Adam glanced into his book, imagining that the words themselves would slip off the page and bring him into a new world. A world where everything felt different and exciting. He pondered, gazing off from his window into the open sea, where life was beautiful and the meadows were green. Animals herded peacefully, and town life was always the same. The life he ever so reluctantly lived nagged at him, it bothered him constantly to his very core. His eyes peered out into the open sea, where the fog coiled around the island in its far reaches. Everything was peaceful within the domain of the isles. But beyond that? The unknown. The fog wrapped around the entire island nation, and no one ever dared to step off it. It was a place protected by the council from events that happened long ago.
He stood up from his desk where his ragged storybooks from his father rested. They had sat most of his life in his old home. Books like this were banned from the public eye, and yet they rested on his desk. He lived by himself in this old cottage his mother and father had both passed from a disease. His father's wishes were always to keep the world entertaining for Adam. He tended to always find ways to "borrow" books from the library, these were the last ones he brought before he passed. He had been alone and took care of himself, working as a farmhand and tending to animals most of his life. Something inside him desired more, though. He constantly felt anxious, brooding over this way of life. Many people in this land avoided him and tended to stray from him, believing him to be some sort of cursed child.
He peered down into the reflection of water from the trough and saw a young boy with nearly pure white hair and emerald green eyes. His face was clean, and his hair almost always unkempt. He hated tending to his looks. The world believed him to be an oddity. His appearance always drew the look of older ladies whispering about his cursed blood and ancient magics that he was special in some way.
"To his surprise, however, this was not the case."
Countless hours of studying the words of The Lexicon led him nowhere. Archery became broken bows, and weapons flew out of his hands often. The guards of The Federation always called him "One of a kind" not in a way he was happy about either.
Adam dreamed of being someone different, someone capable of standing side by side with heroes and villains of storybook legends. This land, however, made him feel so empty inside. A land where nothing ever happened, and no changes ever came. Where his life had an abrupt end he had no control over.
"He wondered what his family used to do."
He pondered over the books his father had stolen for him and thought of the countless hours that were spent reading them of heroes, fables of a time where men and women rose to a call to a land called Terismo. This was a place spoken about often but never mentioned once throughout the lands of the island.
Adam walked over to the librarians once again to beg them to allow him into the libraries. Books were forbidden to the public, but that never stopped him from constantly trying to get in.
"What do you think you're doing, Adam?"
This was his chance.
Adam dropped to his knees in front of the librarian, a tall, elderly elf with long silvery hair and wrinkles around her eyes and head.
"Please, please let me in just once. I beg you. I'll do anything."
She looked at him, displeased as ever, peering down at his face however, always with the same hint of guilt she had when she looked at him.
Her eyes peered down at him, but she said nothing. He waited with his eyes closed, but she continued to say nothing.
"At least you ask, unlike your father. That rascal used to come and steal books for you all the time. And you know it's forbidden. Forbidden! The Reader has permitted you to keep the ones you have, for now."
A defeated sigh escaped his mouth. He felt nothing but her cold words every time. I yearned to know more but never could.
"There has been an announcement calling for you at the summit, Adam. You should visit at once. They seek to speak to you. You have come of age, and now they request your presence. The Great Decision will be made."
Adam knew what that meant. He always knew. It was about his markings. The markings of white hair and emerald eyes always signified something more. It meant I was not meant to live. He knew this day would always come.
Adam walked slowly through the streets of the town, his head hung low, and his feet shifted through the dirt, kicking up dust. He would never know more about Terismo. Never explore deeper than what his books had told him.
The doors had opened at my arrival, beautiful marble gates that led into an open council room, where the many species of the island nation were represented. They remained quiet except for the Reader, an ancient elven woman who could see glimpses of the future in segments and pieces.
"Adam, we have gathered upon this day to speak to you of your future and of who you are. I have foreseen something far greater than you. A great calamity that will come to this nation. Adam… every day that you continue to live on this island, the further you will destroy it. I have witnessed your unending curiosity and what it will do to our land. We have concluded that you must be imprisoned and executed at a later date. The ambition you carry must be quelled before it is too late. The human… no, the monster inside you will destroy us all."
She appeared slightly afraid of Adam, but he took very little consideration into that. He focused on his bigger concern. His heart dropped into his stomach, and a ball formed in his throat. However, he held his composure to the end.
"So this is how it ends? You can't just exile me? Or send me off into the ocean? I just want to leave. I want to go."
The Reader spoke again, softly.
"We do this for the benefit of this nation and its people. We are sorry that your life will end, but you are far too great a threat to this world and its people to be left alive. You will be executed in two days."
Adam lifted his head into the sky, where sunlight poured into the halls of this once-beautiful place. Anger flashed before him. He knew a day like this would come, but his anger overtook him. Tears flowed down his face, but he yelled at her.
"WHAT RIGHT DO YOU HAVE ON MY LIFE!?"
