Aethereum

I

My first memory is opening my eyes to see my mother, smiling down at me. The world was too bright and my mother was exhausted. I wanted to ask her why, but before I could finish this one thought I knew why. She had just spent hours upon hours pushing me through her body. The word for this was not known to me at the time, but I understood. She had given me life at the expense of her pain. Even though I had just been born, my heart was full and all of it belonged to this person who had brought me into this strange place.

After that I was loyal to my mother. She named me Rey, and I knew that she had big things planned for me. I spent as much of my time with her as I could. She taught me how to be a good person. She taught me how to love. And I did. I loved with my whole heart. Every living creature, from the smallest bug to the biggest beast, all of them were my family. Even the ones that could kill me in an instant. They did not hurt me because they wanted to, but because they were afraid.

When I went to school for the first time, the other kids wondered why I acted the way I did. They didn't see things the way I did. They didn't know the things I knew. So I tried to tell them all the things my mother showed me. Most of them laughed at me, calling me weird. Some of them listened, but then tried to tell me that I was wrong. They told me all the things my mother had shown me were wrong, because their parents had told them differently. I couldn't understand why they tried to change my view of the world. Why they tried to change me. That day I went home and asked my mother why people tried to change others.

"Because, people are afraid of what they don't understand. It is not your job to make them understand it. If they want to know, you can show them. If they want to hold onto their beliefs without a single doubt that it might be wrong, you cannot begin to hope for them. They are already lost."

These words were life changing to me. The next day I went back to school and when the other kids tried to teach me, I simply told them that I could believe what I wanted while they could believe what they wanted. This did not bode well with them. And I was in my first fight that day.

My mother yelled at the teacher that night. I had never heard her voice so hateful and angry. She said that her child would never start anything like this. She believed that the other children forced me into that situation. I understood then, that my mother didn't know the things I knew. She didn't understand that her words had caused the other children to become angry. I understood that because I knew what was going on, because I could understand things that the others couldn't, I was a target for them. I swore from that day forward I wouldn't let them know that I understood. They wouldn't know that I could hear the truth.

My mother was so angry that I was suspended, we moved to a new town. She said I needed a new start, but I knew why we moved. They wouldn't let me back into the school. The other children had told their parents what I said, and those parents complained. They thought my mother had made me say those things. They thought she was a bad person. They didn't know that I was the one who came up with the ideas I shared with my classmates. How could they? I was only five years old.

So we moved. We started a new life in a new town, where no one knew that I was different. I started school, but I didn't tell the others what I knew of the world. My secrets were safe with me. And I exceled at school. I got good grades on everything I did. Even the things I wasn't taught I knew. More than once the school brought my mother in and asked her if she was teaching me things beyond school. Every time she gave them the same answer; I knew the answers because I was gifted. They didn't take that answer well. They put me in advanced classes, only to find out that I knew everything they tried to trick me with. I baffled them. And I knew that they were scared. So I hid that secret too. I began getting moderate grades. The school noticed these things, and put me back into the right class. Ever since then I was the kid who flunked out of graduating early. I was only ten years old.