Act 1: Awakening

Chapter 1: Departure

The rush of the afternoon crowd was deafening. The busy, cobblestone square has been riddled with customers since earlier that day, more so than usual. It’s to be expected, the Festival of Lights is coming up and the inhabitants of Everdale have been nothing but excited for the annual event. Colorful banners of the town’s sigils were being wrought, as well the stages for the various performances to celebrate the New Year.

This was always a special event for Byun Baekhyun. The town lit up in a flurry of color every time this year. Young and old alike enjoyed the parades, the music and the food to mark first day of the year. But the best part was always midnight. The town would gather in the square and then, when the clock strikes 12, the sky would light up with fireworks dancing in the night. Baekhyun would like to imagine that it was all for him, that the night lit up for him. That the town knew who he was. Baekhyun like to imagine that it was the town wishing him a Happy Birthday. But the town didn’t, because Baekhyun didn’t even have a family.

Baekhyun stood in the stall owned by the sisters of the orphanage, selling bread and various pastries. The orphanage mainly functioned from donations from townsfolk and the local government, but the Swan sisters were known for their amazing rum cake, so they sold these and other baked goods in town to get extra money for the children. Baekhyun was one of these children.

Well, sort of.
 

He was turning 17 tomorrow, so he wasn’t regarded as a child anymore, adoption-wise. He’s stopped expecting someone to adopt him, mainly because he was too old. Usually, once you hit 10, you’re not eligible for adoptions, and the sisters don’t want to keep your hopes up for nothing, so they train you in baking or ask you to help out around the orphanage. Once you hit 17, the sisters are forced to ask you to leave, even though they probably want you to stay. They have to give way to the new children.

It’s Baekhyun’s last birthday at the orphanage. It feels different this time.

Mostly because Baekhyun always knew he was different. When he was younger, there were instances wherein he found light behaving abnormally in his presence. He was convinced once, when he escaped the orphanage to go on a midnight stroll around the harbor and got lost, there was a faint light that guided him back to the building, like a beacon in the sky. Another time, he was cornered by a dog in the alleyway while bringing a new haul of bread to the stall, and he swears that there was a flash of light that scared the mutt away.

These weird instances had always plagued Baekhyun’s mind and he knew that finding his parents was the only way he could ever get answers to these weird incidences.  So the day after he turned 17, he had told the sisters that he would embark on a quest to find them.

Baekhyun’s reverie is halted by a creak from the stall. He peers outward and sees a slowly retreating figure hunched over something. Baekhyun, suspicious, tries to eye him closer and recognizes the figure was actually lugging a rum cake. Baekhyun’s eyes widen, he looks to his companion in the stall and tells him to keep watch, as Baekhyun slowly follows the hooded figure.

Baekhyun keeps a safe distance between him and the man to ward off suspicion, which was quite easy considering the packed state of the square. The Festival of Lights brought in a lot of business, but it also brought in a lot of thieves and pickpockets. Thievery was easier with the crowds, easier to slip off without anyone noticing.

Baekhyun, miraculously manages to keep in step with the hooded figure as he wove himself through the crowd, effortlessly dodging the incoming traffic. Baekhyun, a master of sneaking out, was also quite stealthy, so he followed the figure with ease.

The figure then makes a sharp turn and veers into an alleyway. Baekhyun takes this as his chance to corner the thief, so and sprints forward, expertly moving through the hundreds of bodies littering the cobbled streets.

He enters the alleyway and sees the figure at a dead end. Baekhyun hides behind a wall before sneaking a peek at the thief. The figure glances to his left, then his right, still not noticing Baekhyun from his hiding spot. Baekhyun thinks to scream to startle the man, but before he can do anything the figure vanishes in a puff of black smoke.

Baekhyun is momentarily stunned before he manages to take a step out of the wall.

He runs to the spot the figure was standing on and found no trace of anything. He’s both afraid and intrigued.

It seems he wasn’t the only experiencing these abnormalities.

