In Wool's Orphanage, many children of all ages and sizes sat around a large table. The one thing they had in common, was that they were all looking at a small boy who had just walked into the room. Their eyes focused on his body, especially on his ash white hair. This was of course Alex.
He felt extremely awkward as two dozen or so pairs of eyes watched and judged him silently. Many of them had heard his harrowing screams of pain, or saw as he convulsed wildly in Mr Bishop's arms, so of course, they were curious about what had happened to him.
"Hi guys." he mumbled weakly under their piercing stares.
These words seemed to have an effect as most of them stopped blatantly staring at him and made themselves busy with feigned conversation, however he could still feel many people eyeing him in their peripheral vision, as he shuffled towards the long table and sat on the only free seat, next to the head of the table, where Mr Bishop sat.
"I heard you had a seizure", a loud, patronising voice spoke in an accusing tone, causing the whole table to go silent, "you're not one of those crazies are you?"
Alex looked toward the source of this voice, a boy who looked to be 10 or 11, rather large for his age. He had hazel eyes and short black hair, a strong jawline, made his features more prominent. Alex had to search his memories for this boy.
"Be quiet Christian!", shouted Mr Bishop, "You're not allowed to talk to anyone in this place like that!"
Alex remembered him now. Christian Hartley, he was known to oppress and torment the young inhabitants of the orphanage. The older kids didn't really care about the younger kids, so he was often able to use his larger physique to intimidate the younger orphans, though very rarely actually used physical force on them, due to Mr Bishop's strict and severe punishments.
"I was only asking a question.", said Christian, "Plus, you can't blame me, his screams nearly blew the roof off of half the bloody orphanage! Everyone here is thinking it."
"I said that's enough!", bellowed Bishop.
"I'm just sayin' tha-"
"That's it! Go to your room! Stay there for an hour! And what about the rest of you, were you thinking what he said?", challenged Bishop, as he glared at the children around the table.
They vehemently shook their heads in denial, under Mr Bishop's fierce gaze. Only Christian scowled hatefully at Alex as he walked to his room. The room was silent for a few moments before Miss Price walked in holding a large platter of sausages and eggs in one hand, and a large pot of beans in the other.
"Breakfast is ready. Is everyone ready to eat?"
The awkward silence was broken as many reached forward to put food on their plates, once again feigning conversation. Yet, a weird atmosphere lingered in the air.
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After breakfast was over, Alex was sent to his room to rest, despite his heated protest.
'I won't be able to do anything, under Mr Bishop and Miss Price, for the next few weeks. That's so frustrating. The only thing I can do is practice using my powers, which I guess I was gonna do anyway, so it's not that bad'.
He surveyed the room, as he looked for an object to practise with, this time choosing a small alarm clock on his table. As it slowly rose into the air, Alex was surprised at the ease with which it was lifted into the air, seemingly requiring much less energy than when levitating the lamp.
'I know that I could levitate the lamp for at least half an hour. I wonder how long I can last while moving it around. How fast will I be able to move it?'
He put his maximum concentration on the lamp and imagined it moving to the left. The lamp jerked slightly to the left, before stopping. He had to once again focus on the image of the lamp moving in the air. It once again jerked.
It was incredibly hard. To completely focus on a single object and manipulate the energy that flowed through him, but soon he was able to move the lamp continuously, although perhaps that was misleading as it moved in a series of jerks in the air.
'I'm making progress, but it's slow.' His brow furrowed in consternation. 'I have to devote myself to mastering my ability, even if I have to spend every minute if every day to do so. I doubt this is the extent of my abilities as well, there must be more I can do. How often do you get a second chance at life? I can't waste it.'
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Several weeks later
Despite being happy to be reborn, the return to childhood was far from enjoyable as far as Alex was concerned, being an adult stuck in a small body really took the glamour out of being a child; he was small, weak and couldn't even see over tall tables. His feet didn't even touch the ground when he sat on a normal chair for God's sake!
