The sky was covered with black clouds and the people in the road hurried with their chores as the storm was nearby. The merchants were closing their shops, putting colorful gems, weapons, food, armor and decorations in crates. Some guards dressed in an elegant set of white and golden clothes with an emblem in their chest patrolled the streets.
Unknown to them, a boy in the top of a building was looking at the scenary. He was wearing black clothes, with a small iron dagger in his belt. His black hair had an inch of white, his eyes were spectral green and his skin was as pale as snow. He exuded a cold and dark aura. With that appeareance, everyone would think that he was a ghost or a corpse, but he was actually alive. His name was Corban.
Corban sighed and murmured with a soft yet scary voice
'The same, all over and over again, curse this boring life of mine.'
Then, he jumped and started to make his way towards his home. Crossing alleyways as the sky got darker. Nobody noticed him, he was good at hiding himself. He was soon in the outskirts of Roda. This one was a town near the Imperial City of The Grand Empire. Walking a bit more, Corban reached his destiny, the town cementery. The gravekeeper just nodded as he saw him like it was a common ocurrence. So, Corban went towards a thomb in the centre of the cementery.
'It has been a while, Mother.' he said, looking at the thomb.
When he looked at it, memories he prefered to forget started appearing in his head. He was six years old, he came back to his house after a walk with his uncle, only to find the bloodied body of his mother Amely as she said her final words: 'Be Happy.'
'How, how could she say be happy while she died, how am I supposed to be happy if you are gone, how could you leave me with him, although he prefers me dead?' thought Corban as he clenched his hand so angry that blood started to come out of it.
While Corban wasn't looking, his own shadow started to expand like it was alive.
He was angry, no, furious.
The shadow started to slide its way towards the gravekeeper.
More blood came out of his hand. He started ro remember memories when Amely was alive, when his father loved him, when his uncle visited him regulary.
The shadow almost reached the ignorant man.
Now, Amely was dead, his father only saw him as a nuisance and his uncle had dissapeared a year after his mother's death.
The shadow was already climbing towards the man's neck.
'Be Happy', as his mother's last words resonated in his head, Corban came back to his senses and the shadow dissapeared like it was never there.
The gravekeeper looked at his back, confused, swearing he had just felt something strangling him.
Corban was breathing heavily while cursing.
'Damn it, I almost killed him. I lost control of myself for one minute and this happens.'
The truth is, Corban had a big secret. A secret that could cause caos around the whole world if it was revealed. In this world, around 35% of the population were Carriers. There were a lot of different elements that one could control, but it wasn't a choice, you were just born with it.
At the age of 5, children awakened their elemental powers, (in some rare cases, at the age of 10), or simply not. The most common elements were: Fire, Lightening, Air/Wind, Water, Earth, Nature and Light. Light was considered the rarest one and the most powerful amongst these seven. However, there were a lot of combinations of these elements, creating ones like Mud, Magma, Ice, Storm, Meteor, etc. These powers could be an inheritence or just random.
So, back to Corban, everyone, included his father, thought that he wasn't a Carrier. But the truth is that he was.
Corban extended his hand, pure darkness materialized in front of his eyes. Because Corban could control an element that wasn't suppossed to exist, Darkness. He had searched tomes in history, but no one ever heard of such a thing. Elements also varied in power, although the potential depended on the person, there were some more powerful than others, that being the reason the Light Carriers are so valued. Nevertheless, Darkness proved to be an element as powerful as Light, so there was no way that no one knew about it, it should be common knowledge. Yet, here he was. They say that the elements intervene with people's personality, for example, a Fire Carrier would have a strong will, an Earth Carrier would be stubborn, a Water Carrier would be relaxed, etc. While it isn't true to most people there are some there and there. So, the Darkness element was in part what made Corban he was: cold, selfish and scary. He knew that if his secret was revealed, the entire world would hunt him down.
I can't allow that. Corban thought, so, when his powers manifested at the age of 10, he kept them hidden to everyone. Now, he was 15 and no one knew about his little secret. To everyone in the town, he was just a strange and scary kid, nothing more, nothing less.
Then, he realised that he was late and started to ran while the first drops of water started to fall. The Grand Empire was surrounded by the Dark Forest, a forest that humans had tried to conquest, to no avail. It was full of monsters and other dangerous things. Corban lived in Laren, that was literally the closest town to the borders with the Dark Forest. The problem was that to access it, one would have to go through a small portion of the forest, since it was near the borders, it was safer, but at night, monsters would appear.
'I must hurry.' Corban said to himself.
It was already raining heavily and Corban was already in the forest. Although the moon couldn't be seen because of the storm, he knew that the night had already fallen and so the dangerous things that inhabited the Dark Forest were starting to awaken.
Suddenly, an arrow came out of nowhere. Corban managed to avoid the fatal blow, but it made a cutin his left arm. He looked around, and he soon found the cause. It was a small green creature called Goblin. They were some of the monsters that developed a bit of intelligence, but only enough to create some tools. That one had a wooden bow and stone arrows.
Corban looked carefully at the goblin while his hand was going towards the dagger in his belt.
Then, out of nowhere, two goblins appeared. Both had a stone sword in their hands. They looked at the boy angrily with their big yellow eyes. Seeing that he was outnumbered, Corban began to ran to Laren.