Area One

5

Tao was crying silently in his room. He was sitting on the ground, his back against the wall and his arms wrapped around his knees and tried to shut out every single sound. It wasn't easy to ignore the shouting and continuous knocking on his door. He knew he would have to explain himself sooner or later, even though he didn't really know what to explain.

Hesitant, he stood up, wiping his tears and walking towards the door. The knocking had stopped. Zhu had probably gone back to the kitchen to talk to their parents.

When he showed up in the kitchen, his parents and his sister immediately fell silent. His mother tried to smile, but it came out a bit stiff. "Zitao, do us the favour and sit down," she begged. He did as he was told, trying to avoid his father's strict glare and his sister's sympathetic glances.

"Now," his father began, "care to explain yourself?"

"But I don't know what that was either!" Tao exclaimed, looking at his sister, silently begging for her support. She looked away.

"You made an apple rot when Mingzhu grabbed it before you, right in front of our eyes. It was red and bright in one moment, brown and foul in the other. How do you explain this?" His father just wouldn't understand that this hadn't been his fault.

"I would know if I could do something like that, don't you think so?" Tao retorted. "Why do you want to let me take the blame for this? It's just an apple!"

"Tao!" Zhu glared at him, not being able to believe the stupidity of her brother. "Everyone knows people like you exist, what do you think the Red Force is experimenting on the whole time?"

This got the boy to shut up. Dumbfounded, he leaned back in defeat, looking at his hands. "But how is this possible? I don't want to be able to do that."

His father leaned forward, nearly whispering right now. "Don't you see it?" he asked desperately. "It's a gift!"

"There are other people like you out there," his mother added. "If they worked together, they could help us! Hasn't there even been something like a legend of a prophecy about people with powers saving us-"

"I don't believe in prophecies," contradicted Tao.

"But you believe in ghosts," Mingzhu muttered under her breath. He ignored her.

"We can try to find other people with powers so he can train with them!" It seemed his parents didn't even care about his opinion in this case.

Tao stood up with clenched fists. "I will not fight the Red Force along with some other weirdos and get all of us killed. You can't force me to do that."

"You will do whatever is necessary to learn how to control your power!" his father commanded. His eyes held a determination Tao had never known his father possessed and it scared him. It scared him how his family was so eager to give him away and let him fight an enemy that was way too strong with powers he didn't even know how to use. The Red Force would find out about it and kill all of them.

Feeling nauseous, Tao made a few steps backwards, then turned around and ran outside, ignoring the voices of his family telling him to stay.

He ran without looking back, until he reached the last house of the village and leaned against the wall, panting. He wished he could just turn back time again, erase this whole day from existence and go back to his calm life. He knew it would never be the same again.

Tao was contemplating on whether to run away or not when he heard loud voices from behind him. He checked the streets, but no one was there. When he heard the voices for a second time, he realized they were coming out of the house, seemingly from a higher level.