Chapter 1: Tragedy and Discovery

  A young Damon, still only around 10 years old, watched as his father, Benjamin, trekked into the mountains alongside a group of hunters. He fully expected his father would be able to return with some pheasants or rabbits, as he had never seen him fail before.

  Damon was slim with smooth, light-toned skin and handsome features. His long, black hair flowed down his shoulders, framing his dark, blue eyes in a dark curtain.

  Standing next to Damon and holding his hand was Lyla, his mother. She made a lot of the clothing the villagers wore, her hands calloused from the consistent sewing. Though now that she was getting advanced in her years, she stopped doing as much needlework and mainly managed the household in her husband’s absence. During her spare time, she liked to make simple necklaces and bracelets out of different materials.

  Later that evening, Damon’s trust was rewarded as his father walked down toward them, a wide grin on his face, the two poles of the crude wooden frame he was dragging scraping noisily on the gravelly ground. The wooden frame was holding a small roe deer. It seemed a deer feast would be on the menu tonight, one of Damon’s favorite meals. He watched with wide, curious eyes as his father butchered the animal in their courtyard. He was unafraid, even as his father peeled back the skin from the carcass. Once the meat was separated, he followed his mother into the kitchen to watch her cook.

  Damon looked out the window and saw his father open the shack door and place the wooden frame inside. His father stopped in the middle of putting his tools away and picked up a set of arrows, inspecting them closely. A large smile decorated Damon’s face. Today, he had finished the arrows his father started fletching yesterday.

  Outside, Benjamin glanced toward the shack and saw Damon turn away from the window. He scratched his head, wondering when his son had grown so skillful.

  Inside the kitchen, Lyla was roasting the meat over an open fire. As she basted a special homemade sauce on the glistening skin, she witnessed a scene that caused her heart to leap into her mouth. Damon had brought a stool over to the main hearth and was leaning over the large pot simmering atop the fire. She rushed over as Damon threw in a few small handfuls of seasoning, thinking he was fooling around.

  “Damon! Why are you playing around with the stew? Go squat in the corner!” Lyla pointed to the corner of the shack, her face red.

  Damon pouted and shuffled over to the corner with his head hung low. Lyla sighed and patted her chest, and then tasted the stew. She expected it to be ruined, but it was actually delicious. She glanced at the boy who was squatting in the corner as a punishment, her eyebrows raised high. Perhaps he wasn’t messing around.

  After their hearty meal, they gathered up and cuddled together on their bed. Damon smiled contentedly as he snuggled into his mother’s arms. The blankets were so warm, and his parents were so loving.

  Before Damon drifted off to sleep, his parents each brought out a gift that they had gotten for his birthday. On this very day, it was the tenth year since they had discovered him under the cypress tree.

  Although Damon knew how to keep track of the year and the months, he didn’t make a habit of following the exact day, so he was surprised every year. In actuality, he chose not to track the days as he always looked forward to the joy on his parents’ faces when he was surprised.

  His father had gifted a hand-crafted wooden sculpture of a sparrow, and his mother had gifted him a jadeite button hung on a handmade hemp necklace. Damon cried out in elation, grinning while jumping atop the bed and messing up the bedsheets. Still, his parents only smiled and laughed at his antics, never getting truly angry at him.

  Seasons turned on Pinemist Mountain. Two years passed by as Damon grew taller, and his parents became shorter as they hunched. He enjoyed a happy, albeit modest, life in this small wooden shack. He imagined this happiness would stretch on forever. A life filled with the smell of wood shavings, the sound of his mother humming a tune as she cooked, and the comfort and warmth of the shack.

  Damon and his parents prepared to turn in for the night. Laughter rang out as his father tickled him. It was followed by a loud smack and a yelp of pain. This was his reward, presented by Lyla’s spicy hand. His mother embraced him and glared at Benjamin. The 12-year-old Damon snuggled into her bosom, beaming as he breathed in her floral scent.

  Outside, the peaceful forest atmosphere was destroyed when the chirping of insects stopped, and the noisy flapping of wings broke the quiet. The birds flew away in a rush, and the smell of smoke drifted in through the window, overpowering the fragrance of pine. His father peeked out the front door, wondering what was panicking the usually calm birds.

  This was when an unusual sound resonated throughout the mountain, originating from the village center. It was the frantic tolling of a bell. They huddled together on their bed, listening to the ringing bell. One by one, the tolling continued. It rang a total of five times.

  Benjamin’s face hardened when he heard the fifth chime. He grabbed his bow and arrows out of a storage closet before approaching Lyla, his wife, and whispered into her ear.

