Weirdos IV: The Emerald Heart

Chapter 13: The Lone Light

HINDI AKO FAMEWHORE AT MAS LALONG HINDI AKO NAG-IIPON NG COMMENTS. BINAGYO KAMI AT LAST WEEK LANG BUMALIK ANG KURYENTE. UNLIKE YOU, HINDI KO GINUGUGOL ANG LAHAT NG ORAS KO SA KAKA-INTERNET. PUTANGINA WALA KANG ALAM SA SITWASYON KO NGAYON.

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I don't feel any remorse for killing all those people who hurt us, and neither do I feel any regret for being imprisoned in the Time Citadel. Those people deserved to die, and I had to pay for the heinous crime that I committed. Even if someone offered me to go back in time to change what I did before, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't even try to save my sister even if I were given another chance. As people would always say, some things are just meant to happen, and there is nothing you can do to change what had been done already.

However, now that I'm free from the Citadel and living a new life, I am determined not to experience the same fate that befell me many years ago. There is nothing I can do to change the errors of my past, but the choices that I will be making from this point onwards rely solely in my hands. I may not be able to change the past, but I am going to dictate my future.

People say that you can never defy your destiny, your fate. They say that before you were even born, your entire life had been laid out already for you, and all you have to do is to live that life. I, however, believe in the opposite. I do not believe in mysterious hands that guide people towards their respective paths. I do not believe in red strings that bring two people together. I only believe in a person's own will, and the choices that he makes with it.

I am Jelal Isena Habib, and this is my story of darkness, defiance, and destiny. . .

Believe it or not, my parents were actually agents. My mother was a Healer, and my father was a powerful Light Weirdo. My parents were, in common terms, a perfect match for each other. They worked together in an agent team that patrolled and protected our hometown. Our place was peaceful and quiet, and everything was just perfect.

Seeing my parents work really hard to protect the people in our place influenced me greatly. Even at a young age, I already dreamt of becoming just like them, of becoming an agent who protects people and makes them feel happy and safe. In my eyes, the job of an agent was a noble and brave profession.

The great irony came when my weirdness first manifested when I was seven. I didn't discover it at first, and for several days after my seventh birthday I thought that I was going to become a communis. I only discovered it one day when I was playing with my little sister. The night before that, I told her stories about monsters under her bed that will get her if she doesn't behave. We were just playing when she suddenly started crying and cowering in fear, her eyes fixed on the wall behind me. My parents had her checked by a doctor. Obviously, the doctor wasn't able to find anything. They only discovered what truly happened when I underwent a test in a Weirdness Diagnosis Center.

That was, I daresay, the first strike of fate on my life. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry for becoming a Fear Weirdo with the ability to force someone to see their worst fears.

Weirdnesses, unlike Weirdo Genes, are not inheritable. Not yet, anyway. According to the PWRI, the only thing that a parent can transfer to his or her child was the Weirdo Gene, and not his or her ability. They even have a name for it. The Instability Period. It refers to a period of time that will last from the day that the very first weirdnesses appeared on the people up to an unknown point in the distant future wherein the weirdnesses, or even the Weirdo Genes, cannot be directly inherited by the children from their parents.