The seasons turned with persistence, each day blending seamlessly into the next as life at the orphanage continued its familiar rhythm. Maya's dedication to mastering fire magic remained unwavering, though her progress had stalled in frustrating ways. Every morning, she could be found outside, her brow furrowed in concentration as she attempted spell after spell. The physical manifestation of flames came naturally to her now—small flickers would dance obediently between her fingertips, and she could kindle fires with barely a thought. But the incantations, those ancient words that were supposed to channel and amplify magical power, remained stubbornly elusive.
"Ignis flamma ardere," she would whisper, then repeat it louder, "Ignis flamma ardere!" But the words felt clumsy on her tongue, like trying to speak a language she'd never truly learned. The flames would sputter and die, or sometimes flare dangerously out of control, forcing her to stamp them out quickly before Mary noticed.
The months passed in this manner—practice, frustration, small improvements followed by discouraging setbacks.
And before they knew it, their eighth birthdays had come and gone in a blur of shared cake and modest celebrations. The orphanage didn't have much in the way of material gifts, but Mary always made sure each child felt special on their day. Then came their ninth birthdays, marked with similar joy but also the growing awareness that they were no longer the youngest children in their care. New arrivals had filled the beds of those who had been adopted or moved on, and suddenly Maya, Rowan, and Kai found themselves among the older children, expected to help guide and protect the newer residents.
It was on an unremarkable night in late autumn that everything changed. The evening had been typical—supper of hearty vegetable stew and fresh bread, followed by reading and quiet conversation before lights out. The bedroom settled into its usual nighttime sounds: the soft breathing of sleeping children, the occasional creak of old wooden beams, and the distant whisper of wind through the eaves. Kai had fallen asleep easily, exhausted from a day spent helping Mary reorganize the supply room and then playing an energetic game of tag with some of the younger children.
Deep in the embrace of peaceful slumber, Kai was dreaming of soaring through clouds when something extraordinary began to happen. A strange tingling sensation started in his chest, spreading outward like warm honey through his veins. The feeling was so unusual and intense that it began to pull him from the depths of sleep, though his conscious mind couldn't yet comprehend what was occurring.
Then, with the jarring suddenness of a thunderclap, Kai was yanked completely awake. His eyes snapped open, expecting to see the familiar wooden ceiling of the dormitory above him. Instead, he found himself staring down at his own bed, at the rumpled blankets and the pillow where his head should have been resting.
'I... I-I'M FLOATING!' The thought crashed through his mind with the force of a tidal wave as pure panic set in. He was suspended in the air, a full three feet above his mattress, his body held aloft by some invisible force that he could feel but not understand. His heart hammered against his ribs as he frantically looked around the room, trying to make sense of what was happening to him.
The other boys in the room were beginning to stir, their sleep disrupted by some instinctual awareness that something momentous was occurring. One by one, they opened their eyes and sat up in their beds. When they saw Kai floating in midair, their faces transformed from sleepy confusion to wide-eyed terror. They all remembered vividly what had happened when Maya had awakened—the flames, the smoke, the very real danger that the entire orphanage might have burned down that night.
"MARY! KAI IS AWAKENING!" the boys shouted in unison, their voices cracking with fear and excitement as they scrambled from their beds and fled the room, their bare feet slapping against the cold wooden floors as they raced to find the caretaker.
Left alone in the suddenly empty dormitory, Kai remained suspended in the air, his mind reeling as he tried to process what was happening to him. Then, gradually, he became aware of something even more extraordinary than his newfound ability to float. There was something flowing into him, something warm and electric and alive. 'I can feel mana entering my body... this is... it's amazing. It's like nothing I've ever felt before!'
The sensation was indescribable—like being filled with liquid starlight, or having every cell in his body suddenly come alive with purpose and power. He could sense the magical energy as it flowed through him, mapping new pathways and awakening parts of himself he'd never known existed. For a moment, he forgot his fear and simply marveled at the incredible feeling of raw magic coursing through his veins.
Heavy footsteps thundered down the hallway, and suddenly Mary came bursting through the door, her nightgown hastily thrown over her sleeping clothes and her gray hair disheveled from sleep. "Kai!" she called out, her voice a mixture of concern and amazement as she took in the sight of him floating serenely above his bed.
Startled by her sudden appearance and the urgency in her voice, Kai's concentration shattered like glass. The invisible force that had been holding him aloft suddenly vanished, and he dropped unceremoniously onto his mattress with a soft thud and a bounce. The magical energy that had been flowing through him cut off as abruptly as a tap being turned, leaving him feeling strangely empty and ordinary once again.
'What the... over already? No flames or anything like Maya? What's my specialty?' He stared at his hands with intense curiosity, flexing his fingers and searching for any sign of residual power. Slowly, his gaze swept around the room, taking in the rumpled bedsheets left behind by the other boys and the concerned expression on Mary's weathered face as she stood frozen in the doorway, her mouth slightly agape.
Feeling suddenly self-conscious under her intense scrutiny, Kai scratched the back of his head awkwardly, his hair sticking up in wild directions from his night's sleep. "Uh... Ms. Mary?" he said slowly, his voice barely above a whisper as Mary continued to stare at him with an expression he couldn't quite decipher.
For what felt like an eternity, Mary remained motionless, her eyes fixed on him as if she were trying to see through him to something beyond. Then, without warning, her knees buckled and she sank to the floor, letting out perhaps the deepest, most heartfelt sigh Kai had ever heard from another human being.
"You kids are gonna kill me, giving me this much anxiety," she muttered, though there was more relief than reproach in her voice.
The days following Kai's awakening were filled with experimentation and growing frustration. When children awakened to their magical abilities, they typically either experienced dramatic manifestations like Maya's explosive flames, or felt drawn to their specialty by a supernatural and unexplainable desire.
But even after multiple days had passed since that extraordinary night, Kai felt no such supernatural pull toward any particular magic. They tried everything—elemental magic, telekinetic abilities, even basic healing magic on a wilted plant. Nothing seemed to resonate with him the way fire magic had immediately called to Maya.
However, there was one change Kai noticed almost immediately after his awakening. The world around him looked different—not dramatically, but in a way impossible to ignore. It was as if someone had adjusted reality itself, turning up the brightness and warmth of everything he saw. Colors seemed more vivid, shadows held more depth, and even ordinary objects possessed a subtle luminescence that hadn't been there before.
For someone like Kai, who had spent his last seven years on Earth before dying uncertain whether the world around him was even real, this change meant more than his own mind could process. The day after his awakening, when the failed experiments and Mary's worried questioning became too much, he slipped away to a secluded spot on a hill overlooking the orphanage grounds.
There, sitting alone against an old oak tree, Kai simply took in the view around him. The world hadn't looked this way in such a long time—alive, real, beautiful in its simple existence. Overwhelmed by the sheer reality of it all, he gently cried as he smiled, finally feeling truly present in the world for the first time in longer than he could remember.
A/N: damn that's crazy an all but how sick would it be if I burned down the orphanage in the next chapter? and everyone inside died!