Tao was crying silently in his room. He was sitting on the ground, his back against the wall and his arms wrapped around his knees and tried to shut out every single sound. It wasn't easy to ignore the shouting and continuous knocking on his door. He knew he would have to explain himself sooner or later, even though he didn't really know what to explain.

Hesitant, he stood up, wiping his tears and walking towards the door. The knocking had stopped. Zhu had probably gone back to the kitchen to talk to their parents.

When he showed up in the kitchen, his parents and his sister immediately fell silent. His mother tried to smile, but it came out a bit stiff. "Zitao, do us the favour and sit down," she begged. He did as he was told, trying to avoid his father's strict glare and his sister's sympathetic glances.

"Now," his father began, "care to explain yourself?"

"But I don't know what that was either!" Tao exclaimed, looking at his sister, silently begging for her support. She looked away.

"You made an apple rot when Mingzhu grabbed it before you, right in front of our eyes. It was red and bright in one moment, brown and foul in the other. How do you explain this?" His father just wouldn't understand that this hadn't been his fault.

"I would know if I could do something like that, don't you think so?" Tao retorted. "Why do you want to let me take the blame for this? It's just an apple!"

"Tao!" Zhu glared at him, not being able to believe the stupidity of her brother. "Everyone knows people like you exist, what do you think the Red Force is experimenting on the whole time?"

This got the boy to shut up. Dumbfounded, he leaned back in defeat, looking at his hands. "But how is this possible? I don't want to be able to do that."

His father leaned forward, nearly whispering right now. "Don't you see it?" he asked desperately. "It's a gift!"

"There are other people like you out there," his mother added. "If they worked together, they could help us! Hasn't there even been something like a legend of a prophecy about people with powers saving us-"

"I don't believe in prophecies," contradicted Tao.

"But you believe in ghosts," Mingzhu muttered under her breath. He ignored her.

"We can try to find other people with powers so he can train with them!" It seemed his parents didn't even care about his opinion in this case.

Tao stood up with clenched fists. "I will not fight the Red Force along with some other weirdos and get all of us killed. You can't force me to do that."

"You will do whatever is necessary to learn how to control your power!" his father commanded. His eyes held a determination Tao had never known his father possessed and it scared him. It scared him how his family was so eager to give him away and let him fight an enemy that was way too strong with powers he didn't even know how to use. The Red Force would find out about it and kill all of them.

Feeling nauseous, Tao made a few steps backwards, then turned around and ran outside, ignoring the voices of his family telling him to stay.

He ran without looking back, until he reached the last house of the village and leaned against the wall, panting. He wished he could just turn back time again, erase this whole day from existence and go back to his calm life. He knew it would never be the same again.

Tao was contemplating on whether to run away or not when he heard loud voices from behind him. He checked the streets, but no one was there. When he heard the voices for a second time, he realized they were coming out of the house, seemingly from a higher level.

But Tao knew the house was abandoned. There could only be one answer to those voices.

The boy trembled. There couldn’t be any ghosts in this house, right? Hadn’t it only been a few months? He was ready to run away again when he heard a loud crumbling sound, followed by a terrified scream.

He looked up, only to see a guy falling, followed by another one with huge dark, scaled wings on his back. The one with the wings seemed to be trying to catch the other one, but his wings didn't seem to work the way he wanted.

Tao acted instinctively. He closed his eyes and made the time around the two of them flow slower. Their impact on the ground still must have hurt, seeing as the guy with the wings was nearly crying. The other one seemed to have hit his head as he was laughing heartily. He had noticed Tao and he had the feeling his words were directed towards both of them.

"See? You are destined to hurt your friends and family, it's your nature. These powers are a curse and only the Red Force can offer you the chance to get rid of them."

"Get rid of them?" the other boy repeated. Tao couldn't stop looking at him. He was really tall, had a handsome face and brown, dishevelled hair. He seemed to have noticed Tao as well, but didn't look at him. "The Red Force will put me inside a cage, torture me, and experiment on me until I become boring. Then they will search for their next victim. If you don't have anything else to say, leave. I don't want to see you ever again." He sounded so helpless and shaken that Tao had to resist the urge to run up to him and hug him.

The tall boy limped away, with his head down, leaving the other one behind. That one didn't look too sad, though. He laughed, then turned around and left the village.