Right then, his hands begin to ache. Baekhyun groans as he rubs his hands for the nth time that day. This was a recurring problem since the week before. At the random times in the day, his hands would throb and itch with an unknown and painful heat. It wasn’t too frequent before, but recently the aches came in more and more, sometimes more forcefully than he had ever experienced. He tried all types of ointments the sisters would provide, but nothing worked.

Another mystery about himself that he couldn’t explain

He groans as he makes his way to the stand, his hand sore from the newfound aching. He reaches the stand and finds his companion sorting out the bread.Roderick, another kid from the orphanage, notices Baekhyun approaching and gives the boy a concerned look.

“Your hands acting up again?” Baekhyun hums in response, taking his place beside his companion.

“Why’d you run off suddenly” Roderick asks, and Baekhyun is stunned for a moment, not knowing if it was appropriate to tell the boy the truth, but he reckons the sisters have a right to know, so he opts to tell the truth.

“I don’t know if you’ll believe me” he starts, which makes his companion visibly more intrigued.

“Try me”

“Well, there was a thief. He was hiding a piece of rum cake up his cloak, so I followed him” Baekhyun began, while his friend nodded in understanding and arranging the loaves on the display cart attentively.

“Go on,” he murmurs while picking up a misplaced loaf of sourdough.

“So we reached this alleyway, but before I could even do anything, he kinda…ugh…he-“

“He what?”

“He kind of disappeared into thin air” Baekhyun blurts out.

In all honesty, he expected the boy to scoff right in his face, even physically smack him on the head for telling such an obvious lie, but surprisingly he was given a look of surprise and, possibly even giddiness.

“Oh lords, it’s the Black Devil” his companion gapes.

“The what?”

“The Black Devil!” his companion reiterates, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Saying Black Devil twice will not explain to me what it is” Baekhyun muses.

“Ugh, seriously, talk to the merchants more, they have all latest scoop around town”

“Anyway!” Baekhyun interrupts, “Getting back to the point”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. The rumors are that there’s a demonic thief going around town and thieving from the merchants. People have tried to capture him, but he disappears before they can, as if into thin air! They think he’s a demon; others thinks he’s from another plane, but what they do know is that he’s awfully difficult to see, let alone catch”

Baekhyun is stunned into silence. Because Roderick just confirmed that he was certainly not hallucinating, that the man truly had disappeared into the shadows, but what Baekhyun wanted to know was how and why.

His hands started to tingle again.

Kim Jongin looked at the preparations for the Festival of the Lights on the roof an abandoned building on the more seedy portion of town. He had been living here for about a week and his temporary abode would soon be another abandoned building in due time. Because Kim Jongin could never stay in one spot if he wanted to continue his life as a con-man, thief and pickpocket extraordinaire. He was cautious, and he knew how to escape.

He’s been on the run his entire life.

A street rat in every sense of the word; Jongin’s earliest memory was in the sewers with a really old man feeding him stale bread. His name was Jeremiah. He told the boy that he found Jongin unconscious on the floor of the sewers. Instead of throwing the boy to death, Jeremiah raised the kid in the ways of the streets. Scavenging for bread, for gold, for life.

From a young age he sold bottles of “The Salve of Life” to unwitting patrons who believed lies sweetly coming from the boy’s mouth. He would soon escape into the sewers to think of another concoction and another disguise to swindle naïve rich men of their daily wages.

As he grew older, and his cute cheeks  morphed into sharp cheekbones and his soft face became steely and harsh, he was taught the art of thievery and stealth. Jongin was taught that to be a great thief, one had to disappear from the face of the earth; and true enough as far as the citizens of Everdale had known knew, Jongin  did not exist.

His childhood,  albeit lonely, was brought to life by his foster father. Jeremiah cared much for Jongin and had treated him like the son he dreamed of having. However, Jeremiah was old and their living situation wasn’t ideal. Soon enough, the old man passed away. This left Jongin finally, truly, alone. Now no one truly knew Jongin, he was a soul unborn of this earth. A perfect thief.

