Kea smiled nervously, waving her hand in front of her. " Ned's magic drained out of him, he's one of the rare cases able to live without magic, that's all." 

Nobody looked convinced, but they let it drop anyway.

"Anything else important you need to tell us, or can we go?" Hosah complained.

"Well," Kea tapped her chin thoughtfully, "This might not be important, but I'll tell you anyway. There are ten different abilities. The same ability will be different according to the person. So, for example, if Kato had a fireball for the first emotion, which we call rage, I could have anything from sparks to a stream of flames, maybe even another fireball, but it definitely would not be exactly the same as Kato's fireball."

"Why are you using me as an example?" I scowled.

"I could use Aarid as an example if that makes you feel better," Kea suggested.

"How do you know it's not going to be the same though?" Kelsie asked.

"Scientific proof," Kea replied. "We keep records of everyone's abilities and what they looked like. So far, there have been no repeats of the same version of an ability. That may change in the future, but we're not sure."

"Can you tell us the different emotions?" Ashton asked.

"Sure!" Kea opened up her copy of the paper with the paintings of the emotions. Pointing to the first one, which was a swirling red fire symbol, she said, "I've already mentioned this one just now. This is the first emotion, rage."

She moved to the second painting, which was a pale blue snowflake. "This one is misery."

The third one, a black skull, was called hatred.

The fourth one, two lighting bolts, was fear.

The fifth, which was beams of white light shooting out from a sun, was called hope.

The sixth showed a painting of a crimson droplet, which I assumed represented blood, was called pain.

The seventh was an indigo ghost, which was called nostalgia.

The eighth symbol showed an cage made out of thorny vines. That one was called mistrust.

The ninth one showed a brick red stone, which was called determination.

And the last one was an orb of bright violet energy called freedom.

"Alright then!" Kea stood suddenly, toppling her chair. "Let's see if your abilities have awoken yet."

Kea made us stand at equal intervals in a line, then told us to sit. I wanted to ask her why, but every time I tried to she told me to wait and see.

"Ok, so just try and focus on one emotion, maybe your ruling emotion, and focus on that emotion until you feel physical energy from it."

"How will we know when we feel physical energy from an emotion?" Kelsie asked, puzzled.

"You'll know, trust me," Kea replied mysteriously.

Kea sat on the log in front of us, crossed her legs and closed her eyes, like she was meditating.

I looked around and saw the others doing the same, so I followed suit.

Since Kea told us to focus on our ruling emotion, I decided that meant the emotion you felt most strongly, so I imagined what the physical form of misery would look like. My mind's eye replied with an image of small snowflakes whirling in a tight spiral as if dragged into an unseen vortex of air. Small blue ice crystals broke off the snowflakes and whipped around in an untamed fashion, before slowing their pace and melting back into the snowflakes.

I felt the air cool around me, and a crisp breeze tugged at my hair. I opened  my eyes and found myself sitting in the middle of a mild snowfall, with the same vortex I'd seen in my head surrounding me like a cocoon. I looked around at the others. Kea was still sitting on her log, but her eyes were open and she no longer sat in a meditative position. She was staring intently at Kelsie, but turned to meet my gaze and smiled.

"So your ruling emotion is misery? I never would have guessed it from the outside," she went back to staring at Kelsie, which I found a bit creepy and weird. I also wondered why she was staring at Kelsie. Kelsie wasn't that interesting, she was a bit too meek and pathetic. Maybe that's why Kea wanted to find out more about her, I reasoned.

As I watched, Aarid suddenly disappeared in a jet of flames. I stifled a scream, trying to remember it was just his emotions. 

Soon after, electricity crackled around Kelsie, who opened her eyes and yelped, and Ashton was engulfed in a wave of red liquid moments after. Hosah opened her eyes during the commotion, but closed them right after. After a few seconds, vines began to wrap around her, with spikes growing on the outer edge of the thick stems.

I watched in awe as their emotions surrounded my fellow emotionless, but was distracted by a stab of pain, directly over my heart.

"Kea! Is my heart supposed to hurt?" I panicked.

"That's your body telling you to disperse your emotions. Focus on turning your emotions turning from physical energy back to an energy stored in your head." 

I closed my eyes again, trying to concentrate on shutting down the emotion. After a while, the pain stopped and I opened my eyes again. Everyone else's emotions had already been reverted back to stored emotions. 

"Ok, one last thing you all need to know before you leave," Kea's voice turned deadly serious. "These abilities are for last resort use unless you are told by me or Ned to use your ability in training. Even then, you must ask us the reason why, because there are some wizards out there that have forbidden abilities like possession and mind control, and they can make you use your abilities through me or Ned. These abilities shorten your life span and are extremely dangerous, which is why you have to learn to control them as soon as possible. As for the pain you felt just now Kato," Kea turned and addressed me. "Your body will tell you to stop using your abilities via pain, because it's telling you to disperse your emotions, because the extreme concentration of emotions is what shortens the lifespan and damages the body...."