John steps out of the restricted area, his legs shake uncontrollably, his hands full of cold sweat. "I need to find my mom…" John whispered under his breath, walking towards a familiar direction.
As John steps into the hallway once again, he locks eyes with his mother, whose pupils seem worried sick. "I-Is that John?" His mother mumbled, carefully examining the boy in front of her.
John's mother walks towards John, "Indeed, that is him!" his mother said inside her head. John's mother walked steadily towards him, her steps increasing its pace. "What took you so long?" She said, hugging John, patting every part of his body to see if there were any bruises, bumps or wounds.
"I-I don't know…" John said, his voice with a hint of his anxiety earlier, but as he felt his mother hugging him, his heart calmed down. Her warm body soothed John's cold, anxious vessel.
"I got lost, and it took me a while to get back." John said while embracing his mother, his body slowly becomes at ease.
"Next time, you should be careful with your directions." John's mother said, her concerning tone obvious to John.
"Okay, mom, I'm sorry." John said.
"Sorry for what?" His mother replied, as she stopped her warm embrace, raising an eyebrow.
"Sorry for worrying you." John said, meeting with his mother's tireless eyes.
"It's okay, let's go home." His mother replied. His mother took his hand and stood up, walking away from the hospital.
"Hello, is this Mr. Powell?" a figure in the shadows said, making a phone call. "We've got a problem…"
As John went home, he took off his shoes and socks and changed into the clothes he wears at home. "That place…" John remarked, as he lay on the couch, looking up towards the roof. "Why…"
"Why would the mages do this?" John mumbled, his eyebrow raised, while he stretched his arms. "And…"
"What if I get caught…" John said inside his head. His pupils started to dilate, as cold sweat slowly trickled down his neck.
"And most importantly," John remarked, "Will they go after me and my family?"
John grabs the remote, opening the television, checking the channels. "I think I should not think much about it."
"Haha, this one's funny." John smiled, as he watched a show about a cat chasing a mouse, and how the mouse somehow always gets away.
Penny watches John open the TV, as she walks towards the shelf of their living room, grabbing a book. She sits down on a chair, as she starts reading.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you, John," His mother said, "According to the test results, you have magic."
"Really?" John said, "That's cool!" He excitedly jumps up and down the couch, "Hey!" John's mother said, looking towards John. "Don't make a mess and calm down, okay?"
"Okay…" John replied, calming himself down. He lays down on the couch to continue watching TV.
A few hours pass, as someone knocks on the door of their home. "Who is it?" John asks. John stood up, as he walked towards the entrance. "It's Lianne, I'm home." the person on the other side of the door said.
John twists the doorknob, opening it. He saw his sister, standing, her body hunched over, as she entered.
"You look tired, sis." John said. He looks towards his sister, whose clothes are mangled. He walked back to the couch, dropped himself on it to watch TV again.
"Well, yeah, I am." Lianne replied, setting her bag down, as she went to her room to change her clothes.
"I wonder what happened to her," John looked up towards the ceiling, resting his head on his closed hand.
Inside the research lab, Charles walks towards the testing room, as he watches his son, getting a big reaction from the metal ball. Sparks shot across the room, as the numbers on the testing machine rapidly increased to 4 digits.
"Well done, my son. Well done." Charles said, clapping his hands, a big grin forms on his face.
"Dad, I did it!" Aldrich said, about to hug his father. "Mr. Radtime, we had an interesting prospect come earlier." The examiner said, her hands busy with monitoring the results.
"Oh?" Charles said. He lets go of Aldrich, who walks away from the room, "How so?"
"They had an interesting reaction to the machine." The examiner said, adjusting her glasses, as she scrolled in her report.
"May I kno-" Charles stammered, his voice cut off.
"John Ravencroft." The examiner said, as she looked towards Charles' eyes. "Have you heard of him before?"
"Hmm…" Charles rubs his hand on his chin. "John Ravencroft…"
"Never heard of him." Charles said, looking towards the examiner's eyes, his gaze piercing through the examiner, yet she remained calm.
"Indeed, it seems odd." The examiner said, "His magic power is immeasurable with our device." She stopped scrolling. She then put her finger on her tablet and zoomed in.
"His family has a small history of magic, but none of them are influential mages or well known ones." The examiner said, while she looked towards her tablet, scanning through her short report about John's test.
"I was going to tell Mr. Powell first, but you came here first." The examiner said, zooming into her report, noticing something. "Oh, also…"
"He has quite the talent, due to his magic reacting from a far distance to the ball." The examiner said, her tone monotonous.
Charles' eyes widened, "W-what?" he gasped silently, "Can you repeat what you just said?"
"His magic reacts with the machine even without touching it." The examiner said, looking towards Charles, who seemed composed on the outside, but she knows deep inside that he's quite shocked, by judging his body language.
"Are you sure there isn't any interference from external sources of magic?" Charles said, raising an eyebrow.