Truthfully, Jongin didn’t really envy the  lavish lifestyle of the rich. He enjoyed the excitement of living on the edge. His goal was to never be seen, never be recognized—never be known. Jongin found the night to be his friend and the shadows his allies. He thrived in the darkness, thrived in the solitude of nothingness. However, sometimes he would yearn for the touch of another, for the warmth of a friend, a loved one, because sometimes even the night grew too cold for a thief.

Jongin was not satisfied by common thievery. Pickpocketing unknowing merchants had become too dull. The streets of Everdale were infested by rats, rats like Jongin. Children left abandoned with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Jongin found that their smiles and hope gave him warmth, a swelling of pride. So this is what he’d been doing, stealing from the lousy merchants of the market square, and giving it to the children of the streets. Even in his loneliness, he found warmth somewhere.

His life even got more exciting when he found out he had a very peculiar talent. It came suddenly, a few days after his 13th birthday.

Jongin was seated in his hideout at the time, surveying the crowd below him, looking at the potions master’s shop. He had found a group of children starving at a nearby alleyway and realized that one had a raging fever. He needed to steal some simple potions to get the kid better, and maybe some food for the days following, but he needed to find a way inside the store. The potions master had just closed his store and was heading home. Jongin found his moment to strike.

Preparing his tools, Jongin set out to break in. However, before he could even step out of the door, a gigantic sneeze brought him out of his senses. This sneeze felt different, it was as if he was pushed back into air, some foreign power tugging at his stomach. Suddenly the air felt different. It felt damper, darker. When he opened his eyes, Jongin was in the storeroom of the potions master.

Needless to say, thieving had become second nature to Jongin. Day by day he became more and more ambitious, more risky in his heists. Slowly, people began to take notice. But they never knew what he looked like, only that he existed. Because for the first time, Jongin wasn’t nothing. He was both something and nothing. An enigma. A force of nature no one could touch.

Jongin loved it.

As he peered into the streets below him, Jongin could only smile while bits of rum cake fell from his fingertips. Far off in the distance in the center of town, secured by walls and guards, was the Sun Stone. A rock said to contain the awesome power of a star. It was an ancient artifact passed down by the ancestors of the royal line of Everdale and was only ever brought out for the Festival of Lights to ring in the new year. People worshipped the thing. Jongin just thought it was a piece of rock he could sell in some faraway town. He wanted to give some of the kids some money, and the amount gold pieces he would get for this could probably feed the entire town for the rest of the year.  

Jongin smiles. Today was going to be fun.

Baekhyun was packing up the stall when his hands began to tingle once more. He tries to ignore the heat permeating in his skin, but it becomes too painful to ignore. He stops packing up and shakes his hands, but he knows this wasn’t going to ease the pain and it wouldn’t cool it down.

Roderick had noticed Baekhyun shaking his hands and immediately knew what was happening.

“Baek, head back, I can finish up here”

Baekhyun would usually tell him that it was okay, he could still help. But the sensations were too much, the pain was too much. He needed to do something about it, so he gave Roderick a thankful nod before sprinting back towards the orphanage.

There weren’t many people around now; dusk was gathering and people were either at home or heading back home, so Baekhyun runs faster as his hands feel like they’re on fire.

He finally sees the familiar building, it’s old and a bit rundown, but it had character. Atop the door double doors is a sign that read “Swan Sisters’ Orphanage” Baekhyun hurriedly enters, eyes tinged with tears he was not aware were falling down his face.

There’s no one there in the orphanage, the sisters had brought the children to a little spot up the hill to watch the fireworks, leaving him and some of the older ones to take care of the things during the festival. He rushed in and darted to a basin, filling it with water and quickly dipping his hands into the cool liquid.

He gasped in relief as the water cooled his hands, but only slightly. And as soon as reprieve came, it was quickly taken away, the pain suddenly intensifying.

