Freaks (eBook)

Tam H. Athot (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
375 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
9780000533166 (ISBN)

Infos

'Syranda and magic are an interconnected tree with the same root, with many branches, and beautiful fruits in many shapes and colours.'

When the dear leader declares a group of people as enemies, what would you do? Do you keep quiet because you are not one of them, or do you stand up for them?

Syranda, once a peaceful democracy, has gradually become something darak and sinister under Angelus, the Minister of Defence. Historically benefiting from individuals with special abilities, the country now persecutes them, fostering an enemy image to solidify control.

Angelus' daughter, Vitu, was born with a unique ability, which her father chose to keep hidden. As a teenager, Vitu realized that her father prioritized his service to the regime and personal ambitions over her well-being, leading her to flee. During her search for an escape, she gained understanding about her abilities, other people, and herself.

'The prey within us will cease tonight, and by sunrise, the predator will rise with the dawn!'

Textauszug

SWEET CHILD OF MINE

 

They say, there is a waterfall somewhere on the edge of the country. Allegedly you must walk over a long mountain, which takes about five days, and it only shows itself if you are fasting, you can’t eat or drink anything. Every hour one must prostrate himself, facing the Sun during the day and the Moon at night, and recite the secret mantra 33 times.

Along the way are traps, ghosts, and monsters are waiting for you who will swallow up anyone whose heart wavers, even for a moment. No one has returned from there so far, but it is said that whoever is allowed to enter by the rainbow may he finds eternal quiet, peace and bliss.

 

Vitu has been having visions about this for a long time. She sees the pilgrimage, as she walks the long, difficult journey, and then at the end she finds the wonderful sparkling waterfall, which opens and receives her, and then all the injustice, doubt and violence that surrounds her will be replaced by peace and gentleness.

She looked around her room. Huge, she thought, bigger than those underground bunkers where people huddle together and hide, fleeing the regime the shootings and bombings.

The walls were painted to cyclamen and turquoise. She picked these colours when she was younger, and somehow, they have stuck with her ever since. Although their luxurious palace was expanded, renewed, and changed, his father always painted her rooms in the same two shades. Maybe that was the last summer when they were still a happy family. When she still believed that her father was the most wonderful man in the world, and her mother was the most understanding sensitive flower, whose only task was to shower kindness on those around her.

However, everything changed at once. Her whole world did not fell apart in a single day, but the moment when the decline began is still vivid in her memory. She played outside in the enormous palace garden. She clearly remembers the soft snoring of her nanny, the way the gentle breeze caressed her face, the way she rolled with her dog in the turquoise green grass, the trill of her mother's thin voice, as she entertained the female members of his father's guests in the rose garden pavilion.

She noticed the sound of a helicopter. It circled a few meters above their house. She lay down on the ground to better observe the events. She was used to all kinds of visitors, her father was a high-ranking officer in the army, so they had a lot of comings and goings.

Suddenly a grasshopper pecked at her dress. He loved animals from the moment she was born, she thought of them as an extension of her own soul. She held it in her palm because she wanted to see where it has been to, one touch and everything comes to light. She loved the animals’ memories. She usually saw lakes, fresh pastures, long blades of grass, or heard the inviting coos of the opposite sex, which always made her laugh wryly. In such cases, the nanny usually sat up quickly from her slumber, then, after summarizing with a wide smile that the animal world is still alive in the intoxication of love, sank back into the soft rocking of the garden chair.

But now everything was different, instead of the usual pictures something terrifying appeared. The sky bled, she heard loud bangs and saw strange lightning. Uniformed shadows were pacing up and down nervously. Her father's heavily bald head was beading with sweat, he was gripping a piece of paper, gripping it with such force that the veins on his hand bulged. Smoke and some alien stench filled her nose. Suddenly the memory became suffocating, she started gasping, felt like she couldn't breathe, wanted to scream, but no sound came out of her throat. She wanted to put down the grasshopper to stop the stream of images, but her body wouldn't obey. She saw her mother's torn hair; her eyes were shining with madness from the attic window. Fighter jets were whistling in the greying sky and living creatures cried out in mourning. She wanted it to stop so badly, but she was helpless, just another victim of the series of events, till the grasshopper, perhaps sensing Vitu's pain, jumped away from her hand.

She kept lying on the ground silently, only tears were falling from her eyes.

