PROLOGUE: NULLA

NULLA (Latin: Zero)

My grandfather was a wise man. I remember the hazy summer days, when he would place me on his lap and told me his stories.

Once upon a time, there were 13 Gods, who each possess an unique supernatural power. The gods created our lands and ruled across the earth. Within the 13 gods, there was the King, who owned the powers of telekinesis. The King led his 12 other gods, giving them respective districts and created a world of order and balance.

Centuries past, and the gods have passed their supernatural abilities to their descendants. These descendants who held 13 different deity powers, formed into 13 Houses. The King’s descendants remained as Kings, occupying the capitol, the centre of our country, while the 12 other houses continued their supremacy and leadership amongst the humans in their districts.

And we were the house of the 12th district. The ones who held a special kind of superpower in our blood. The descendants of the gods and the loyal servants of the King.

The ones who control minds.

I widened my eyes in a twinkling gleam. “Granpapa, so the King is in charge of 12 homes? He must be a good person then!”

My grandfather merely responded with a light curl on his lips. “Maybe? I’m not too sure, my dear Taeminie.”

Later that year, I watched a sentinel flung his whips to men and women with black smudged on their sunken faces, hunched shoulders, swollen knuckles. There were aged women, there were teenage kids, there were elderly frailer than my grandfather. Yet all of them had coal dust on their broken nails, angry marks on their faces, and hopelessness in their curled shoulders.

This was too much for a 4 year old kid, so I cuddled close to my grandfather - my only source of comfort.

He shoots purple gleams out of his eyes at the furious sentinel.

It was only then, where the sentinel’s fiery eyes turned empty and unfocused, as he dropped his whip and turned away from the people.

That was the moment I knew: The King, was far from good.

We were a large family of 5 children. I was the middle child, 3rd in line. My grandfather paid attention not to neglect my existence, he cuddled me close amongst the protest of my other siblings, ensuring that I received as much love as his other 4 grandchildren.

While my youngest brother was still in his crib, I was squished into a room with my eldest brother, my elder sister and my younger brother. We would fight, cry, laugh and argue inside a house that is far too small for a family of 7. Yet our parents taught us to be thankful of what we have, and to give things for those needed.

Indeed, outside, our people were the ones working in coal mines. They were the ones suffering from labour, life-threatening mine explosions everyday and scarcity of food.

As I grow up, more questions emerged in my brain when I discover more and more about this colourless world.

“Grandpapa, why are our streets covered in black cinders? Why do those people work in dirty factories? Why do they have hunched backs and frowns on their faces?”

Grandpapa’s hair was almost as white as snow, his wrinkles deepened when he smiled.

75 years ago, was when the balance between the descendants tipped. This period, was the resistance.

The 12 houses, who had been long suffering under the King’s tyrannical rule, has united with their humans to oppose against his reign. The rebellion united the divided districts, with combination of fire, water, wood, wind, ice and the others, they thought they were on the brink of victory.

Until the tides turned.

The Capitol, home to the house of Telekinesis Kings, demonstrated their powers and crushed the rebellion. To punish the rebelled houses and his people, the King forced the districts to export all their resources to supply the capitol. District 1 supply electricity, District 2 supply water, District 3 give fire, and etc.

As one of the leading houses of the rebellion, the King gave us, House Detorquere of District 12, the worst treatment.

Our district supply coal.

The other houses could support their own districts. For example, House Aqua manipulated water, and the godly descendants could easily assist their powerless humans to supply the Capitol’s huge water demands.

Unlike those districts, we couldn’t support our people.

We can’t produce coal with our mind-controlling powers.

And so, my grandfather grew up watching our people suffer on our behalf, from black smudges on their faces, odourless noxious fumes, to the daily whipping of sentinels. Our ancestors has learned their mistakes, they kept their powers to themselves and never used it against the King and his sentinels.

However, my grandfather was the one who broke the vow. He said we were gods descendants, and our job was to protect and bless our people. We serve our people, not the King.

We could not make water for those who in thirst, we could not start a fire for those in frostbite, we also cannot build metal tools for our people.

But we were House Detorquere - the house of distortion - the mind-controllers. We could protect our people by distorting the minds of the evil and deceiving their wicked eyes.

It was a dangerous game to play. But my grandfather mastered it. Just like how he shot purple gleams at the sentinels, he diverted the minds of the officials, so we could export less resources every single year and save more food to feed our own people. The capitol was already bathed in an overflow of resources from the 12 districts. Little by little, as we sneaked in more and more resources to feed our starving people, they were unnoticed by the King.

Right till the last of his years, my grandfather, the retired high lord of district 12, has successfully kept his starving people alive, and has kept the tortuous King in the dark. Thanks to him, a portion of his people had spend days out of coal mining, and their sunken faces transformed into sharpened jaws.

When I was 12, we crowded against the edges of my grandfather’s bed. Others were sobbing, wailing and sniffing their noses, but I was the only one who held in my tears. I kept my hand tightly grasped around grandpapa’s, as his heavy eyelids fluttered weakly.

“My Taeminie… I can see the spark in your eyes. You are full of life and dark and strength and spirit. My job to free our people is unfinished, but I’m sure… you will be an ember in the ashes, you will bring us to rise into the dawning of a new era.”

I didn’t understand what my grandfather meant. At that moment, I didn’t want to be an ember or whatsoever, I just wanted my grandfather to stay. Stay as our guardian, stay as our mentor, our grandfather.

My father was the only one who took this message in, with a mixed gaze in his eyes.

……

By the time I was 17, my father has built a safe house.

A new nation, safe from the oppression of the King — underground. My father and grandfather spent years to secure alliances and deals between other districts, controlling the minds of sentinels and officials, so we could export less resources to the capitol.

In return, we have saved up years of food and necessities enough to feed half of our population. In the near future, our citizens will be able to relocate underground, away from hunger, away from the coal mines, away from the torturous, repetitive labour and away from the cruel capitol.

In the meantime, my father trained me to become his successor. I thought my eldest brother, Jinki would take up the job, but my father directed him to be in charge of our district’s safe house instead. I’m not sure if this is related to my grandfather’s