Baekhyun screamed, his lungs spasming as the pain in his hands escalated into this intense burn—seething, unrelenting under his skin. With shaking fingers, he wrapped his hands in cloth and made his way to where the sisters kept the medicine. He carefully tried to look for a sleeping drought as his fingers trembled in pain. Finally, he finds a little bottle with yellowish liquid. He takes it, the bottle shivering in his hands. He bypasses getting a spoon and gulps the liquid, tasting the acute bitterness and sourness of the medicine. But Baekhyun did not notice this, he could only taste the burn of his hands.

He takes shaky steps upstairs, resting on the first cot he sees. He cradles himself as soft sobs escape his lips. He takes his hands and  buries them in his chest as he curls into himself.

He prays to the old gods, the new gods, he prays for reprieve—he prays for relief. He clenches his fists as the pain rages, praying the sleep take him away. That sleep nulls the pain.

Soon enough, as the sun sets, his eyes close. His breathing slows, his hands unclench. Baekhyun gives a soft sigh as he enters a deep slumber.

Jongin thought it would be easy. Everything was set. The guards were easy enough, as well as the magical barriers. The beasts were all asleep now—he offhandedly reminds himself to write a thank you note to the potions master. Everything was planned, he had anticipated everything.

Everything except a boy in a chair where the Sun Stone was supposed to be.

“Hi, you must be the Black Devil,” he smiles, his large doe eyes crinkling into creases. He was in in a large square room with a singular chandelier hanging from the high ceiling. There were no windows, only dull, grey bricks covering the entirety of the room. In the center was a plush carpet where the boy was situated.

“Oh, looks like I’m an uninvited guest in your private little party” he smirks. The boy had large doe eyes, and sandy blond hair and his skin was pale white. He looked younger than Jongin. But the twinkle in his eyes said something entirely different. As if he knew the darkest secrets of the world. The boy wore a crimson tabard over his white shirt and brown leather gloves on his hands. He was seated on a small wooden chair and he had blanket covering his legs. He did not look like he was a hired mercenary, his hands were too dainty. Jongin doubts the boy had even held a sword once in his life. He tries to look closer, and realizes that boy’s legs sagged a bit. Then it dawned on Jongin. The boy was crippled.

“So what are you? Magic users are rare, they must have paid you a lot of money to just sit there the entire night” Jongin inquires, still not moving from his position.

The boy almost looks surprised, “What would give you that idea?” the boy muses, glee evident on his face.

“You’re crippled, and you’ve never held a hilt in your life” Jongin states, his eyes not leaving the boy in the chair, “You also look like you don’t really the sun that often”

“Very perceptive, Kim Jongin” The boy applauds, his face contorted in genuine astonishment.

Jongin flinches. Jeremiah was the only person who knew his name. How could this boy know his name? Unless Jeremiah had disclosed his name to someone, but Jeremiah would have never done that.

“Don’t worry, your father wasn’t the one who ratted you out” Jongin is taken aback, how did he know? He’s about to ask, but he’s interrupted.

“Who told me, then?” doe eyes asks, his tone mocking.

“Isn’t obvious, Black Devil?” his smile is bigger now.

Jongin has never felt this type of fear before, he was never this embarrassed before. His life’s work had gone south in a matter of seconds. He feels himself move closer.

“The one who ratted you out is in this room” Jongin stills. No, it can’t be.

“It’s you Kim Jongin,” the boy laughs, “you’re the culprit”

“Get out of my head!” Jongin then screams. Jongin isn’t stupid, he knew he was careful, he knew that he was unknown to the world. The only person who knew that he deemed Jeremiah as his father and knew that his real name was Kim Jongin was himself.

“You’re quick Jongin. It’s sad that we’re on opposite sides, we could have been great friends.”

The boy could read minds.

The boy had to die.

“Oh, not so fast, Jongin, we haven’t even properly met and you want to kill me already,” the boy smirks. “Tsk, tsk, tsk.  A little impatient, don’t you think?”