  Lyla’s face paled, looking around with her wide, unfocused eyes. Her shaky arms and legs prevented her from moving.

  Benjamin grabbed Lyla’s face between his rough, calloused hands and looked her dead in the eyes.

  “Lyla. Focus. Hide Damon. Now.”

  Lyla’s trembling pupils steadied, and her breathing calmed. She now knew her purpose.

  Damon did not understand what was happening, scanning his parents' faces for their usual smiles. But they did not appear. His face paled like his mother’s, and he protested as she shoved him into the closet, now spacious after the bow and arrows were taken out.

  “It’s okay, dear. Everything will be okay. Just stay in here with your eyes closed. Don’t make a sound. It’s like we are playing hide and seek. Just stay here. Don’t come out until I come to find you,” Lyla whispered to Damon.

  Once Damon was inside the closet, he tried to follow his mother’s instructions, but couldn’t help but peek through the crack between the closet doors. A loud bang resounded as the shack door was flung open.

  Thwack!

  “You almost got me, old man. Almost,” a raspy voice rang out. “But you only had that one arrow prepared, didn’t you?” The harsh voice chuckled.

  The gruff voice of an unknown man resounded in the closet along with the creaking of the old wooden floorboards underneath his heavy footsteps. Through the tiny crack, the cold sheen of metal glinted as a weapon was brandished at his father, who stood protectively in front of his mother. His hands tightly grasped the weathered knife he used to skin animals, his knuckles turning white, as he confronted the intruder. Damon shook in terror, not even noticing the wetness in his pants, dripping down his legs.

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  “Run, Lyla! I’ll hold him off somehow!”

  “I can’t! How can I just run away by myself!”

  The loud shouts, laced with desperation, were the last things Damon heard from his parents. The flash of a blade, followed by the sound of two loud thuds, cut off the screams. Silence settled in the shack as his vision tunneled on the figure of a man standing over his parents’ bodies.

  The walls of the closet began closing in on Damon, squeezing until he could no longer breathe. Acrid smoke, metallic blood, foul urine. Numerous smells entered his nose. The only sound he could hear was the furious beating of his own heart.

  Muffled sobs drifted from the closet. The bandit opened the door to find the young Damon sobbing uncontrollably, the sound muted as his mouth and nose were covered by both of his hands. Despite the gruesome scene before him, Damon still had his eyes fixated on the bandit's face. The bandit did not strike immediately. He looked down at the fierce eyes, the corners of his mouth stretching. It wasn’t a grimace of effort or guilt at taking another human’s life. It was a smile.

  As death loomed over Damon, his vision narrowed and focused on the crooked teeth enclosed by cracked lips. Gripping his fists so tight his palms turned white and clenching his teeth so hard his gums started to bleed, he stared at the smiling mouth with bloodshot eyes and tears flowing down his cheeks. After taking my parents’ lives… You… Smile? I want to wipe that smile off his face. Please… Anyone… Anything…

  His fingernails dug into his palms, and his nostrils flared. Damon could only curse and plead inwardly. He briefly remembered the chest hidden above the closet. If only the chest fell on his head right now!

  All the hatred and desperation coalesced into a single wish. Fall!

  The bandit continued smiling at the frightened boy. However, the lack of reaction detracted from his fun. Becoming bored, he swung down his weapon at the glaring boy. At this exact instant, the air above the bandit shuddered. The wooden chest hidden atop the closet abruptly toppled over, as if pushed, and crashed into the bandit’s head. The man collapsed, and Damon slowly walked over and picked up the large knife the bandit dropped. He looked down at the bandit. His wish had come true. At this moment, the tips of his lips stretched upwards. A smile, eerily similar to the bandit’s, tainted his face.

  Damon hid in the nearby misty mountain until the sun came up before venturing his way back down to his home. When he arrived, he saw that the bodies of his parents had disappeared, along with anything of value. The entire shack was a mess, covered in blood. The bedding had been ripped up, the furniture broken and lying about, and even one of the walls had partially collapsed.

  Fighting back the tears forming in his eyes, Damon hurriedly ran to the village, where he saw a large group of people gathered near the village entrance. Many of them were kneeling and wailing at one side, while the rest were silently standing motionless nearby with their heads lowered.

  As Damon drew closer, he saw that the wailing villagers were kneeling and clutching at bodies covered with bloodstained cloth. The village chief noticed him approaching and quickly ran forward to embrace him. He did not speak any words and slowly brought him toward the bodies of two adults. They were his parents. He collapsed on the spot and broke down crying until the sun set and a full moon rose high into the night.

  Three days later, the burial ritual was completed for all the villagers who had died. Although the burial was completed, the mourning ceremony would last another three months.