"No, I'm pretty sure that there was no magical presence or something to interfere with the machine's results." The examiner said, clasping her hands together.
"Are you sure that the machine isn't broken or anything?" Charles asked, saying it faster than normal.
"No, in fact, the machine worked fine today and we were to conduct the tests cleanly without much trouble." The examiner replied. She stood up from her chair, bringing her tablet with her. "Here's his details, name, age, weight, what he looks like, etc." The examiner lent her device to Charles.
"Hmm…" Charles looked at the details, "He looks ordinary, but something feels a bit familiar…" He thought, while he rubbed his chin with his fingers.
"Let me try the machine out." Charles said, extending his hand towards the machine, coming closer. At around arm's length away from Charles' hand, the machine starts to react, showing sparks that quickly spread across the room. "This is as close as I can get for it to start reacting, but that kid…"
"He could get the machine to react from there." The examiner pointed to a spot on the floor, which was about four times the distance that Charles was with the machine.
"It had around the same power as the one you had, and the closer he got, the stronger it became." The researcher said, "But when he touched the ball, all of the reactions disappeared."
"What?" Charles said, scratching his head, stopping the reactions from the machine. "How?"
"I don't know either, that's also my reaction to what I saw." The researcher replied, taking her tablet from Charles' hand.
"That's interesting, truly." Charles said, looking towards his watch. "I gotta go now." Charles waved, as he exited the room.
"Alright." The examiner replied, as she went back to her seat.
"Wait." Charles said, stopping the examiner. "Make sure to tell me more about the kid if you see him in action."
"Got it." The examiner replied and went to her seat to do her work. "Mr. Powell… Why aren't you looking at your texts?" The examiner mumbled. "This is of utmost importance…"
Inside an office filled with documents stacked on top of eachother, Earl sits in his chair, doing a lot of paperwork, until someone knocks on the door. His eyes look to where the sound came from, his eyebags become more obvious because of the light.
"Mr. Powell, you have another meeting scheduled in 5 minutes." The person outside his room said, "Who is it with?" Earl replied, when his gaze turned back to his desk. "A message from Stella?" Earl mumbled, noticing a text from his phone.
"It's with Ms. Aucorium." The person behind the door replied. "Ah, alright. I'll get ready." Earl said, getting up from his chair, taking his phone and his suit.
As he puts his suit on, he walks towards the door, dusting off his business attire, "That's odd." Earl thought to himself, staring at the lockscreen of his phone, showing the time and the message sent by someone named 'Stella'. "She doesn't send me messages often, so this should be important."
Earl walks out of his office, towards the meeting room of the Bunker Magic Tower. While walking, he opens the message. "There was someone interesting earlier." Earl read the message in his mind, "The flow of magic around him, it's different."
"Hm..?" Earl ruffled his chin with his fingers, "I see, so a new talent has been discovered." Earl said to himself, "Could it be Lara? Maybe that's why Presine is here…" Earl then saw a picture of the document Stella had sent, "Is it this kid?" Earl thought, "That's odd, he isn't related to any well-known mages."
"Oh well, I should just discuss it with her later." Earl mumbled, reaching the meeting room. He opens the door, the sound of water dripping from somewhere is heard, however, he ignores the noise and gets straight to the meeting.
Near John's house, he met up with his friends. Water dripped from a pipe of a house nearby, however, the group didn't notice. "Hey John, I heard you got to check if you were a mage." A boy said while he eagerly shook John's hand. "So can you become a mage?"
"Well, they said that I have magic powers." John replied, smiling with pride. "Woah! Really?" The other kids then approached John, their eyes sparkling with curiosity and excitement.
"Yep." John replied, putting his hand behind his head, "So what should we do today?"
"Hmm, let's go to the playground!" A girl said, as she grabbed John's hand, pulling him in a certain direction.
As the children got to the playground, some adults walked towards a shady alleyway, slouching on the wall, "Hey, have you heard..?" A man inside the dark area said, "Heard what?" Another one replied.
"Garrett's dead." The man said, his lips started to drop slightly. "What?" The other man, too stunned to speak, but managed to utter those words, while a chill ran down his spine. "He got killed in an experiment."
"It was about inserting magic into a non-magic user." The man said, "Also, apparently an intruder snuck in the restricted area."
"How did you find out about Garett's death?" Another man said, his face covered by the shade. "Simple," The man said, "I work there, but recently, I've been feeling like they've brainwashed us into thinking that we were doing the right thing."
"So you came here to vent?" The man with the beanie asked, "Yeah, because the humanity left in me can only be shown here."
"This is the only place that the association does not have ears." The man said. He walked towards a faucet that was slowly dripping water. "They should really close this faucet tightly, because if it were left open, it could create an even bigger mess when the time comes." The man spoke to the others, leaving the alleyway, his figure vanishing into the darkness.