“I know everything about you, but you don’t even know anything about me” the boy smiles, eyes glinting. The boy knows he’s won, he was just gloating at this point.

“My name is Xi Luhan, but they call me the Mind Walker” he smiles, “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance” Luhan bows from his seat, eyes never leaving Jongin and the smile never faltering.

“I have to say, when they told me that they were expecting the Black Devil, I wasn’t expecting a teenager” he pauses, looking over at Jongin, “An attractive one at that”

Jongin scoffs, “Likewise”

Jongin’s never killed a guy before, it wasn’t his thing. He usually knocked guards out before they could even get a glimpse of his face. But this kid knew everything about him. He couldn’t let this pass. Today was truly going to south fast.

Wordlessly he readied his dagger, but before he could even move his feet, his head began to throb.

“Don’t think that I don’t know what you’re thinking Jongin, I’ve already alerted the guards, they’re already on their way” Luhan smiles, “Don’t do anything rash”

The pain in his head was so strong, but he knew that he had to kill the guy. Luhan knew too much. With all his will power he flashed out of existence. He was once again in the darkness, cool and refreshing, then he realizes that his head is no longer throbbing.

Another flash and he was on top of the boy in an instant. His daggers were at the ready, but he realizes that something is off.

The boy is slumped on the chair. Jongin lands on the ground and realizes that the body is lifeless, but still breathing. Luhan was filled with such sinister joy a moment ago, what had happened?

He approaches the body, but suddenly his senses seize and he loses feeling in his hand. His body is fighting him, and his head is once again throbbing.

“Don’t resist, Jongin, I still want to play” He hears, it’s grating and jeering, and shivers crawl around his skin. However, the sound isn’t being received by his ears, they’re coming from within his mind. He knows that at this rate he’ll get captured. The wisest option was to escape, so escape he does.

Another flash and the darkness had consumed him, leaving behind the pain. He emerges, slumped on the familiar cobblestone street of Everdale. It’s nearing midnight now, and there are no citizens around. Everyone is probably in the square awaiting the beginning of the Festival of Lights. He props himself up and looks around. The building next to him is dingy and bit rundown.

Atop the wooden double doors is a sign that read, “Swan Sisters’ Orphanage.”

Baekhyun awakens not to pain but warmth.

He opens his eyes to see darkness and finds a faint glow emanating from his chest. He uncurls himself to find that underneath the bandings cloth surrounding his hands, there is a faint glow.

Baekhyun, shaking, Shaking, Baekhyun carefully unwraps the cloth from his fingers. The glow is faint at first, but the more he unwraps his hands, the brighter it glows. After fully unwrapping his hands he revels at in the beauty that is revealed.

A bright, warm light flows from his hands, powerful and comforting. It’s like his hands have become crystals, ;  and inside it galaxies of untamed power. There is energy within his palms, millions of stars moving freely across the galaxy of his hands. It’s breathtaking.

He moves to let his glowing finger touch the inside of his palm. The particles shudder, but quickly get back into place.

Suddenly, Baekhyun hears a ringing. It’s from the temple. They only did this on the day of the festival. Soon enough fireworks light the sky in a pandemonium of color.

“Happy Birthday, Baekhyun,” he whispers to the night.

Just then, his hands start to throb. He looks down, the galaxies were now converging, in the center. The sparks of energy gathering excitedly forming a gargantuan orb of power. It moved more erratically, more enthusiastically now. Baekhyun did not know what was happening, but he knew that the power gathering in his hands was too much for him to handle. He slumps down on the floor, his hands cemented on the creaky floorboards. He screams in pain as the power grows and grows. The pain escalating quickly.

It’s excruciating, unbearable—unfathomable. He gives another ear-splitting scream into the night. As the energy gathered into his hands. He pleads for the pain to stop, he pleads to the night.

His hands were so bright now. It looked like he was surrounded by soundless darkness, his hands the only lighting the grim black. Like stars in a cloudless sky.

He pleads to no one, “Please.”

