The Bringer of Light.
1/1
Naputin. A desolate wasteland on an apocalyptic scale, something many had predicted the world would be six hundred years ago. Imagine vast deserts, with warm and grainy sand hitting against your skin, no visible water source from hundreds of miles around, and the sun beating down on you like an angry God. That’s what this is and it is hell on earth. The humans and creatures alike that inhabit it are all shells of their ancestors before them, something they hoped it wouldn’t become. Before, Naputin was filled with wet rain forests, dampened mountain sides and rolling hilltops. The land that once exploded with green grass, rushing rivers and deep blue seas ceased to exist when The Big Sun Shower of 2930 occurred. After that, militias formed when the governments and dictators all around the world fell. In 2530, scientists, theorists, and theists all predicted the Sun Shower, but no one believed them, until it happened.
The sky shot down rays of sunshine, burning and shriveling the world up like a grape turning into a raisin. And people died. Four hundred years after that, and it was still hot and barren. There were small colonies, no big cities, and people worked hard. Technology failed and society went back to how it was long, long before Naputin was formed. Naputin happened because the continents smashed together, Pangaea all over again in some theorists’ minds. Earth quakes and volcanic eruptions completely obliterated the land around and sealed the plates together like stitches on a fresh gash.
Now imagine the colonies, the different people in them just trying to get by. If you had currencies, jewels and rare gems and rare silvers and gold, then you were rich. Most people in Naputin, despite the land still being rich with hidden treasures, were still working off debt their forefathers had piled up. As soon as you turned ten, you were picked to work in certain areas. Expiring, or turning the age of fifty, meant you got let go and the next generation had to fill in. Colonies A through Z were scattered all about the northern part, and Colonies 1 through 100 all inhabited the southern half. Within these societies were ‘specials’, human beings that had somehow picked up some sort of mutational disease that caused them to gain some sort of special ability. Super powers, as professors and scientists liked to call them. These special humans were thought in high regard in the southern half, but in the northern half… The Specials were thought of stray cats and dogs, filled to the brim with disgusting disease. This isn’t about history, this is about the present.
I am Tallian Hersey and I am a Special in the northern half of Naputin.
I first found out I was a Special when I turned eight, the day as normal as ever until one little thing happened.
The day wasn’t as hot, for there were some broken up clouds in the sky, but there was no chance of wearing anything more than a torn up pair of shorts and a ratty old tank top. I was sitting in this old shed where my parents had kept the jars filled with fruit and pickled produce, all lining the shelving of the rusted out metal boards. I was playing with a Spine Beetle I had found under a rock. I remember lifting up my olive skinned hand and thinking that if I could take any power from anything, it would be the light. If I could take the light and direct it at something, than that thing would be able to be seen or see, and I could help it direct itself. What surprised me, though, was the fact that as I thought about that, my little hand began to shake and after a few seconds, little light particles began to float toward my hand. The light was just sitting there in mid-air, hovering at my palm. I didn’t know what to do, so I panicked and bolted out of the shed as if a snapper were at my heels.
After that, my life changed. I never told anyone, no one knew, until Assignment day. Assignment day was the day that all ten year olds were assigned a job, based on the skills they had showed in lesson-time while at City Hall. My job just so happened to be assistant librarian at the Hall of Great Books down on the main stretch of road. I had to show up every day at the building at five in the morning, then work until eight at night. That’s when I messed up, the second day on the job.
Mrs. Finnigan was scrolling through books, holding them up to the light to try and get a better look at them. For such a bright world, the buildings were all awfully dark during the evening. I thought about how unfortunate, a poor old lady trying to get a single shimmer of light to read the title of the novel she was looking at. Then I figured it out, I could use my ability to help her. Something so selfless made a ten year old an outcast in her own town. I channeled all the light to my palm and shined it at the book just slightly, Mrs. Finnigan looking up and seeing me doing that. Then she dropped the book and ran away, telling every one ‘Tallian Hersey is a Special! Avoid her!’ Word got out, my family found out, and I was exiled out of town to go live on my own as a ten year old. That was seven years ago.
Right now, I’m in a camp I stumbled across filled with Specials, all using their abilities for whatever reason they see fit. Some are very selfless, others abuse their Specialty. We had roasted Snappers for dinner, all ten of us. Jed, my best friend I had grown with while I’ve been exiled, is currently using his Specialty to light a fire. His ability is that of moving things with his mind. We’re seated back-to-back from each other, his hand outstretched so he could strike the stone against the rock and get a spark. You would think it wouldn’t be so hard, considering it’s a hot wasteland out here.
“I wish I could use fire instead of light,” I tell him, and he just laughs and finally gets a spark, the fire now blazing.
“You shouldn’t waste your time on wishing,” Jed replies, and I guess he’s right.
In the chaos of my life and being a Special, it has taught me one thing. Don’t ever reject someone because they are different than you. Embrace them. Being different is what drives everyone to make a difference. “It takes all kinds to make the world go ‘round,” as my mother would say to me. I wonder how she is doing now, if my little brother is okay. I don’t think he knows about me, but I’m determined to one day find him and hopefully change his out look on life. Embrace difference, I will tell him. Being a Special has opened up many opportunities for me I do not think I would have if it weren’t for me using my ability seven years ago. It’s getting dark, and in order for me to use my Specialty, I have to have some light. The fire will do, but it will be dim and I will not be able to write, so I must go..
