The fluorescent lights of the Quick-Shop were flickering as they always have been fore past 3 years. Standing on the the checkout counter was Ethan grant ,a twenty- two year old college dropout with a half-finished degree in business. He is an Average joe living his monotonous life of restocking soda fridge, mopping floor , and memorizing the faces of the regulars who came for cigarettes at 3:00 AM. It wasn't much of a life but it was his .
As usual of his daily routine scrolling through the reels he heard the voice "Hey, Kid. You got a light?". Ethan didn't even look up from the register. "Aisle four, next to the charcoal." He didn't see the man's face or how he was wearing heavy hoodie . A ll he saw was flash of silver- a blade reflecting the sickly blue light of the ceiling - and then a sudden, sharp coldness in his chest.
Registering the fact that he had been stabbed . It didn't feel like the movies, There was no slow-motion, no dramatic music . there was just sudden, heavy weight in his lungs and the smell of cigarettes. Ethan slumped against the rack, his knees hitting the floor with dull thud. He tried to speak, but his voice came out as a wet, ragged hitch. As his vision blurred into gray static, his last thought was absurdly mundane."The floor is still dirty. I was supposed to mop that". Then, the flickering lights finally went silent.
Ethan woke with the sudden gasp that burned his throat . he expected to feel the soft bed sheets and the white lights of hospital. Instead,he felt the scratchy, uncomfortable mattress. The air didn't smell like like cigarette and cheap coffee; it smelled of damp earth, cedar wood, and oncoming storm. Ethan tried to sit up, but his body felt heavy and uncoordinated. it was as if he was wearing a suit that was five size too small. When he looked down at his hands, his heart nearly stopped . They weren't the calloused, coffee-stained hands of a twenty-two-year-old. They were tiny. The skin was pale, smudged with dirt, and the fingers were short and stubby. He reached up to touch his face, feeling the soft, rounded cheeks of a child. His hair, usually a short buzz cut, was now a tangled, messy mop of black that fell into his eyes.
"Easy lad. Breathe slowly you've been under for a long time" The voice was deep and growly, like heavy rocks rubbing together. Ethan spun around and fell off the bed. His small legs tangled in a rough, burlap blanket. He hit the floor with a cry—but the sound that came out was a high-pitched, shaky squeak. He scrambled backward on the floorboards until his back hit a cold stone wall.
"Who… who are you?" Ethan stammered. His voice sounded like a stranger's. "Where am I?"
A man stood in the doorway. He was huge, his shoulders almost touching both sides of the frame. He wore a heavy gray robe and had a thick silver beard that reached his chest. But his face was the most intense part. He had a leather patch over his left eye. His right eye was a bright, piercing blue that seemed to look right through Ethan's skin.
"You're in the Ash-Tree Orphanage," the old man said. "And I am Havi, the caretaker. You had quite a fall, Ethan. The other kids thought you weren't coming back."
Ethan's mind was racing. Orphanage? Havi? The memory of the store and the knife felt like a dream that was already fading away. He looked around the room. There were no light switches. No humming fridges. Just wood, stone, and the sound of wind howling outside.
"I don't... I don't know this place," Ethan whispered. He looked at his small hands again, his breath coming in fast, panicked bursts. "This isn't right."
"A fever can do strange things to the mind," Havi said, stepping into the room. Each of his footsteps sounded like a drumbeat on the wood. He reached out a big, rough hand toward Ethan.
"Steady now," Havi said. He didn't sound mean, but he didn't sound soft, either. He placed a heavy hand on Ethan's shoulder.
The moment they touched, the world fractured.
Ethan's head started to throb with a sharp, stabbing pain. His vision doubled. Suddenly, everything looked like it was covered in a glowing blue haze. He saw the old man's hand move before it actually did. He saw a wooden bowl of water on a small stool tip over. He watched it hit the floor and break into three jagged pieces.
Two seconds later, it happened for real. Havi's robe brushed against the stool. The bowl fell. It broke.
The sound of the breaking bowl was loud in the quiet room. Ethan stared at the pieces of wood on the floor. He felt dizzy, like he was standing on the edge of a cliff. He looked up at Havi, his green eyes wide with terror.
"What was that?" Ethan gasped. "What just happened?"
Havi didn't look at the broken bowl. He didn't even look surprised. He just stared at Ethan with that bright blue eye. For the first time, a small, interested smile pulled at the corner of the old man's mouth.
"A spark," Havi whispered, mostly to himself. "One I didn't see coming"
"I saw it," Ethan cried, shaking his head. "I saw it break before it fell. Am I going crazy?"
"No," Havi said, his voice dropping to a low rumble. He stood up straight, his shadow stretching across the whole ceiling. "Most people are blind until they trip over a stone. But you… you saw the stone coming. That is a rare gift, boy. A dangerous one."
"I don't want it," Ethan whispered, clutching his scratchy tunic. "I just want everything to go back to normal."
"Normal is for the dead," Havi said firmly. He turned toward the door, his wooden staff clicking on the floor. "The other children are already in the courtyard. There are chores to be done, and your stomach is empty. If you want to keep that spark of yours alive, you will get up and follow me."
Ethan sat on the floor for a long time, staring at the broken bowl. He was confused and terrified, but his body—this new, hungry body—felt an instinctive need to follow the giant man.
He didn't have a choice.All he had was a headache and a one-eyed man. Which is gut feeling was telling him to follow the the strange man.
Ethan pushed himself up on his shaky, small legs. He took a deep breath, stepped over the broken bowl, and followed the old man out into the bright, blinding sunlight of a world he didn't understand.