Before he could say any more, armored guards grabbed him and threw him face-first into the marble.
Soft words of apology cut in before a club slammed against his head, drifting him into darkness.
"I'm sorry, Adam. This is what has to be."
***
Long ago, a great disaster befell all of the world. Demons danced across the earth, burning and razing everything as we knew it. Those that rose fell, and the gods themselves fell from grace imprisoned by these horrific creatures. Holders of the Words were born from the ashes of burning civilizations, gifted with The Lexicon a powerful tool that bestowed the power of words upon the races. These words formed great and substantial power. They used these to help the remaining few flee to the island we know today never to leave it in hundreds of years.
This beautiful island nation one where he found himself staring out of often. He rarely looked inwards. Always staring at what could be, rather than what is. What was behind it? No one ever knew. The island, for as long as anyone knew, was the only place where people lived. Beyond the fog, it was dangerous. No one ever said more than that. It was the unknown, and people were forbidden from ever leaving. Everything he ever wished for slowly came to a close, a heart that forever wished to travel beyond the fog and see what hid behind it. Stories always told of ships falling right off, and men never coming back.
A thought floated into his head from the darkest places his mind could reach. It floated through the vast dark and made itself clear.
"Do you want to see?"
Adam's response was always there; he hardly had to think about what he wanted to say.
"Yes, of course I did."
"If you found out, would you ever come back?"
The question drifted around in his head. He was confused why did his own thoughts answer him back?
"Perhaps the guard hit me too hard on the head, and I was a goner."
This, however, was not something he could ever back down from. He had no friends, no family, no history, and no attachments of his own. He had to see what hid behind the fog.
"No. I would never come back."
The words sailed out into nothing, but it felt empowering to even say the sentence and watch it in my own head float off. This must be what floating is like.
Adam awoke, blood dried on his head and cheek. His arms were chained to the wall, and he looked over into the window nearby. It was a beautiful sight to behold the ocean that peered off into the chilling unknown. It was simply just there so close, he felt as if he could reach out to it. In the moment, a glow of orange light flickered into the room of this dungeon. The sounds of screams and the calls for help echoed out into the island. He struggled to see what was going on.
Guards rushed and screamed orders to evacuate villagers into the castle towers and the dungeons nearby. People came rushing in. Adam looked up and listened, attempting to hear what the commotion was about.
The guards stopped briefly, looking coldly down at him.
"Under no circumstances will the cursed child be let out."
They acknowledged the order, leaving briskly from the front of his cell.
Adam looked up at them, offended.
"Thanks. Can I at least have my evening meal?"
The few people that were there looked at him angrily.
Many people began flooding in from the elderly to the youthful. They found themselves scurrying to hide in the safety of the castle dungeon and further inside the castle. The sound of swords clashing against each other and men screaming out told him enough.
A battle was happening outside.
It was silent otherwise, and many people looked away from him as they sat in the hallway, listening for the battle instead. A small child spoke up to her parents through the sounds.
"Mommy, why is Adam in there?"
They looked down at her in concern and said,
"Don't worry, my little flower. Adam will be just fine."
He looked, confused at why they would answer like that but then, slowly, he realized. As they gazed at him with pity or avoided his eyes, they all knew what was happening.
He closed his eyes, and slowly, acceptance swept across him. Fear began crawling into his heart. He didn't understand what he would do. He didn't understand why it was him.
Hours had gone by, and many people packed into the small dungeon as the fires raged on outside. His eyes slowly drifted back to sleep, and his thoughts took over once again.
"Do you wish to leave this place?"
The question again echoed throughout his mind.
"Yes. I want to go. I want to leave for what's beyond."
Once again, the emptiness took over for a moment and then, from beyond the darkness of his own mind, a woman appeared from the black. A woman in a pale black dress with beautiful white hair like his own. Her eyes were green, and she smiled, speaking directly into his mind.
"Then let us go, Adam beyond the fog, where the unknown awaits. Dear child written by story… where will your path take you?"
Adam opened his eyes and found himself gazing deep into the massive high white walls, with a dim light pouring softly into a long passageway. Vines grew across the white walls that rose high into the sky, piercing the clouds above.
He found himself lying beside the white wall. A massive cavernous ceiling hung over it, and the light poured in from the mouth of a cave entrance where creatures swooped in.
He stood up slowly and looked down both ways of the passageway, the bruises from the chains that had locked him up still fresh.
"Where am I? How did I get here?"
At that moment, a large humanoid reptilian creature adorned with armor stared down the passageway and looked directly into his eyes. It began walking, tongue lashing out of its mouth. It wore some sort of salvaged rusted metal plate and carried a nasty-looking curved sword. It screeched at him and dragged its blade across the walls.
Adam turned and looked at it only for a moment, then began running down the halls, searching for an exit.
"How much bad luck could I possibly have?"