As I felt that my life would end here, I wanted to fight back. As she brought back her bow and took aim, it was obvious that this was going to kill me. With someone with that good of aim, even a small stick could pierce my heart. As she let go and as the arrow was coming closer, something stopped it from hitting my heart. It took me a second to realize that it was my own hand, holding it like nothing was wrong. It was like every other living thing instantly froze in surprise. As I felt even more instinct kick in, I was fighting back. The two guards that were holding me had fallen to the the ground and I realized that I had electrocuted them. As I turned, I jumped off the cliff, aiming steadily at the water. After falling for what it seemed like eternity, I was slightly crippled by the fall. It was shallow enough for me to swim and yet deep enough to break my fall. The temperature was, to no surprise, freezing. I still had enough energy to cast a fire spell and heat up. I guess that was the reason why I never questioned why I hadn’t gotten frostbite yet. It took me a few minutes to realize that I had just escaped an army. In fact, a whole kingdom to be exact!
I felt myself walk more and more before realizing something. I still had that arrow with the message. Then I realized something. The note had changed. There was no longer an arrow in my head.
I took a good amount of time that I had to think back and reflect. I had such a strange life as a child. I felt like it really affected me a lot more than it should have. My original parents were addicted to gambling and alcohol. And one of them wasn’t the best parents in the world. My father, despite his addictions, he always tried to send me to his sister with the hope that I would at least have some chance of a normal life and education. My mother couldn’t care less. I had no idea how they even got married. From my image of her in my head from when I was a child, I felt that she couldn’t have any positive feelings for anyone other than herself. Being at my aunt’s a lot, I had gotten a little chance at normal life, if so. But over times, things changed even more. My father had to work hard for his addictions and so he couldn’t spend much time with me. I thought my mother would have just left me alone and completely forgot about me. After all that time, even my aunt was able to take care of me, because they had to move far. So as such, I was sent to a series of foster homes for temporary reasons. After the first foster home, I don’t think I saw my parents ever again. Eventually, I settled down in a fairly normal household. The mother was caring and the father hardworking. I was taken care of and was able to put all of my past life behind. Still I did have some depression issues at school due to bullying and being picked on a lot. At times I felt like I was the only one that they wanted to make feel bad. But I did have teachers saving from even worse occasionally. It kept me going until I was in the middle school where the bullying got worse.
It was made blatantly obvious that I seemed to be the center of attention for the bullying. I just couldn’t understand why. I kept on thinking how I was always the one picked on. Even then, I powered through. I had plenty of time to spend with my new family. Except as the days went on, it got so horrible. That was when I started to make a few friends. Well, one friend, to be honest. We forged a friendship because we had been both through similar things and we could relate to each other when no one else could. That boy, I came to know as Sornow. According to him, he had been a war orphan from another country. He lost his parents to the rage of war to his own country’s soldiers who were so nervous that they accidentally misfired. After that, he went through multiple foster homes, just like me. After a few weeks, we got to what turned around life for us: magic training. Truly something interesting to behold. And I really enjoyed it. I had ended up extremely talented at it and almost to the point at which I was fighting against people seven to eight years older than me. The arts of magic were not easy in any case. Wands were difficult to get at that age unless we borrowed them from the school. And to make things even harder, the spells were extremely hard to master at such a young age. The best we could do was miniature fireworks. And then it started.
It seemed like every one was making such a big deal about it. Of course making fun of me in the process. And telling me that I would probably be below the last. Things were tough. And just when it started, everyone seemed to have a hard time. Yet I seemed to do it with relative ease. Then came one of my favorite types of magic: dueling. It could happen only in the years when we could duel, after the age of fourteen, it was legal to duel. Magic wasn’t hard for me. I found myself extremely proud of myself and being cheered on by my parents. Of course, Sornow was keeping up well. Yet he seemed to be a lot more practical with it. He could master much more efficiently and in a much more smart and dignified way. For the first time, I felt the sensation, that everything was just great. I had a loving family through all the hardship, a best friend, and a good education. I had about everything I needed. It felt good. Although the kids still picked on me constantly and always said that my skill was just a fluke. Once dueling started, we had gotten plenty of practice.
There was a simulation of a tournament. Of course I had to be pinned up against Frima Druce of all people. Frima was very talented, got straight As or 5s as we called it in our culture, but self-absorbed to an extreme. Her parents seemed to spoil her whenever someone seemed to observe her lifestyle. Despite how angry it made us all, she was just too good. She was absolutely teacher’s pet, got good grades and spoiled by her parents. The fact that she was so self-absorbed and with the lack of maturity at the time, she was extremely unpleasant to everyone who wasn’t a teacher or parent or any kind of person who was in charge of us. When I was pinned against her, I was terrified.
The world is a strange place 