Dinner was a harsh situation, Allen couldn't contain his emotion and without even noticing, he was bouncing on his chair, eating as fast as he could to return to his room and continue practicing.
Ms Sarah, noticing his excitement asked him "Are you in a hurry to go somewhere, Allen?"
He stopped right before eating the last bit of food, looked her way and moved his head left and right, denying everything.
"Alright, but be careful eating so fast, you could puke, and we do not have any seconds" She said, continuing eating her own food.
Afterwards he finished his food, and cleaned his plates at lighting speed to run back to his room, not wanting to waste any second to practice.
While running through the hallway, hearing the floor creak with every step, he also saw something, the same light but not as strong, appeared on his feet, making him go just a bit faster.
Allen's willpower to reach his room, and the joyful emotions he felt at the thought of practicing activated his powers again, making him run faster than before. A dim orange light appeared this time around his feet.
He breathed heavily, hands on his knees and sweat dropping from his forehead. He would need to practice more, otherwise, another situation like this could happen where he gets too tired to continue anymore.
It sure was a surprise to find that not only can he move objects, but also boost his speed, and maybe strength, further practice is needed.
"I need to find something heavier than a book, or at least more books" He thought looking around his room after locking the door behind him.
His eyes darted around the faded room, most of the color was gone from everything inside, the walls, desk, bookcase, it's actually a miracle that he could have so much stuff for himself in an orphanage, even his own room, not even in his past life did he get that privilege, one thing for sure is that he enjoyed the privacy, even if it's a small room.
Sitting down on his bed, he started thinking the reason for his powers, they were some kind of psychokinesis, seeing how he could move objects, but the other times, when he calmed himself with the green light and just now, the orange light making him go faster, as far he remembers, none of those are a sub-element from psychokinesis. Most important of all, none of the stuff he did was using his mind, of course the emotions played a big part, and they are related, but the rays of light always came from his hand, or feet.
One web novel that he read a long time ago comes to his mind, about a teen who suddenly gains psychic powers, but they are so weak, he needed to train them as if it were a muscle, taking that into consideration, maybe it would be the same in his case?
As he started pondering, he lay down on his bed, hands on his chest, breathing slowly.
After pondering for a while on the implications of training his powers equal training his muscles, he remembered something he heard from true crime videos he used to watch. How sometimes a poltergeist would appear on households with a lot of stress for children, but other theories indicated that the those entities were in reality just the psychic powers of the same children under a lot of stress, and now that it happened to him, it made a lot sense, stress pilled up on his mind and body since he was born, first, the incapability of moving as he wanted, next, the memories, finally, the bothersome kids not leaving him alone, all of this came together and activated his powers. Now that begs the question, would he lose them when he grew up? Just as how the children from those cases went to have normal lives and the phenomenon disappearing completely.
But it's different with him, he understands that these are powers coming from him, most likely the children from those cases couldn't understand that they were causing the violent outburst of the "ghost" while in reality, it was just their defense mechanism against the situation in their home.
But he is not child, at least not in his consciousness, his brain and body might be of one, yet he understands that the phenomenon around him is being caused by himself and not an apparition of some sort.
Wondering what he should practice to test his theory, he closed his eyes involuntarily and ended up falling asleep.
When he woke up the next day, he felt his body ache all around it, he was used to the soreness after exercising, but this was different, first and foremost, the only exercise he did was run for about five minutes around the house, from his room to the dinning room, next thing, being young meant that he couldn't get sore that fast, maybe in his old body, but not on this one, and the last thing, no specific part of his body felt sore, it was more of a general feeling all around him, as he moved his arm and legs to get up and out of bed he could tell, it wasn't his body that was sore, it was something else, his powers.
Practice really do make perfect, it was still a work in progress, being as how it's only been two days since it happened, he needed to test it more to make sure.
He jumped out of bed and put on cleaner clothes, rushing out of his room to eat breakfast and continue practicing. After closing the door behind him, he started running, then the memory from yesterday came back, how he ran faster.
Thinking back on those emotions he tried it again as he was running, "I wanna run again as fast as possible" he expressed to himself, then a faint yellow light appeared on his feet once more and his speed soared, it worked again, but this time he wanted to control it so he tone down his emotions until the light could be barely visible to his eye.
As he ran, the kids that were standing in the hallway looked at him in a weird way, but he decided to not care, he's old enough and young enough that something as trivial as what other people think doesn't matter to him.
A soft laugh left his mouth as he ran through the hallway, his emotions almost exploded again, he could feel the light growing so he promptly closed his mouth with both hands and stopped running "I need to practice more so this doesn't happen again" He thought to himself.
He put a hand on the wall and tried to catch his breath, running for so long at such speed really put a strain, so he decided to walk the rest way to the dinning room.
After sitting down and eating his oatmeal as fast as he could, he went straight to the sink to wash his dishes and go back to his room, but after he finished washing them and went straight to the door, Ms Sarah called out to him.
"Allen dear, please wait, what's the hurry? Did something happen?" She asked him, wondering where he got all this energy from, since the last couple years he hasn't been a really hyperactive kid "But kids grow up and change" She questioned herself "Maybe that's what it is" Even if that were the case, she wanted to hear it directly from him, lest something happen and she didn't pay enough attention to the kids.
Allen looked around with his eyes, then locked gazes with Ms Sarah and his shoulders slumped a bit.
