Chapter 1
Rory had a curse. Some would call it a power, but his mom called it a curse, and what his mom said, went. The first time Rory used his curse was when at three years old he accidentally melted his handprint into the wall. His mom was horrified and painted over the handprint. But if you look really closely you can still see a small hand imprint in the wall. After that things only got worse. Rory has melted hundreds of things over the course of his lifetime, and his mom has thrown each and every item in the nearby lake. Every time he melted something his mom gave him the same talk.
“Rory! What have I told you, it’s a curse! You know what happens to those who are born with elemental magic. The dark mages come and drag them away to the realm of shadows never to be seen again! Their families devastated and left miserable and worried!”
Each time an incident occurred he said, “I’m sorry,” and promised it would never happen again. However, the truth is, it never stopped. He couldn’t stop. The compulsion to use his cursed abilities had only gotten stronger with each passing day. Nowadays, he had to concentrate incredibly hard whenever touching anything or he’d find his fingers covered in melted goo. It was even worse when he was touching the ground. The situation was starting to spin out of control. So far only his mom and older brother were aware of his curse, but people were growing suspicious. His mother had overheard dangerous conversations. Worse, whenever he touched the earth he could feel seas of roiling molten rock hundreds of feet beneath the surface, trying to break free.
The Dark Mages placed the entire world under an eternal winter. Members of his remote village had to walk a long distance to reach just about any destination. Field trips were dangerous; you could die trying to traverse the cold unforgiving forests that surrounded the few isolated villages that the humans and elves had created. But now the school finally managed to organize another field trip, after hundreds of years. So he was doomed. The evil wizards were going to find him and destroy his family. Their destination was a dormant volcano ominously called “The Volcano of Dormant Doom.” Legend had it that its last catastrophic eruption was the harbinger of the eternal winter. The waves of volcanic rock continued until the Dark Mages’ powerful spell halted its eruption. Villagers said these events were yet another piece of evidence, that the Dark mages were benevolent rulers, and that everyone should listen and obey. Rory, on the other hand, was pretty sure that the Dark Mages were most definitely evil and that it was happenstance that they had stopped a volcanic eruption. Of course, he never said that out loud, though.
Three days into the class trip the volcano was still out of sight, but Rory could feel it from miles away, and it felt like the ancient landform was trying yank his powers out of the cage he had constructed to disguise himself within. Rory felt so nauseous and sick, he felt like he was going to vomit. His legs wobbled and it was way too hot. It was like someone took some steam from a hydrothermal vent and locked it in his throat. His head pounded and he breathed heavily, feeling like he was a hot, Rory-shaped blob.
He slowed his pace, waiting until everyone was walking ahead of him on the path, then vomited all over a tree root. To his horror, instead of vomiting out half digested slime, a glob of lava spilled from his lips and incinerated the tree root at his feet. Rory gulped down the remaining hot bile in his throat. Glancing at the glob of lava, he groaned. He’d done it again. Attempting to disguise the mess, Rory put a large rock on top of the puddle of bubbling lava and ran to catch up with the rest of his class.
As the class finished climbing the volcano, his face felt like a sweat waterfall was embedded on his forehead. Everyone was panting and begging to go home. And the most annoying part was that their teacher, Mr. Gerik, hadn’t even broken a sweat. Mr. Gerik was constantly insisting that he was a gentlemen with refined tastes, but he certainly didn’t look like one, with muscle-packed arms and legs, and hundreds of tattoos. Mr. Gerik attempted to keep up the charade by wearing a very silly-looking, colorful, striped suit every day that had gotten partially ripped along his left calf on the climb. Honestly, Mr. Gerik looked positively outrageous. Of course, no one would ever mention that to the multicolored, muscle-packed giant. Rory remembered the first time Mr. Gerik had revealed his tattoos to the class. Mr. Gerik had been demonstrating how to dissect a leech and had rolled his sleeves all the way up his arms. Everyone in the class had gasped near simultaneously at the sight of Mr. Gerik’s tattoo-covered arms. Mr. Gerik’s face had turned as red as a tomato and he quickly rolled his sleeves back down
Mr. Gerik growled, annoyed by all the whining.
“Oh, get up you worthless layabou-“ Mr. Gerik coughed and recomposed himself. Then in a fake aristocratic accent, he said, “I mean, get up you bawling buffoons. You philistines, open your eyes to the beauty and majesty of this volcano we have climbed.”
In fact, the peak of the volcano looked rather unremarkable. It was just an average-sized hole in the top of the mountain.
“The ground feels kind of hot,” said Gladys. “I guess that is kind of cool.”
“Seeeee!” said Mr. Gerik. “This volcano is amazing. In fact, everybody touch the ground! Now! Or else, everybody gets extra homework.”
Touch the ground? Touch the ground!?! That was the exact thing Rory had spent his entire life trying not to do! Mr. Gerik noticed that Rory wasn’t touching the ground and glared at him. Mr. Gerik stabbed his finger towards the earth. The message was clear: Touch the ground. Now. Or else. Rory gulped. He could do this, right, he had to do this. Pumping himself up mentally, he told himself he had spent his whole life hiding his curse. He could hold it in for a few seconds. A quick poke of the ground and done.
Rory extended his fingers toward the ground. Four inches from the ground, then three…then two…then one…and then none. Rory’s finger lightly brushed the warm earth. Nothing happened. The sun did not fall from the sky, the earth did not shake into pieces, the world did not end. Rory let out a sigh of relief. And to think he’d been so worried! Nothing had happened! Nothing at all.
And then the ground exploded.