[center][color=8493ca][h2]James Isaac Keening[/h2][/color][/center]


James threw the door to his room open and rushed to close and lock it behind him, the act taking him several seconds longer that it should have. His breathing was panicked, and his thoughts were scattered into white noise. He paced around the room, absentmindedly fiddling with random objects from among the mess while trying to focus on anything in particular.

His mind flitted between escape plans. Jumping out the window and just running to nowhere in particular was certainly an option. He could play it cool, but someone was bound to ask how or why he turned his test and an entire pencil to ash. Well, crawling into bed and just waiting for death certainly had its perks, considering he just definitely failed thermodynamics. Anna was likely to kill him over this too. Wait, no, she'd take it as some sort of rebellion against the system probably. Okay, his sister could be informed, but not for a while at least.

James' mind halted for a second as his hands had begun to solve a Rubik's Cube. What had even happened? It was the first exam of the semester, and he wasn't that worried about it. Well, he had only gotten two hours of sleep, and the only studying he had done was last night, but that was normal. Despite normal circumstances, then, James had somehow gained and activated this new ability. Even just thinking about it, his body tensed up. He desperately did not want it to activate accidentally again, or ideally ever. He could get by without the ability to turn paper to dust.

Admittedly though, he was curious, and learning to control it would at least prevent similar incidents. For now, he would keep it firmly locked up and try to regain some sense of normalcy. If the word online was anything to go buy, this magical power stuff wasn't going to be worth it. Most people would likely be quite happy to suddenly have magic, but James was primarily annoyed. 

James had finally settled on crawling into bed for an early sleep. He tossed the cube to the ground, and as it skittered towards the door he noticed something. There was a letter on the floor that must have been slipped under his door at some point. Who the hell would send him a letter? He was already bad at responding to texts as is, so archaic snail-mail wasn't exactly the smartest choice.

Despite his confusion at its existence, James picked the letter up and opened it. It didn't improve his day, and it made his mid-afternoon nap no longer an option. Screw the 'not telling Anna' grace period, this was an emergency. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed his sister.

[color=8493ca]"Get the hell over here, right now."[/color]

[hr]
[center][color=8493ca][h3] One Month Later[/h3][/color][/center]

James found himself stumbling along the side of a narrow road. The pavement was cracked, marred with disuse, and lined on both sides by sprawling weeds. He shoes felt as if they were seconds from falling apart, full of holes and fraying all around, but his steps were fall from careful. He had stopped caring about the weight of each footfall several hours ago, though it could have been days ago, he wasn't sure. Every step received the full brunt of his weight, carrying his body entirely by the momentum of the last heavy step. His knees constantly threaten to buckle, and a painful mass of blisters had certainly formed on the bottom of his feet, though he refused to check. To stop would be to die. 

Was he even walking in the right direction? The last time he checked the phone, which was now dead, he appeared to be on the last road before reaching the address, but some cruel act of fate could have pulled him off course. 

A noise rattled the loose stones of the road. A car was coming. James veered into the weeds, going deep enough that hopefully it's passengers wouldn't notice him. He couldn't take the risk. Eventually he deemed it safe enough to come out, with vines ripping more holes out of his hoodie. The stumbling continued for an indeterminable length of time, punctuated by the occasional rush into the bushes.

The only sounds James could hear were the blood rushing past his ears, his breathing, and his head throbbing. His body felt like it was falling apart, and his brain was minimizing his surroundings to compensate. The world was a blurry, half finished painting, still white at the edges. Eventually A large brown smudge materialized on the left of the road, at least he thought. He lurched in that direction. 

The shapes unblurred, the details filling in. It was some sort of large house, an old mansion? Very old, at that. There were too many greens and oranges where only the greys and beiges should have been. Windows missing, fallen boards, an unkempt lawn, vines and tree branches invading the home. This must have been the right address, the one from the letter. James was pretty sure he was still holding onto a scrap of it in his right hand. It was clenched tight, and it did feel like he was holding onto paper. There were no other buildings for miles, this had to be the one.

James focused his vision on the mansion, but despite that some of the smudges kept moving. People. There were people in front of the house. Not good. It looked like some of them were talking. Another person popped out of nowhere, as if through a portal, though James tried to pay that little mind. He adjusted his glasses, as useless as they were with the lenses covered in dirt and sweat and put his left hand into his pocket. He wrapped his fingers around a rock. 

James walked as nonchalantly as he could with legs that barely held him up, approaching the group. They all seemed to be waiting around, but he didn't exactly want to get caught up in that. He tried to wave as he walked, raising his hand to only about chest high, though he dropped his arm when he realized he was just flopping the half-charred letter in his grip about instead. He quickly strode up the steps and towards the door. 

He hurriedly reached for the doorknob with one hand, knocked on the door with the other, and tried to pull it open.