In Wool's Orphanage, many children of all ages and sizes sat around a large table. The one thing they had in common, was that they were all looking at a small boy who had just walked into the room. Their eyes focused on his body, especially on his pure white hair, with streaks of bright gold. This was of course Damien.
He felt extremely awkward as two dozen or so pairs of eyes watched and judged him silently. Many of them had heard his harrowing screams of pain, or saw as he convulsed wildly in Mr Bishop's arms, so of course, they were curious about what had happened to him.
"Hi guys." he mumbled weakly under their piercing stares.
These words seemed to have an effect as most of them stopped blatantly staring at him and made themselves busy with feigned conversation, however he could still feel many people eyeing him in their peripheral vision, as he shuffled towards the long table and sat on the only free seat, next to the head of the table, where Mr Bishop sat.
"I heard you had a seizure", a loud, patronising voice spoke in an accusing tone, causing the whole table to go silent, "you're not one of those crazies are you?"
Damien looked toward the source of this voice, a boy who looked to be 10 or 11, rather large for is age. He had hazel eyes and short black hair, a strong jawline, made his features more handsome and prominent. Damien had to search his memories for this boy.
"Be quiet Kristian!", shouted Mr Bishop, "You're not allowed to talk to anyone in this place like that!"
Damien remembered him now. Kristian Hartley, he was known to oppress and torment the young inhabitants of the orphanage. The older kids didn't really care about the younger kids, so he was often able to use his larger physique, to intimidate the younger orphans, though very rarely actually used physical force on them, due to Mr Bishop's strict and severe punishments.
"I was only asking a question.", said Kristian, "Plus, you can't blame me, his screams nearly blew the roof off of half the bloody orphanage! Everyone hear is thinking it."
"I said that's enough!", bellowed Bishop.
"I'm just sayin' tha-"
"That's it! Go to your room! Stay there for an hour! And what about the rest of you, were you thinking what he said?", challenged Bishop, as he glared at the children around the table.
They vehemently shook their heads in denial, under Mr Bishop's fierce gaze. Only Kristian scowled hatefully at Damien as he walked to his room. The room was silent for a few moments before Miss Price walked in holding a large platter of sausages and eggs in one hand, and a large pot of beans in the other.
"Breakfast is ready. Is everyone ready to eat?"
The awkward silence was broken as many reached forward to put food on their plates, once again feigning conversation. Yet, a weird atmosphere lingered in the air.
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After breakfast was over, Damien was sent to his room to rest, despite his heated protest.
'I won't be able to do anything, under Mr Bishop and Miss Price, for the next week. That's so frustrating. The only thing I can do is practice using my powers, which I guess I was gonna do anyway, so it's not that bad'.
He surveyed the room, as he looked for an object to practise with, this time choosing a small alarm clock on his table. As it slowly rose into the air, Damien was surprised at the ease with which it was lifted into the air, seemingly requiring much less energy than when levitating the lamp.
'I know that I could levitate the lamp for half an hour, before getting tired. I wonder how long I can last while moving it around. How fast will I be able to move it?'
He put his maximum concentration on the lamp and imagined it moving to the left. The alarm clock jerked slightly to the left, before stopping. He had to once again focus on the image of the lamp moving in the air. This time, it did move, albeit very slowly.
At first it was quite hard, but soon he was able to move the lamp continuously, although quite unsteadily and slowly through the air. However, within 20 minutes both his mind and his energy were exhausted, he felt like he was about to collapse. He slowly clambered into bed, lying down in fatigue.
'I'm making progress, but it's slow. I have to do this everyday, in order to improve, otherwise my power won't be very useful.', he thought to himself before drifting off into a deep sleep.
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One week later
By the end of the week, Damien had massively improved in his control over his ability. The alarm clock now floated steadily as it moved, and it's pace had massively improved, before, it had moved very slowly, but now it moved at the speed of an average jog.
He had also discovered that the smaller an object, the faster and easier it was to move, hence the ease with which he levitated the alarm clock. He had once tried to move his entire bed, but it only floated for a few seconds before dropping to the floor with a bang, and giving Damien a splitting headache, and nearly making him faint.
However, despite the improvement in his powers, he was not happy. Recently, Damien had noticed that he had begun to become isolated from the other children in the orphanage. This was likely due to the fact that they thought he had a seizure, but Damien knew that Kristian's efforts had had a large part to play in his budding isolation.
The kids, even some of the older ones, would direct dirty looks towards him whenever he walked into a room, and the young children of his age had begun to leave any room he was in, seemingly in fear.
Yet today, the problem he faced was not his isolation from the other children, but instead Kristian himself towering above him with his large physique.
