Dark (Green)

"Finally I can get it." I muttered to myself as I browsed through a bunch of phones.

I had saved up hundreds of dollars to get a decent phone.

It did not take long to find one that would work fine. A basic touchscreen one was in my hand as I left through the doors I had entered through just a minute before.

'Hundreds of dollars, weeks, days, and hours of work gone just like that.'

Things like this should be relatively cheap and continue to get cheaper as the years go by and the world gets more advanced, but as years pass, the cost of things only rise.

'I guess I can use the internet at the library to help with research.' With this in mind, I went directly to the library.

I spent some time familiarizing myself with all of the applications the device had. Several built-in time-wasting games, simple things like a basic calculator, a clock with alarms I could set, and access to the internet. If I could manage to reach the library and use their public system, my phone would immediately have access to a nearly infinite amount of information that is constantly increasing in size every moment of every day.

When I arrived at the library, I spent a minute learning how to connect my phone to its system.

I opened up an application that required a connection to the system to open, social media.

Immediately I was given sets of instructions to do in order to set up an account. I did as it told me and created an identification for the internet. Shortly after, it told me to search for a family member so that it could match me up with the rest of the nearby people. I easily found my mother's account, and after setting her as my mother, a plethora of other accounts appeared in front of me. My mother's friends, people I knew from my grade appeared, their parents, their extended family, and a few had been revealed to be distantly related to myself and my family.

A feeling of harsh deja vu assaulted me as I saw a familiar face, 'Tori's mother.' I thought as I continued to scroll, 'she should have an account too, right?'

No results. I pulled up a search bar and typed in her name.

'Well it was worth a try.' I thought while giving a weak smile. Perhaps she has yet to connect an account.

I put the app in the back of my mind. Many used it to show off to the rest of the world, but I would use it simply to communicate, and even then, I barely ended up using it that way in the future.

'Well, since I've still got a while before I have to start school, I should get some more practice in. Maybe I could learn something.'

This was the day where everything snowballed, and my troubles became open to my eyes.

I spent a while in a grove with lots of shade, practicing My control. At this point, I had already absorbed as much spacial energy as my body could withstand and spent most of my days out of work, bettering my control over it the spacial affinity.

I had no clue about the danger which was around because of my intent focus, and I was growing too comfortable with relying on my spacial perception. I was relying on my spacial affinity to pay attention and not even thinking of what lay just beyond its range.

The first sign that I heard was the noise of a twig breaking which snapped me back to reality.

An invisible propeller pulled me as my feet slid, and I turned around to see a wolf that had stepped out of the greenery knowing its position had been given away.

"Stay back." I said as calmly as I could, given the situation, trying to keep it from leaping as I slowly started backing up.

All that I had gotten as a response was a low growl which changed into a loud snarl as the wolf leaped at me.

'It's fast!'

The wolf was just half a foot shorter than me, and it was using the wind element to speed itself up.

Thinking quickly, I activated the spacial energy and was yanked in the opposite direction, but I quickly stopped when I heard another branch being snapped. I turned my head and saw another three wolves blocking my path—one towering above the others.

I was easy prey. They had surrounded me long ago.

'Fuck, what, when?'

I looked around in the short moment they circled me. 'there's no way out, I can't even go up, I'm so stupid.' I thought after looking up at the dense greenery above me.

I had felt safe in the dense little grove due to its cover just moments ago.

I felt a familiar cold feeling as the nerves and flesh on my back were slashed by one of the wolf's claws. The wolf had made up the short distance and clawed at me before I could react. I didn't even get to turn my head before the larger of the wolves leaped and chomped down on my arm.

"Argh. GET OFF!!!" I was screaming out of instinct, and I felt a snap within myself and a very palpable deflation as a new source of energy poured through me. 'I can't die now.'

The energy stored within the dormant dark affinity inside of me was released and flowed throughout my body.

I looked down into my old self and saw my two energies mix, and the stronger, more dense spacial energy absorbed the dark energy, empowering itself and growing the spacial affinity's size in the process.

A strange feeling flooded through my current consciousness. As my past self grew stronger in regards to the darkness affinity, I felt my current self becoming more... free.

The wolves had stopped as if they were terrified. No, they were frozen. My spacial energy was expanding from my body and permeating through them, and it was overpowering theirs, forcing them to halt.

My younger self turned towards his eyes to where I watched in silence. A dark light could be seen in his eyes, an action that would have sent shivers down anyone other than myself's spine.

