🎧 Take What You Want by Post Malone, Ozzy Osbourne, Travis Scott

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I had been locked up in the anti magic torture room of the orphanage for a week, after I defended myself from Lisa, the favorite girl of the director, after she woke me up by trying to suffocate me with a plastic bag. So, I grabbed her wrists, twisted them in the desperation of the moment, kicked her hard on the chest, and when I managed to freed my head, I broke her nose with a punch. But that got me a horrible beating of the director, Mr. Fletcher, he's the worse kind of scum, a fae that thinks he's a big deal.

Like in all the orphanages of our the Empire, as soon as we arrive in an orphanage, as orphans or refugees, they lock an anti-magic bracelet in both our wrists and ankles, which blocks our magic. Hence how, they can abuse us all they want, however they want, without us fighting back. Anti-magic tools harm our core by bottling up our magic, which is horribly harmful to our body and dangerous when we take them off, if we do, and they can only be taken off by the one who put them on us, which normally is when the time for the Choosing happens, the bottle up magic could explode and kill everyone around or implode ourselves.

The Choosing happens every 25 years, it's when the Wintergrave Imperial Academy opens its doors for the orphans and the low-borns faes of the Empire, with no discrimination in that moment. For that, everyone that fits the 5 and 24 age range then, is summoned in the coliseum of the WIA, that is if they have awakened their magic. There, the high ranks of the academy will be responsible for examining all the students, and from all of them to pick 5 of each age, from 5 to 24, the strongest ones according to the quotient of their magic that's measured through magical stones.

In fact, they pick 10 kids of each age in the first cut, then comes a battery of five different tests, in each one kid is eliminated, and in the last cut the remaining 5 of each age are chosen to enroll WIA.

The Hundred Chosen Ones, as it is commonly called by the masses, because it's the amount of possible cut outs. It gives the people hope, and hope is a dangerous thing, especially when you only have the chance to be part of it once in your life, which is the actual purpose of it. Those who participate at 5, will be 30 when the Choosing comes around again, and those who participate at 24 will be 49.

They will grow too depressed with themselves for never making the cut, to complain about it, and when times comes, they will stress their children to make it through, to not commit their same mistakes, becoming an endless vicious circle that will go on for generations until one kid breaks it, if they ever manage to. And it was all purposely.

There are low academies in the Empire, of course, but it's nothing like WIA, where those touched by the Gods teach and study, where the children of the Seven Kings and Queens that rule the Empire post usurpation study. It's where those responsible for the death of the original Imperial bloodline frequent, all of those who tried and failed to get immortality by the sacrifice of the Imperial family that had once been touched by the God of Death, ruler of the Underworld, and the only one able to grant one's immortality. Hence why everyone wants to be there to have a small opportunity to be in a place of real privilege for us.

WIA starts taking awakened kids at 5 years old, and the graduation happens 20 years later, when they are 25, which is why that's the age range for the Choosing. If you're a noble or a royal, you can just attend it of you want. In the case of you being of a line of people who attended there, you get called a legacy; if you're the first one to attend it from your bloodline, you are called a miner, and you are definitely bullied and looked down onto.

And though nobody talks about it, it's underlined that the kids that come from fallen noble families will be chosen over the real low-borns this time, since it's the first choosing after the usurpation of the Empire that happened exactly 15 years, 3 months, and 8 days ago, and taking that most of the heirs were little kids then, all under 10, it'll be an obvious choosing to most.

That is why the director is so biased towards Lisa, no matter what the bitch does, because she's the only remaining heir of the fallen Thalassa Duchy. Lisa Maya Thalassa, she's 22 years old, just like me, and she's the only one in the orphanage that only has the anti-magic shackles in her ankles, and her wrists are free. She knows she will be taken in over all of us, and she uses that knowledge to torment us, to torment me.

I'm her main nemesis here, because I'm the only one who doesn't take her shit, the only one who speaks up and tries to fight her, no matter what she does to me. And she's only in the position of harming me, because I'm with four shackles on, they may call it bracelets and anklets, but I know better. I just need to get into WIA, there's something I have to do, and I can only do it there, but I know they won't let me go, as soon as I take those shackles, they will pick me.

And the Choosing is tomorrow or today.

I tried to count the hours, but I lost track of time. I'll know when they come to release me from this little torture room that consists in a micro room with ash spikes in all walls and in the ceiling, with 1 meter of space between the left and right wall, 1.20 meters of space between the door and the back wall, no window, no ventilation, a door that only opens from the outside, and a irregular floor that's made out of obsidian, a stone that burns the skin of a Fae and steal our energy. They throw us here only in our underwear and barefoot, and we are prohibited from having food or even water, and it's even hard to breathe inside it.

Honestly, I spent more time in here than out of here, just because Lisa picks on me since I arrived here when I was 14, and makes Mr. Fletcher punish me. So, I have a sick appearance, I'm pale because I barely get sunlight and I lack the vitamins, I'm skinny because I barely eat, and I look dead because I can only sleep when I'm out of the torture room as I'm not small enough to lay down on it. I'm a cadaver of who I was when I arrived in here, I lost my curves, I lost my breasts and my ass, and I smell because I also barely get showers.

I not only ended up here for defending myself from Lisa, but for defending some of the younger kids from her too. I defend whoever she bullied when I'm out of here, and I always make sure to break something on her, because I may be a ghost of who I was, but I'm still stronger than she'll ever be.