(Jess pov)
A field. A beautiful one. A huge one. A famous field that people from all over would come to see. People said it had the power to draw in the beauty and make people smile when they saw it. Women in the village would bring their children to see the magic of the field. In this village that lived around the field, people had roles to live. A society of racism. Men would have control over women, girls had to act polite and gentle without talking back to anyone. Boys had to act tough and powerful. No one in the village cared for this and went by the rules without question, as they saw no problem in it, except one person. Jess Ashmane. A little boy that scared all the people in the village. Rumors went around the village and across the kingdom to the point that even other villages would talk about it. Why? Well because he was a boy who loved flowers.
The little boy was heartbroken as he grew up to know people thought of him as a strange boy. He would love to spend his days sitting in the grass of the field and admiring the flowers that flew into the wind and glowed when the sun shined on them. His favorite flower was the Middlemist flower, which from what people knew, there were only two of them in the world. It was a rare and beautiful flower, people ignored it and used it for its looks until there was none left except two. He hummed every day, the same song his mother had hummed when he was a baby.
"Jess, what are you doing?" My mother asked, turning from the firelight that they had in the mornings of winter. That's right, I'm Jess. I smiled at her, holding up my bag to show books. She nodded, understanding that I was going out to read. She waved at me and let me go into the village. That boy years ago who went into the village had been tucked to the bottom of my soul, only to be trapped away for myself. People to this day still look at me weirdly as they always needed someone to judge. I stared into the distance where the field was. No kids played there anymore, afraid of it because they said it had "corrupted" my mind and they didn't want their children to be like me.
"Well hello there, twatface" A grumbling voice spoke from behind me. Even from the nickname, I tensed. My blood ran cold as I watched the crowd of people in the store disappear in the sight of me. I gulped, knowing there was no way out of this.
"H-Hey Tanner" I muttered, glancing behind me to see his smirking face. He had his orange glaring eyes narrowed and his smirking face showed he had plans to hurt me. I was used to the fear of getting hurt every time I left my house, but it never stopped getting worse. Sometimes he would get to the point where he would do it in front of everyone to show how weak I am to everyone. Somehow I could feel myself in a bad mood and I really didn't want to deal with him.
"Aw, what's wrong, did I ruin your walk?" His face turned into a sad pout, as fake as his money. I clenched my fist, knowing it wasn't best to fight him. Everyone was staring in our direction, knowing I wasn't going to fight back. I had to be the only boy that didn't get into a fight in the village. "Come over here and get what you deserve, mistake," He said. I could hear his footsteps behind me and as I turned around it was too late. I dropped my bag as his hand grabbed my hair and yanked it towards him. He lifted his fist to punch me, giving me a deadly glare. "You really don't care if you get killed, do you? I guess I'll have to start hurting you more. Hell, I'll kill you and your brother and then take your sister as my wife. After that, I'll just use her for the rest of her life. How does that sound huh-..."
His voice suddenly was knocked out by a hatred glare from my eyes. I could feel the anger grow in me and the shivers of fear in my back from earlier had turned into a reflex of hurt. I lifted my fist and punched him so hard he let go and went flying backward. I heard gasps from behind me, forgetting the fact this was my first fight. Honestly, I forgot about that as soon as I remembered what he said about my family. I ran forwards, punching him a second time and causing him to hit the ground hard. I got on top of him and punched him again. Over and over I watched his face become more bloody until I felt the anger go into one fist. As I lifted the fist I felt a burning sensation in the fingers of my hand. Before I punched, I glanced up at the hand, watching the fingers get engulfed with flames. People shrieked in fear, backing away from me, and looked at me like they never did before. I grabbed Tanner's shirt, lifting his bloody face up to me.
"Don't ever speak of my family like that again or I'll cut your tongue off" I growled. I let go of his weak body and stood up. The flames in my hand disappeared and I grabbed my bag. I glanced up at the people, who stared at the hand that engulfed moments before. I looked angry on the outside, but in reality, I was panicking. My hand just turned into flames in front of everyone, not even my family knew of the fire I possessed. Nodding to the people, I walked away towards the small library that was filled with educational books.
As I walked in, the candles of the library flickered the other way. The people who ran the place glanced over and smiled at me. They were the only ones who didn't listen to the rumors or judged me. When they saw me they would talk to me and people would believe that they got corrupted from the field like me.
"Here," I muttered to the girl that took the book from my hands and put it on a cart. She smiled at me kindly.
"Hello Jess," She greeted, "What's wrong? You look sad, something happened?" She asked. I bit my lip, looking down at the clean floors of the library. She reached over the desk and put her hand on my shoulder, comforting me.
"No," I smiled, looking at the doors, "I'm fine. I should head home, someone said it was going to rain later today." I said.
"Ok Jess," She nodded, "you go right on ahead".
Yep. A Middlemist Red indeed. The odd, special one out.