Not quite able to understand the whole situation, Tao followed the tall guy, who had somehow managed to make his wings retreat.

"Thank you for earlier," muttered the boy, not looking up from the street. "If you hadn't stopped us, we would be dead." He seemed to remember something, stopped and turned around, looking at Tao properly for the first time. "How did you do it?"

Tao didn't know how often he had heard this question today, but something in the guy's voice made him answer truthfully. "I really don't know. I just discovered recently I can do things like this and it scares me, to be honest."

The guy nodded. "It should." He looked at Tao and stretched out his hand. "I'm Wu Yifan, by the way."

"Huang Zitao." Tao shook his hand and the boys walked silently side by side for a few moments. Suddenly, Tao had an idea. "Do you... uhm... do you maybe want to stop by at my house for a bit?"

Yifan looked at him, a bit stupefied. "You want to invite a stranger to your house?" he asked incredulously.

"We introduced ourselves, we're not strangers anymore," Tao corrected him. "Also, I hoped, you would talk to my parents..." His voice left him, and Tao felt guilty for even thinking of using Yifan like this shortly after what happened.

Yifan shot him a knowing look. "Just discovered it today as well, huh?"

"They want me to find other people like us to train fighting-" he started whispering, "- against the Red Force." Yifan nodded, not looking as opposed as Tao had hoped.

"But if you tell them how dangerous these powers are, maybe they will start thinking differently," Tao explained. "I don't want to do that; I just want everything to go back to how it was before!"

Yifan nodded sympathetically. "I will tell your parents what happened. But if they really think about this like you said, they might as well just be amazed by what these powers can do." At the end of his sentence, he looked back to the ground again, eyebrows furrowed.

They went on until they were standing in front of Tao's house. Tao hesitated. Had this really been a good idea? What if they still wanted him to this, even if he told them he didn't want to? He shook his head and opened the door.

"Mum, Dad?" he exclaimed, walking towards the kitchen. "I found someone like me and he can tell you how-"

Tao stopped midway in his sentence and stared through the opened door. He heard Yifan advancing behind him, his breath hitching as he saw why Tao had gone silent.

His mother and father were lying on the ground, lifelessly, puddles of blood around them. Behind them, as if they had wanted to protect her, in the corner, was Mingzhu, one hand next to a knife she must have grabbed to protect herself. Her eyes were wide open, but did not move. Someone seemed to stab him every time he looked at their expressions, trying to process what he was seeing.

"M- Mum?" he asked, his voice trembling just as much as his hand as he bent down. "Dad?"

He felt someone pulling at his hand and looked up with a dazed glance.

"Let's go," Yifan stated curtly.

Tao couldn't process what the other guy told him. His stare went back to his family, trying to understand...

Yifan pulled him up dragged him out of the house. He only let go of his wrist when they stood a few steps away from Tao's door.

"Did your parents tell anyone about your power?" the tall guy asked, staring Tao in the eyes.

Tao shook his head. It was only now that he realised what had happened. He sank to his knees and started sobbing. How could this have happened? He hadn't been away for more than one hour. Who would have done something like this? Why?

"Look," Yifan stated, crouching down in front of him. "This is a huge shock for you and I really don't want to urge you to do anything right now. But if someone heard them talking about your power, asked them where you are and killed them, they are now coming after you. Staying here will kill you, Tao."

"I don't care!" Tao's words were barely audible over his sobs. "It's my fault anyways. What am I supposed to do without them?"

"Come with me," Yifan proposed. For a short time, Tao stopped crying and looked at him.

"Where are you going?"

"I will go find people like us," Yifan told him softly. "Nothing is keeping me here anymore, and I think your parents were right."

At these words, Tao started crying again.

"Look," Yifan said for a second time. "You're not safe here anymore. I don't have anything worth to stay for. We should go and try to find people who know what this is, and how to cope with it. What you want to do with this power is your own choice, but you should learn how to use it as soon as possible."

He was obviously waiting for an answer, but Tao kept sobbing and looking at the ground. It was clear that the other one didn't want to make Tao leave his home. But leaving the boy in the knowledge that there was somebody after him was something he couldn't bring himself to do.

Tao couldn't think anymore. Every time he closed his eyes, the picture of his family in the kitchen haunted him. He didn't care whether the killer would get him or not, but Yifan's begging gaze made him realize he had already made his decision.

"I'll come with you," Tao murmured finally.