He found returning to school especially loathsome. To him he was an adult stuck in a room full of children, unable and frankly, unwilling, to interact properly with those around him. Trapped for hours on end doing simple additions like 2 + 5, and learning about the alphabet. Not to mention the INCESSANT singing. Why was there a rhyme or song for every trivial thing? He was sure that nightmares of being trapped in a room of singing children would haunt him for years to come.
He would much rather hole himself up in his room at the orphanage and float his lamp.
That sounded strange.
Possibly the only good thing to come from his return to school was his alleged 'genius'. Apparently when you could do sixty addition questions in sixty seconds while the dunce next to you was still counting on his fingers for the third question, you were considered incredibly smart. That was entirely an accident. He wanted to tell them it took him a longer time to write the answer to each question than to work it out, but he decided there was little point in saying so.
Understandably, Alex did not enjoy then, the one on one time he was forced to spend with the teaching assistant, in order to "further facilitate his learning", as the teacher had put it, learning the arcane arts of 'subtraction', before the rest of the students.
What Alex truly anticipated each day was his return to the orphanage, or technically, foster home, in order to squirrel himself away in his room and devote himself to improving his control of his abilities. He was intoxicated by the feeling of the energy, which he had tentatively dubbed 'the Force' (after Star Wars of course) — flowing through him, and by seeing his slow, yet steady improvement.
The lamp moved much more fluidly, gliding smoothly through the air,, and there had been a great improvement in speed. He had also developed at least one new way to utilise his ability, being able to give things either a very weak push or pull. While not exactly powerful as of the moment, Alex was sure that it would be in the future, and even if not, he was extremely entertained using it to give a light tug on his teacher's hair whenever she was annoying him the most, or to make her drop pens and markers. Whatever he could do to inconvenience her for the inconvenience that school was to him.
He had also been able to somewhat explore the limits of his capabilities, for example, he was able to lift multiple objects at once — even if in separate areas of the room, though it was easier if they were near each other — and could even move said objects in the same direction at once. Moving many objects in multiple different directions simultaneously, yet eluded him, his concentration crumbling after just a couple of seconds if trying to move more than two objects in different directions.
He had also found that he was able to lift even his much heavier wardrobe or bed, the weight of items seemingly having little effect on his ability to lift them. It did however require much greater amounts of 'Force'.
He knew there was a limit to the amount of Force he could channel at once — if one imagined his body as a tube through which he pushed the force out, in a way he was able to sense the "fullness", or perhaps saturation was a better term, of said "tube", hence he knew there must be a theoretical limit to the amount of weight he could lift.
While he could easily lift a bed or a wardrobe, perhaps even a car, he was certainly unable to lift a lorry or a building — or as he had seen Darth Vader do, stop a spaceship from taking off.
Still, he remained hopeful that it may be possible in the future, after all, only a few weeks had passed and he had made what seemed to be great progress in mastering his ability.
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Despite the improvement in his powers, he was not happy. Recently, Alex had noticed that he had begun to become isolated from the other children in the orphanage. This was likely due to the fact that they thought he had a seizure, but Alex knew that Christian's efforts had had a large part to play in his budding isolation.
The kids, even some of the older ones, would direct dirty looks towards him whenever he walked into a room, and the young children of his age had begun to leave any room he was in, seemingly in fear.
Yet today, the problem he faced was not his isolation from the other children, but instead Christian himself towering above him with his large physique.
"You little b*stard.", he grinned menacingly while looking down upon Alex, "I finally have you alone. Mr Bishop embarrassed me in front of everyone because of you."
"What are you doing, Christian?", asked Alex. As an adult even in this situation he could remain calm, but a grave expression adorned his face in this situation, Christian was much older and larger than him. Being attacked by him could be extremely dangerous. Children — especially those of Christian's age — often went too far and were unaware of the serious harm they could do.
"You stupid now? I said I'm gonna teach you a lesson, you little sh*t."
With this, Christian raised his fist.
"Stop!", shouted Alex, "Don't you remember what happened last time you beat Joseph up? You were in your room for a week, as soon as you got home from school. You weren't even allowed to come down to eat, the food was taken to you."
Hearing this, Christian's expression changed, as he seemed to hesitate, weighing up the consequences. He slowly put down his fist.