The light consumes him.

The fireworks are nice from where Jongin is standing. It’s a nice parting sight from the town of his youth. He regrets not being able to give the children their gift for the year, he regrets not being able to help the children anymore, but he knew, this was his only choice. His identity would be revealed tomorrow and people would be on the hunt.

Tonight he had to flee.

He takes a final glance at the colorful sky. Sometimes he wishes that he could act like a child again.

“Thanks, Jeremiah,” he whispers to the wind, hoping it would carry to sky.

Before he can give a final farewell, the black night suddenly turns bright as he feels energy pulsating from behind him.

The orphanage was bathed in a bright, opulent beam of  light shooting upwards to the sky. He steps back, afraid of the amount of power billowing from the building as the light shot into the sky, parting the clouds with it.

He should be afraid, he should be scurrying for his life now. But he was drawn to the bright beam, attracted to the intense and brilliant beam shooting into the sky. It felt warm and devastating at the same time. His steps should be moving backward, but they don’t. His feet move slowly into the brightness.

He’s like a moth drawn to the light of a candle praying he doesn’t get burnt.

He moves closer to the building, to the bright light, but before he can even touch the light, it’s gone. Replaced by the dullness of night.

He’s shaken from his stupor as he realizes that there might have been children in the building. Jongin rushes into ruins of the orphanage, hoping that no one was hurt.

He enters the rubble, the burnt remains of pots, pans, and floorboards litter the stone foundation. He peers around for bodies, praying not to find any.

He moves deeper into what was once a two-story building and finds in the center a body huddle in a heap on the floor.

He looks closely, there seems to be no trace of injury on the boy, and he was breathing normally, then he realizes that the boy is crying.

“Hey” Jongin says tentatively.

No response.

“Hey, kid!” Jongin shouts. The body moves slowly to face Jongin.

“Who are you?” the boy whispers. He has soft black hair and delicate eyes.

“A friend, are you okay?” Jongin asks.

“No” he whispers almost inaudibly.

“Are you hurt anywhere?”

“No.”

“Are you in pain?”

“No.”

“Come on, sit up.”

“I destroyed the orphanage.”

Jongin stops, his eyes widening.

“I didn’t mean to, but my hands did.” The boy whispers dejectedly.

Jongin never noticed the boy’s hands because they were hidden from sight, but now looking at them, he realizes that his hands are glowing.

“You need to escape” Jongin says suddenly, realizing the direness of the boy’s circumstances.

The boy remains still.

“Look, I have weird powers, you have weird powers, we’re the perfect pair,” Jongin says.

He tries again.

“The guards are going to get here soon, and they may not blame you, but you also don’t know how to control your powers. What happens the next time your hands explode?”

He moves in front of the boy and lends his hand.

“You have to leave, not just for yourself, but for the sake of your friends.”

The boy gets up, then moves past Jongin.

“Let me look at the town one last time,” he mutters.

And Jongin agrees, both moving outside. The fireworks were gone. Now only the stars lit up the sky.

“I always liked the nights here in Everdale, they were always so tranquil” Jongin says to the boy as they stared into the night

“The stars always shined brighter here” The boy says in response.

Jongin nods in assent.

They stay like this for a while looking at the night, their childhood fading before their eyes.

“What’s your name?” Jongin asks.

“Baekhyun, Byun Baekhyun”

“You have a weird name, the names—“ Jongin eyes the boy warily, the boy still preoccupied with the stars above.

“Kai, you can call me Kai,” Baekhyun nods in understanding.

“Well, Baekhyun, are you ready?” Jongin asks lending the boy his hand. Baekhyun looks at Jongin eyes lost and sullen, then offers his hand.

One final glimpse, and they disappear into the night.

----

Author's Note:

Hi, please feel free to comment on the fic, the critcism would really help! 

I'm also debating if I should make this subscribers only, cause I really want feedback on the story. Anyway, will let you guys know in the next chapter. 

Hope you enjoyed reading!