The nanny was rocking quietly on the garden chair, her mother was warbling merrily in the distance, the sky was orange, and the sun was shining happily. The grasshopper was unabashedly jumping from grass to grass. Everything was so beautiful… except for the future what Vitu saw in her vision.

Finally, she fell into a dreamless sleep. Dark blackness surrounded her. She was floating in an empty dark sphere. Space, time, and feelings stopped around her. She was in an empty existence free space, from where the voice of the nanny extricated her:

‘Miss, miss, wake up! Wake up for heaven's sake! You can't sleep out here! Hurry up, your mother will see us!!! My lady will have us both in trouble.’

She tried to bring her back to the world with her warning words, but she did not want to come back at all. She just wanted to stay there, where she didn't have to think about the future, his father, the world, where she didn't have to feel the deep sorrow, or be afraid of anything or anyone.

After a while the nanny changed her tune from hissing and prodding to screaming and howling over her motionless body. Apparently, the old woman became quite distressed. With her spiritual eyes she saw huge shadows and terrors around the head of her little girl. At her loud cry, the whole house rushed to them, including Vitu's mother, who instantly joined into the drama, and hysteria took over her. Only the doctor's medicine could calm her down. Doctor Honore had been serving the family for a long time, he knew all their quirks, any mood swings, which he treated with a variety of miracle herbs. He delivered Vitu into the world, and he helped the other two times as well when the mother gave birth to a stillborn child.

He examined Vitu, checked her pulse, breathing, and tongue, and after not finding any symptoms, he ordered the servants to take her to bed and called the nardu. The local nardu, Koshan had been his good friend for a long time, and over the years he had proven to him more than once that his craft was at least as precise and scientific as his medical degree.

 

Koshan's age couldn’t be established. According to his own testimony, he must have been around five hundred years old, although he hadn't counted it for a while. Koshan belonged to the moodi race, whose height never made it past the 140 cm, their skin was pale purple, and their dark blue veins appeared in exciting lines through the silky layers. Their eyes were huge, the most attractive part of the face, their irises shone in a hundred colours, reflecting their current mental state. Basically, the moodis were a quiet, self-contained people. Their reason and intelligence were like humans, except that their brains memorized everything. They stored all stimuli, energy, and knowledge that befell them like a huge memory card. To live with this amount of information, their brains were rewired completely differently. They were able to detach or even add emotions to their memories, thus making their own lives easier.

Of course, the correct practice of this ability required many years of training, which is why special training for the moodis was essential. If they did attend mixed schools, they had to attend to special afternoon class where they learnt the skills essential for their own survival.

It was late at night when Koshan arrived. Leaning on his frail-looking legs and his cane of birch, he trudged up to the upstairs room. He had been here a couple of times, although he knew very well that he was not welcome. The father hated his race, and the mother was terrified of the truth, or more precisely, of the truth coming to light. Therefor he was only called in as a last resort.

The moments when he first entered house are so bright in his mind, like they have been frozen in time.... His old friend, Honore, called him to say that there is a little girl who has been having strange dreams and has been crying instead of sleeping for days. On the way, he thought, another worldseer. He has known many children who can see through worlds. There must be a ghost or two in his room, he chases it away, and then the parents ask him to shut down his ability. According to the Special Ability Law (SAL) of Syranda, the parent exercises the right over his child special ability, so he is entitled to terminate it temporarily or for good.

Before the new law in practice the nardu could only suspend the ability, and the magical handcuff would naturally fall of at the age of 21, when individuals were able to decide their further destiny. But eleven years ago, the transformation of the magical world began and among the first steps was the SAL.

As he entered the room the past flashed through his memories, and suddenly two huge black eyes locked on him. The child, who had been loudly sobbing, fell suddenly silent and sniffed at this strange, kindly-looking, exciting-faced old creature.

Koshan approached her, sat down on her bed, and took her hand. He sensed that she was clairvoyant, so he quickly rearranged his memory shelves and brought forward many happy, pleasant memories, and used a special barricade to hide anything he didn't want the child to see. The child laughed curly and fell asleep on his lap. In this way he was able to peek into her dream, world, whatever haunted her. Not long ago she had slept in a baby crib, but her parents thought she outgrew it, so her grandparents brought his father's kid’s bed over with great pride, boasting that they had kept it, polished, and cleaned...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 14.2.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Malerei / Plastik
• ISBN-13: 9780000533166 / 9780000533166