Embrace life. Embrace yourself.
-
Tallian, The Bringer Of Light.
The sky shot down rays of sunshine, burning and shriveling the world up like a grape turning into a raisin. And people died. Four hundred years after that, and it was still hot and barren. There were small colonies, no big cities, and people worked hard. Technology failed and society went back to how it was long, long before Naputin was formed. Naputin happened because the continents smashed together, Pangaea all over again in some theorists’ minds. Earth quakes and volcanic eruptions completely obliterated the land around and sealed the plates together like stitches on a fresh gash.
Now imagine the colonies, the different people in them just trying to get by. If you had currencies, jewels and rare gems and rare silvers and gold, then you were rich. Most people in Naputin, despite the land still being rich with hidden treasures, were still working off debt their forefathers had piled up. As soon as you turned ten, you were picked to work in certain areas. Expiring, or turning the age of fifty, meant you got let go and the next generation had to fill in. Colonies A through Z were scattered all about the northern part, and Colonies 1 through 100 all inhabited the southern half. Within these societies were ‘specials’, human beings that had somehow picked up some sort of mutational disease that caused them to gain some sort of special ability. Super powers, as professors and scientists liked to call them. These special humans were thought in high regard in the southern half, but in the northern half… The Specials were thought of stray cats and dogs, filled to the brim with disgusting disease. This isn’t about history, this is about the present.
I am Tallian Hersey and I am a Special in the northern half of Naputin.
I first found out I was a Special when I turned eight, the day as normal as ever until one little thing happened.
The day wasn’t as hot, for there were some broken up clouds in the sky, but there was no chance of wearing anything more than a torn up pair of shorts and a ratty old tank top. I was sitting in this old shed where my parents had kept the jars filled with fruit and pickled produce, all lining the shelving of the rusted out metal boards. I was playing with a Spine Beetle I had found under a rock. I remember lifting up my olive skinned hand and thinking that if I could take any power from anything, it would be the light. If I could take the light and direct it at something, than that thing would be able to be seen or see, and I could help it direct itself. What surprised me, though, was the fact that as I thought about that, my little hand began to shake and after a few seconds, little light particles began to float toward my hand. The light was just sitting there in mid-air, hovering at my palm. I didn’t know what to do, so I panicked and bolted out of the shed as if a snapper were at my heels.
After that, my life changed. I never told anyone, no one knew, until Assignment day. Assignment day was the day that all ten year olds were assigned a job, based on the skills they had showed in lesson-time while at City Hall. My job just so happened to be assistant librarian at the Hall of Great Books down on the main stretch of road. I had to show up every day at the building at five in the morning, then work until eight at night. That’s when I messed up, the second day on the job.
Mrs. Finnigan was scrolling through books, holding them up to the light to try and get a better look at them. For such a bright world, the buildings were all awfully dark during the evening. I thought about how unfortunate, a poor old lady trying to get a single shimmer of light to read the title of the novel she was looking at. Then I figured it out, I could use my ability to help her. Something so selfless made a ten year old an outcast in her own town. I channeled all the light to my palm and shined it at the book just slightly, Mrs. Finnigan looking up and seeing me doing that. Then she dropped the book and ran away, telling every one ‘Tallian Hersey is a Special! Avoid her!’ Word got out, my family found out, and I was exiled out of town to go live on my own as a ten year old. That was seven years ago.
Right now, I’m in a camp I stumbled across filled with Specials, all using their abilities for whatever reason they see fit. Some are very selfless, others abuse their Specialty. We had roasted Snappers for dinner, all ten of us. Jed, my best friend I had grown with while I’ve been exiled, is currently using his Specialty to light a fire. His ability is that of moving things with his mind. We’re seated back-to-back from each other, his hand outstretched so he could strike the stone against the rock and get a spark. You would think it wouldn’t be so hard, considering it’s a hot wasteland out here.
“I wish I could use fire instead of light,” I tell him, and he just laughs and finally gets a spark, the fire now blazing.
“You shouldn’t waste your time on wishing,” Jed replies, and I guess he’s right.
In the chaos of my life and being a Special, it has taught me one thing. Don’t ever reject someone because they are different than you. Embrace them. Being different is what drives everyone to make a difference. “It takes all kinds to make the world go ‘round,” as my mother would say to me. I wonder how she is doing now, if my little brother is okay. I don’t think he knows about me, but I’m determined to one day find him and hopefully change his out look on life. Embrace difference, I will tell him. Being a Special has opened up many opportunities for me I do not think I would have if it weren’t for me using my ability seven years ago. It’s getting dark, and in order for me to use my Specialty, I have to have some light. The fire will do, but it will be dim and I will not be able to write, so I must go..
Embrace life. Embrace yourself.
-
Tallian, The Bringer Of Light.
♠ ♠ ♠
SDFGHASJD THIS is totally just a whim kind of thing, I just loved the picture and this is what came of it.