Shield (Green)

Time sped up again, they were settled down in a distant land. They lived a short distance from the closest town and lived secretively. The man I was watching, was looking at a paper. It had his face on it, it said that he had kidnapped a wealthy man's daughter. There was a bounty for his head.

They were stopping at nothing to get him, he had crossed an entire continent, and their influence was still seen all the way out here. I could feel the fear within him, but I could also feel something else there.

'Don't worry they have no authority here, and the town leader knows the truth.' The woman said as she noticed the worry in his eyes.

'I know.' He reached out, grabbed her hand, and gave it a light kiss before standing and looking out the window nearest him. 'Our friends have moved in and are settling well.'

'Yeah they are, ????? and ?????? have also agreed to help protect us.' She continued standing next to him.

'Good people. Better friends, they acted faster than even the guards did when the news came out.'

The two settled down, and a few years passed in a flash.

Everything the man felt at that time felt like a dream, as if it was too good to be true. Eventually, he was awoken from that dream.

woke up to a scream. It was the woman, who was now his wife. There was someone standing over her, a knife stabbing into her side while she screamed.

'Don't bother they won't come.' The figure said.

'No!!!!' He screamed. I felt a familiar feeling as I watched. Darkness enshrouded the man, the tendrils strengthened due to it being night and completely dark in the room. They didn't disappear as mine did. They gathered and then traveled at an unreal speed toward the figure. A Yelp was all that was heard as it was flung to the side of the room.

'???? Are you okay?'

'It's o... I'm... I love you.' She said, choking on her own blood. He watched as the life faded from her eyes.

'No, no, no.' after a while, he turned to the figure that was now limping away.

My view changed. I watched the man's eyes be engulfed in darkness. A pulsing energy could be felt. The man walked up to the figure.

'Who sent you?' He asked in a gruff voice. The voice almost echoing as if he was not the only one present.

The man was terrified by what he was witnessing and feeling, as his skin was rotting rapidly off of his hands, and probably everywhere else that was covered up by his dark clothing.

'It was ???? The son of a city lord.' 'He paid a hefty price to have you done in, every assassin is out looking for you and the girl.' The man yelped before a croak left his throat.

'Good thing you told me. It wasn't too painful.' He said as the shriveling figure fell to the ground.

As the figure dropped to the ground, every bit of it decaying was visible. the darkness consumed all of his body. I watched the man pick up his wife's corpse, and give her a kiss on the cheek before he buried her and all of his friends. After it was all done, Alex watched as he gave himself to his feelings. The man went mad, then he got calm. When he calmed, he sank into the darkness. Presumably, off to hunt the lord and his son.

After this, I woke up from the meditation I was in. My face was stiff from dried tears, and it took a while for my eyes to adjust to the moonlight shining through my window.

'The first man had been a busy and hardworking man, just like the second, but because the hard work was worth more he was able to live peacefully with his wife.'

'In the second he had to work his entire youth away just to be able to afford a midsized house.'

'Wealth is nothing compared to status.'

The seeds of doubt had been planted in my younger self's mind.

'Would I even be able to have as much courage as that man, and walk up to her father as he did his for his love.'

Alex pondered for a minute. 'I can feel them, my morals. The world has changed a lot, mostly for the worse.'

After thinking over it, I came to a conclusion. 'That man was too soft hearted. The wealthy like to preach that it's not hard to gain wealth, they just leave the important part out. You have to step on someone else's back in order to make it to the top. If there were no affinities and everyone had to compete for a decent life, then to reach where they sit would be impossible without something else...'

'It may be easy for those that are lucky, if I had no affinity I would.. I don't know if there is anything I could do.'

'It is that or you have to spend your life being stepped on in order to make enough to survive. In books that I've read people used to take up jobs by learning from a skilled person, in an apprenticeship. Those still exist, but most would rather teach their family in order to replace themselves.'

"Now we are stuck to paying taking up three jobs, and jumping headfirst into strangling debt, just to get mediocre knowledge."

'There are more exceptions, but only when the world leaders stop caring about profit and want something to get done.'

'They always make public ways you can train yourself, or give away free temporary high paying jobs.'

'That man worked on the railroads, they payed a hefty wage because they wanted them to get done quickly, but now the railroads are all in ruin, the only working ones are in big cities. Teleportation made them irrelevant.'

'I can't be stepped on like them.'

After reaching a conviction, I felt the darkness stir within me.

'It agrees with me.'

The darkness was always speaking. The ones that I could hear clearly were my morals. Thinking back

After going through all this now and all throughout my life, I slowly began to understand what it all meant.

'It's a shield. Whenever a dark mage reaches the pinnacle, no one would be able to trick them, lie to them, or even hurt them without them first knowing about it.'

All of these emotions felt, and examples set would protect me like the cloak of darkness that hides all the unseen truths until light unveils when the sun rises.

I knew I was right, I could feel my affinity reacting and just a little of that protection appearing. With my strengthened mind, I was able to sleep in the dark for the first time in a very long time.

Nightmares still came and went as usual, but whenever the routine night terror occurred, something different happened. I wasn't scared.

One in particular that was somewhat reoccurring, I had just returned home from school all of my teachers were there. They scolded me as I walked in, making fun of me, and telling me to give up. They turned into floating apparitions and flew toward me. Yet, the energy around me surrounded me. It swallowed them as they approached and spat them back out. Whenever it was all done and over, I turned on the light switch nearest me and saw that they were turned into cardboard cutouts.

'Your words mean nothing more to me than empty air.' I knew it was a dream the moment I had walked in, and with me realizing it, I now noticed I could control it to do my bidding.

I flew, I went straight through the roof. As I rose, I saw that I was in A big city. There was a terrible monster attacking the city, I went to fight it. I fired all my energy at it, we were evenly matched, and I felt my body within the dream get destroyed along with the monster. Everyone who knew me was crying. My soul was still intact as I stared down at them and felt their sadness.

'It wasn't right. This is my dream. It will go my way.' I thought as I willed my mind to change things.

I willed my body to repair. Everyone watched in awe as they saw me reappear back in full health. Someone hugged me, but before I could find out who, I woke up.

'The sun is up, but that doesn't matter my summer job is over, and I have a month until school. I will make as much progress as possible.'

I looked down at the manual next to me. I could guess something was up. The manual said that looking into others' lives would rarely happen, but I had had two in one night. Not only that but for the rest of the month, I continued to delve back, seeing no end and a strong connection in drawing in power into my dark affinity.