"You know what? You're right, it's not worth it to deal with a freak."
At those words, something seemed to change inside of Alex. Something deep within him, something other, snapped. A shadow seemed to overcome him. His heart raced. His vision darkened. Sudden, tyrannical, oppressive anger overtook him, roaring in his chest like a caged beast. His mind seemed to lose control over his body as a haze fell over his consciousness. His eyes turned cold, a dim scarlet light flickered within them.
"What did you call me?"
Rather than an overwhelmingly furious voice, what came out was a cold, harsh whisper, almost snake-like in quality.
Christian, who was about to leave the room, turned.
"Huh? You didn't hear me?", a mocking smile came to his lips, "I called you crazy. You weirdo! You fre-"
Massive waves of power burst out of Alex, shocking him and causing the dust to swirl wildly in the air. The scarlet light in his eyes became brighter, tainting them slightly crimson.
His hands stretched outwards, as magic energy gathered around Christian, raising him into the air.
"I. Am not. A freak!"
Alex's every word came out as an almost feral growl. His splayed hand once again moved.
Slowly, Christian's own hand began to rise. The magic energy had gathered around his hand, pushing it up to his head. Suddenly, Christian's own hand was around his neck, clutching it, choking him.
Christian's face began to turn purple as his lips moved, frantically trying to take in air. Only his dying sputters escaped his lips. Alex stared. Soon his face and lips began to turn blue, his struggling becoming weaker.
The malicious scarlet light in Alex's eyes began to fade away.
Suddenly, Alex regained his senses, only to see Christian in the air in front of him struggling weakly for oxygen. In horror, he hurriedly put down his outstretched hand.
Christian fell out of the air, falling limply onto the ground. Alex stared at his body in fear, only to sigh in relief when he saw the weak rising and falling of his chest. But abruptly, the terrible realisation of what he had just done struck him. He had nearly killed a person.
But before he could think further, he clutched his head in pain, falling to his knees as his vision turned white.
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A young boy stood in front of a mirror. He had jet black hair, and dark brown eyes, his high cheekbones only further emphasised his handsomeness. Alex didn't know where he was.
Alex did not know where he was. He saw and heard everything from the point of view of this child, but he seemed to have no control over this body, or no body himself. It was as if he was watching a movie. His name was Tom Riddle, for some reason, this felt familiar, yet Alex could not remember why. It was on the tip of his tongue, yet it eluded his grasp.
Suddenly, what he saw seemed to move in high speed, as if a movie was sped up to four times the speed. The boy was actually an orphan. Wait, this was Wool's Orphanage! But something was different, it seemed older, less modern, and less... warm.
It was as if someone had placed a black and white filter over life in Wool's orphanage. Everything was a dull grey, and people seemed to drone on, uncaring and cold. This was certainly not the caring and homely Wool's Orphanage that he knew.
All of a sudden, his view changed, instead of the orphanage itself, he now saw other orphans. Scenes of children bullying and mocking him flashed past at high speed. Words like 'freak' and 'weirdo' were often used. He felt the callous and tyrannical anger within the boy — so like the anger that had controlled him.
Once again, the scene changed, he saw the boy holding a rabbit. Suddenly he threw it into the air... and it stayed in place. He felt the energy flowing out of his... Tom Riddle's body. This boy had powers like him! The rabbit began to float to the ceiling, there a noose had been hung, already prepared. The rabbit's head was put into the noose. The noose tightened. Tom Riddle cut off the flow of energy to his powers.
A sickening crack resounded around the orphanage.
Alex's view changed abruptly once again. A beach. Cliffs. Tom Riddle led two young children exploring. Was that... Mr. Bishop? Suddenly, they were in a cave, and the next moment Riddle turned on the two children and used his powers. They fell to the floor screaming inhumanly in pain, bodies arching unnaturally. Their shrieks bounced off the cave walls, echoing to eternity, seemingly trapped in an infinite loop.
Alex's view changed once again. This time, the vision had slowed down to a normal pace.
As he watched, a man wearing a bright plum velvet suit walked into Riddle's room.