  Damon woke up, crying out for his parents. Upon finding the unfamiliar room filled with sturdy and stylish furniture instead of the warm, albeit shabby shack, his body turned cold. Holding back his tears, he got out of the soft bed and wandered through the large house while sniffling.

  Three months had passed in a blur as Damon attended the daily mourning ceremonies and was force-fed by the villagers. He resided in a room at the Chief’s house while the adults helped rebuild his home. As he walked through a corridor, the village chief appeared at the end of the hallway and called him into his office to talk.

  “Damon, I know it hasn’t been very long, but… Can you tell me what happened that night? How did you survive?”

  Silence stretched on for several minutes, blanketing the room in a heavy atmosphere, before Damon finally opened his mouth.

  “Mother and father hid me in the closet… But he… He managed to kill them and find me. I just wished that he would die. Then I made the chest fall. It killed him. After that, I ran into the mountains. I… I shouldn’t have left my parents all alone.” Damon looked down, holding back his tears.

  The village chief just gave a small smile and assured Damon that it wasn’t his fault that the bandit died. Although Damon was still convinced that he had made the chest fall and kill the bandit, he didn’t bring it up again. During this conversation, the village chief’s son, Jon, was listening in from the next room and heard what Damon said.

  The next day, as Damon was slowly walking through the village to reach the burial grounds where his parents lay, he heard some children discussing him as a topic.

  “Did you hear? Damon said that he can move a chest using his head,” said one boy.

  “Using his head? I can do that too! Although I might not have the smarts to learn how to read or write, my head is definitely hard enough to move a chest!” replied a skinny boy with a big head.

  “No, dummy, he said he can move the chest by thinking about it, not touching it!” replied the first boy.

  “Just by thinking about it? Wow! I wish I could do that. I would smack my older brother on his head when he’s being mean to me without getting caught!” said the skinny boy.

  “Idiot, how can anyone move something with just their thoughts? He must have gone crazy after watching his parents die in front of him,” said a third boy while slightly sneering.

  “Hey, hey! Be quiet! That’s Damon walking past us right there!” whispered the first boy.

  Step by step, Damon trudged along, his head stooping low. His shoulders remained slumped, and his facial expression did not stir. However, a ferocious glint burned in his eyes as he passed the boys, his gaze fixed on the dirt road. They don’t believe me? They think that I’ve gone crazy? I will show them who’s crazy.

  After visiting his parents’ graves, Damon ran straight up into the mountains. He found a large clearing against a cliff face about halfway up the mountain where the mist was a little less dense. He looked around before nodding to himself. This was a good location to test his special ability.

  Damon picked up a small stone and placed it atop a boulder that came up to his chest. He stared at the stone for a few minutes without anything happening. Opening his eyes wide, he let out a small roar.

  “HAH!”

  The stone remained still, the only change being his shout echoing down the mountain. Slightly embarrassed, Damon scratched his head while frowning.

  “It’s not as easy as I thought it would be…”

  Hours flew past as Damon obsessed about making the stone move, the sun gradually dipping behind the mountain. Frustration turned into desperation as his throat turned raw and his entire body began to ache. There was nothing he hadn’t tried: shouting at it while pushing his arms forward, glaring at it while holding his breath, even yelling ‘up, up and away!’ while touching his middle two fingers to the base of his palm, yet nothing worked.

  Were the village boys right about me? No! The chest fell JUST as I thought of it! I caused it. It can’t be fake. It must be real!

  Damon rushed forward with large stomps and grabbed the stone tightly in his palm. His stomach growled, but he could not feel hunger. His mouth was so dry that his tongue felt heavy, yet he could not feel thirsty. His head ached, though that was nothing compared to the pain in his chest.

  After throwing it at the cliff, he dusted his hands on his pants and chose to go home for the day. He decided to come back tomorrow morning to try again, still wanting to prove he was not crazy. No, he HAD to prove it. As he started walking, he came to a sudden stop as a shiver ran down his spine.

  “Why… Didn’t I hear a sound?” Damon turned around to look at the cliff. It looked like any ordinary cliff face. He picked up another stone and threw it at the rock wall again.

  Nothing. The stone disappeared, without producing a single sound.

  Damon slowly approached the cliff, scrambling up a few boulders until he reached the spot where he had hurled the stones. Standing on a narrow ledge, he reached out toward the surface of the cliff. His hand passed through the wall as if there was nothing there. His heart hitched in his chest, and his breathing quickened. He slowly walked through the illusory wall, the rock melting away before his very eyes.

  Damon experiences will help shape his personality into who he becomes later on!

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