The days leading up to Kai's magical assessment were marked by an increasing sense of unease.
Ever since the traveler left the village, Kai paid closer attention to the peculiar things happening around him.
Things that no one else seemed to notice.
The more he observed, the more certain he became that something was wrong with him and the closer he got to his Magical Assessment, the more things changed.
Kai sat beneath the old oak tree near his house on a hill that overlooked some of the village.
He traced patterns in the dirt with a stick he'd stripped as he let his thoughts drift. The afternoon breeze carried the usual scents of the village; tilled earth, coal, and cooked meals.
'But something feels off... The lively aura of the village feels different.'
Kai's body resisted the urge to have constant goosebumps across his body from the moment he woke up to the moment he fell asleep.
Some in the village might say that someone had walked over his grave, or was speaking ill about him, but it went beyond village superstitions.
Absentminded, Kai brushed his dust-covered fingers over a small patch wildflowers growing by the thick roots at the base of the tree. As his fingers touched the flowers, he felt something touch him back.
An energy of sorts.
A harsh wind picked up, causing the blue-white petals to fight for their lives. The violent swaying made it difficult to see, but as he brought his fingertips against them again, the colour bled from the petals.
Kai's eyes widened as he inspected the wilting wildflowers.
The stems twisted inward like gnarled vines, as though recoiling from his touch.
Nothing but brittle husks remained.
Kai jerked his hand back and coughed as his breath catching in his throat.
'That wasn't normal. Of course, that wasn't normal. Am I actually cursed?'
He stomped the flowers into the dirt gaze darted around while checking if anyone had seen, but the faint images of people in the village still continued about their day.
As an experiment, he reached for another flower, pressing his palm lightly against the soft bloom.
He focused on the feeling it created instead of the physical changes of the flowers.
A familiar, almost electric sensation stirred in his chest, like a thread being pulled taut.
The flower quivered beneath his fingers. Just as before, the petals dulled, the leaves shriveled, and the life simply drained away.
Something inside him stirred. As if, like a container, he was being filled.
"Hmmm."
Kai turned around, impulsively placing his palm on the oak tree. The bark beneath his hand turned grey and crumbled.
He pulled away, but not before leaving his mark.
A child-sized handprint of decayed wood now rested on the trunk of the oak tree.
Kai felt it would be a mark that stayed with the tree until it died. He curled his fingers into a tight fist.
'Am I killing it? Absorbing its energy? I have to be careful not to touch Mari, Lila, or Garrett before I figure this out.'
In the following days, Kai's appetite changed.
Meals that once filled him now left him strangely unsatisfied, as if normal food didn't provide any nutrients for his body. He picked at his food, chewing slowly, feeling an odd emptiness no matter how much he ate.
Several mornings after his appetite changed, Kai sat on his bed in the safety of his room. He rolled a juicy red apple from the Aldridge farm in his hands. Apples were always Kai's favourite fruit, but he felt hesitant.
Manning up, he bit into the fresh fruit and nearly gagged.
The crisp, sweet fruit he expected was anything but. Instead, blackened, rotting flesh filled with a foul bitterness coated his tongue.
Kai recoiled, spitting it out.
But when he looked at the apple in his hand, it appeared perfectly fine. Untouched. As though it had never decayed.
Confused, he hesitantly placed it back on the table.
A few minutes later, Mari walked by, grabbed the same apple, and took a bite.
She chewed happily. "Mmm! It's so fresh today!"
Kai stared, nausea rising from his stomach to his throat at the thought of eating the rotten fruit.
He examined his hands, turning them over several times as if they were at fault.
His breath quickened.
'That doesn't make any sense... Why did it only rot when I touched it? Was it only my imagination? Am I going crazy?'
That afternoon, Mari had dragged him into the forest, eager to play beneath the canopies as they did often. Never too far from the village, though, as everyone warned.
The light from the sun's rays shone through trees and cast leafy shadows on the soft moss, bark, and leaves below. Since winter was right around the corner, most of the birds and bugs ceased their songs. Still, even with the crisp almost-winter air chilling them, Kai and Mari ran around, surrounded by the beauty of nature.
For a while, it almost felt normal. Peaceful, even.
They played hide-and-seek, their laughter filling the forest.
'I miss tag. I used to catch up to her with my strengthening magic. But in hide and seek, she's too quiet. Like a mouse.'
But as Kai reached out to tag Mari, his fingertips brushed against her wrist.
She immediately recoiled, stumbling back a step. For a moment, Mari looked at Kai with disgust.
The pain of that look shot through Kai's chest and brought immediate tears to his eyes.
'Shit. I forgot. I hoped maybe they were just delusions, because they only happened to me! Is she going to die now?'
Kai's heart pounded. "Mari?"
He watched with an intense gaze, making sure she wouldn't wilt like the flowers or decay like the tree.
Mari rubbed her wrist with a worried expression. She rubbed while backing away from Kai, hard enough to redden her skin.
"That felt weird," she murmured, staring at him with an expression he couldn't quite place.
Kai swallowed hard. "Weird how?"
Mari hesitated, as if struggling to find the words. "Like… cold and painful. Like something was pulling at me."
'Was she protected because of her specialisation? Thank the gods for that.'
She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered as if it had suddenly become winter.
"I think I want to go home..."
Mari didn't look Kai in the eyes when she spoke.
"But we're playing? Can't we play a different game?"
'It's nice to just feel like a kid sometimes. And the longer I spend out here, the less time I spend around everyone else...'
"I don't want to play anymore, Kai!"
Mari had never raised her voice at Kai before.
Taken aback by her outburst, Kai's chest tightened, but he accepted her request with a nod nodded.
"Okay..."
They walked back in silence, and though Mari never mentioned the incident again, something changed between them.
She grew cold and distant.
She stopped reaching for his hand when she was close to him and she sat further away from him at meals. Whenever he was around their parents, Mari's expression grew tight, though she never said anything about what she thought.
A week passed, then two.
A month went by, and Kai realised something.
On top of not touching him, she hadn't spoken to him since.
Not once.