I instantly launched myself toward the two wolves that hadn't attacked me. Before they noticed they were free from my spacial energy and could turn to run, I compressed air in a large area, making it act like a solid, and then swung it down and smashed the wolves into a paste.

I used my new felt freedom to sense the world around my past self. I could sense that my actions had already attracted attention. Back in the town, everyone had heard an ungodly shout. "GET OFF!!" Then they felt a tremor, then a few more.

But then there was nothing else, just quietness.

The town's protector, who watched over the town, quickly hurried to the scene and spread his energy, trying to find what had happened.

'My god. Who? What happened here!?'

There were remains of some types of beasts that my out-of-control self had destroyed. 'not even their cores remained.' He thought as he looked carefully at the destruction.

'Whoever did this would be a threat even to me, I need to be careful.'

Now let's see, he closed his eyes and spread his influence which was a few miles compared to my own currently, it would seem that his fear of my spacial affinity was unwarranted, but that is just the level it is at compared to the rest of the affinities. He very quickly detected my younger self moving at a quick pace away from this location.

Noticing the state I was in, I Appeared above my younger self.

My mind was in chaos. I was filled with desperation and anger. Even after mutilating my attackers, it hadn't dissipated. My dark affinity had reacted to these strong emotions and continued to call out for more energy. The darkness was attempting to gather energy.

I ran, not knowing why, but I could hear them; I could even see them if I looked close enough. A voice whispered in my ear, yelling, 'He has to die!'

With each voice that pleads its case, each voice that left its emotions within me, it was as if they had left part of their power with me. The cost of this power was an exponential increase in emotions that could be considered dark. I was furious at everything, and my own mind was fighting to remain heard within itself, yet it still did.

Somehow, I was not drowning even though the number of voices seemed never to decrease and only did the opposite. I began to take notice of the changes as I struggled to control my own body, which was currently fully sprinting through the forest despite the amount of injuries it had incurred.

My range of influence had doubled. The base range for an affinity seemed to be around five feet, and I had two, so a total of ten was there now.

This new energy was rolling off of my body in dark tendrils visible to the eye.

I finally gained a bit of control over my body as I felt a presence rushing towards me.

Despite better judgment, I turned and glared at the person. "What do you want." I said in a low growl, taking out a bit of my anger on them.

"Whoa! calm down kid, you just unlocked your affinity. It looks like darkness too. It's affecting your mood." Said the person before me.

'Right, I would never act like this, I didn't think I would have to go through this to unlock my affinity.' I fought against the tide of voices pushing them away, and with each one I forced away, their shared power left my body as well.

"They attacked me. I, I didn't want to die, so I lost control of my emotions. I killed all of the wolves, but I was still angry." I confessed as I felt my vision going dark.

The moving shadows around me were slowly disappearing. I fell to my knees, wincing and coughing as my body failed to keep up with the cardio I had just put it through.

"All is well. Come here. You are losing too much blood. We need to get you to a light mage." I could hear his voice more clearly now, I remembered seeing him before...

I looked down and winced in pain. My bone was visible through my arm. As I looked at it, intense nausea filled me, and I fought not to throw up what I had eaten earlier today. It seemed like he wouldn't be able to use it until he visited the healer.

"I can't. I have no money, and my family has none either. My mother will beat me for putting her into debt." I pleaded as I tried to think of how to fix this on my own.

The grass around me turned brown as the life was sucked from it. I felt A little bit of respite as this happened.

"Calm down i'll Handle the bill then." Said the man. As he saw what I was doing.

'It seems that the saying that dark mages live lives of suffering is true.' He thought as he looked down at me.

It is true If one were to be given the darkness affinity and not be compatible, then they would go insane, filled with dark thoughts, and then they would be consumed by darkness, and try no matter what to do its bidding.

Some high dark mages have come to the consensus that darkness isn't fueled by shadows but instead by dead souls that had died experiencing strong emotions, hopes were crushed, they experienced betrayal, they were heartbroken. They were desperate... but no one ever came, no one ever consoled them. Whenever someone feels those same emotions, it is a beacon and draws them to it. I was saved this day by whatever goodwill those souls had, but if I were to get consumed by them, I would have become mindless, probably hunting down an old man that had killed his brother when he was younger. Looking for justice, justification. Until the souls were sated, which, as long as someone lived, would never happen.

I felt tired, my body was weak, but I had decided.

"Okay, just don't tell my parents." I said before collapsing into the man's arms.

The man took me and left the spot at which we just were. Crackles of lightning could be seen in the spot he had left behind.