"You little b*stard.", he grinned menacingly while looking down upon Damien, "I finally have you alone. Mr Bishop embarrassed me in front of everyone because of you."
"What are you doing, Kristian?", asked Damien. As an adult even in this situation he could remain calm, but a grave expression adorned his face in this situation, Kristian was much older and larger than him. Being attacked by him could be extremely dangerous.
"You stupid now? I said I'm gonna teach you a lesson, you little sh*t."
With this, Kristian rose his fist.
"Stop!", shouted Damien, "Don't you remember what happened last time you beat Joseph up? You were in your room for a week, as soon as you got home from school. You weren't even allowed to come down to eat, the food was taken to you."
Hearing this, Kristian's expression changed, as he seemed to hesitate, weighing up the consequences. He slowly put down his fist.
"You know what? You're right, it's not worth it to deal with a freak."
At those words, a sudden tyrannical and oppressive anger overtook him, roaring in his chest like a caged beast. His eyes turned cold, a dim scarlet light flickered within them.
"What did you call me?", rather than an overwhelmingly furious voice, what came out was a cold, harsh whisper.
Kristian, who was about to leave the room, turned.
"Huh? You didn't hear me?", a mocking smile came to his lips, "I called you crazy. You weirdo! You fre-"
Massive waves of magic power burst out of Damien, shocking Damien and causing the dust to swirl wildly in the air. The scarlet light in his eyes became brighter, tainting his eyes slightly crimson.
His hands stretched outwards, as magic energy gathered around Kristian, raising him into the air.
"I. Am not. A freak!"
Damien's every word came out as an almost feral growl. His splayed hand once again moved.
Slowly, Kristian's own hand began to rise. The magic energy had gathered around his hand, pushing it up to his head. Suddenly, Kristian's own hand was around his neck, clutching it, choking him.
Kristian's face began to turn purple as his lips moved, frantically trying to take in air. Only his dying sputters escaped his lips. Damien stared. Soon his face and lips began to turn blue, his struggling becoming weaker.
The malicious scarlet light in Damien's eyes began to fade away.
Suddenly, Damien regained his senses, only to see Kristian in the air in front of him struggling weakly for oxygen. In horror, he hurriedly put down his outstretched hand.
Kristian fell out of the air, falling limply onto the ground. Damien stared at his body in fear, only to sigh in relief when he saw the weak rising and falling of his chest. But abruptly, the terrible realisation of what he had just done struck him. He had nearly killed a person.
But before he could think further, he clutched his head in pain, falling to his knees as his vision turned white.
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A young boy stood in front of a mirror. He had jet black hair, and dark brown eyes, his high cheekbones only further emphasised his handsomeness. Damien, didn't know where he was.
Damien did not know where he was. He saw and heard everything from the point of view of this child, but he seemed to have no control over this body, or no body himself. It was as if he was watching a movie. His name was Tom Riddle, for some reason, this felt familiar, yet Damien could not remember why. It was on the tip of his tongue, yet it eluded his grasp.
Suddenly, what he saw seemed to move in high speed, as if a movie was sped up to four times the speed. The boy was actually an orphan. Wait, this was Wool's Orphanage! But something was different, it seemed older, less modern, and less... warm.
It was as if someone had placed a black and white filter over life in Wool's orphanage. Everything was a dull grey, and people seemed to drone on, uncaring and cold. This was certainly not the caring and homely Wool's Orphanage that he knew.
All of a sudden, his view changed, instead of the orphanage itself, he now saw other orphans. Scenes of children bullying and mocking him flashed past at high speed. Words like 'freak' and 'weirdo' were often used. He felt the callous and tyrannical anger within the boy, so like the anger that had controlled him.
Once again, the scene changed, he saw the boy holding a rabbit. Suddenly he threw it into the air... and it stayed in place. He felt the energy flowing out of his... Tom Riddle's body. This boy had powers like him! The rabbit began to float to the ceiling, there a noose had been hung, already prepared. The rabbits head was put into the noose. The noose tightened. Tom Riddle cut off the flow of energy to his powers.
A sickening crack resounded around the orphanage.
Damien's view changed abruptly once again. A beach. Cliffs. Tom Riddle led two young children exploring. Was that... Mr. Bishop? Suddenly, they were in a cave, and the next moment Riddle turned on the two children and used his powers. They fell to the floor screaming inhumanly in pain, bodies arching unnaturally. Their shrieks bounced off the cave walls, echoing to eternity, seemingly trapped in an infinite loop.
Damien's view changed once again. This time, the vision had slowed down to a normal pace.
As he watched, a man wearing a bright plum velvet suit walked into Riddle's room.