"Dammit, why can't she just leave me alone, I understand that I'm the youngest but, argh" He thought, frustrated with her, the worst thing is, he understands why she does it, honestly, he was surprised seeing how much Ms Sarah cared for the kids in the orphanage, any other person would simple take the government's money and let the kids figure it out for themselves, besides a few basic necessities.
Seeing how he couldn't get out of this one without a good explanation he decided to come clean and tell her a half truth.
"I'm going back to my room Ms Sarah, I just wanted to read a book since it was so interesting" Allen said as he touched the wooden table, he could tell she wasn't buying that explanation, even as a half truth.
"Is that why you didn't come yesterday to eat?" Ms Sarah questioned him with one eye brow raised, as if she were asking if that was really the truth.
"It doesn't have to be with what happened the other day, at the back of the orphanage when all of you were playing football?" The moment the last words of that phrase left her mouth, the kids who were there froze for a moment, all of them looked at Allen.
His eyes opened as big as saucers when the other kids gave him an incriminatory look, even if they can keep quiet, it doesn't mean their body won't react when faced with the truth, his own body included.
When Ms Sarah saw his reaction, she looked back on the other kids, and they could tell that they messed up, they tried to cover it up by filling their mouths with oat meal and looking at other parts of the room, yet the damage was done.
"This is as good time as any to ask" She exclaimed.
"Are all of you sure that nothing happened the other day in the garden when you all were playing football?" She questioned to everyone in the room in a commanding tone.
No one wanted to mess with Ms Sarah, just as she could be a sweet person, she could be a really strict one when it came to punishments, but no one wanted to be the one to snitch on the others either.
Some kids strayed their eyes towards Allen when Ms Sarah wasn't looking, asking what to do.
Allen looked down on the floor, all the boards were faded, most had splinters here and there, and others were sanded in weird places, a sight escaped his mouth, while he massaged his eye brows, there were times when he could get away, but this definitely wasn't one.
He tried to look for another option, his mind was going at thousand per hour, he already told her everything, except that it was him who hit the other kid and his powers, he couldn't tell her about them, Allen didn't know if Ms Sarah was a protestant, catholic, or of any religion, but she did know that an old lady seeing a kid do paranormal things was out of her zone.
When he was about to talk, someone interrupted him.
"Ms Sarah, it was my fault, I kicked the ball too hard and the others didn't let it slide" The moment he said this, Allen's jaw dropped, the same kid who he hit with his powers was covering for him, either being to protect him or to finally end this topic once and for all.
The kid purposely evaded his gaze to not let Ms Sarah into thinking something else happened.
She looked at him with a frown on her face, she still didn't believe him from the looks of it, so she turned to the other kids who were eating their oat meal in silence, trying to be invisible from her eyes to no avail.
Her eyes went from one kid to another until she spoke "Is what Jimmy said true?"
Allen snapped his neck at lighting speed at the mention of the kid's name "His name is Jimmy…? What kind of name is Jimmy?" He thought with a furrowed brow on his face, then, a small cough left his mouth, trying to contain his laughter. Maybe it was the nervousness of the situation, but hearing the name of the kid who he assimilated with the same action as his killer, with such a normal name, it just didn't feel right, but it was, his brain on the other hand, the clash of such a serious situation paired with a normal name, couldn't take it.
A belly laugh was about to escape his mouth, he knew it, so before anything happened, his hands covered his mouth, stopping any kind of sound from leaving.
Just as he was containing his laughter, Ms Sarah was talking with the kids, one by one, all of the confirming what Jimmy said, until she reached Allen, and she saw him with both of his hands on his mouth.
She raised an eyebrow, questioning what he was doing "Are you okay Allen? Does anything hurt?"
He moved his hands and while holding the laughter he answered "N- No Ms Sarah, e- everything is g-good"
Not believing entirely on him, she put the back of her hand on his forehead, checking to see if he had fever or something.
"Sorry, I know it's not the time for it, but I just thought of something funny Ms Sarah" He told her between coughs, trying to not laugh.
She sighed, moving a hand to her forehead massaging it while she closed her eyes for a minute "Then is what Jimmy saying the true, Allen?" She asked, both of her hands now on her lap, with a sharp look on her eyes.
"Y- Yes, that's right Ms Sarah" He answered her, losing his laugh the moment she looked at him like that.
While Jimmy was right, he did throw the ball too hard, he was actually tankful, who knows if he would ever find out about his powers if something like that didn't happen, but that didn't mean he wanted to be grounded.
"Alright then, all of you can leave, I need to talk with Jimmy, alone, and let this be a lesson, while we are not family, we can at least try to get along, alright?" She exclaimed the same words most kids were used to hear by now.
"Yes Ms Sarah" Everyone said at the same time.
Taking this opportunity, Allen ran straight to the corridor, activated his powers, and almost as if he was flying, he reached his room in no time.
"R- Really s- should practice more" He thought to himself, gasping for air, but he couldn't help it, for the first time in a while he felt so much excitement to try something.
"I really should thank J- Jimmy" As he was thinking about Jimmy, a belly laugh left his mouth while entering his room, he tried to cover it with his hand but it was promptly shut by the knocking of all directions, up, left and right, telling him to shut up.
He coughed, trying to hide his embarrassment.
"W- Well! Let's practice!" He thought joyfully as he prepared the books to levitate on his bed.
He sat down on top of his bed and the emotions flooded again, the same yellow light from yesterday appeared on his hands.
Allen was ready.