I am different, I always was. Not in a subtle way or cute corky kind of way. I was just not like everyone else. I don’t know when was the moment I realized it, but I must have been really young because this is the only way I remember myself. 

The thing about being different is that you never feel like you belong. I am not sure if this is so for most people, but I desperately wanted to have that sense of home. The feeling that you are right where you’re supposed to be. It makes you watchful and careful, like walking in alien territory, never feeling safe enough to be your true self. 

Another thing about being different is that you always wait for something great to happen to you. Why was I so different if I was meant only to live this life? I walked around with a growing storm in my gut telling me that one day, I would find out. 

How was I different? 

I can’t even say in one word. I would have to start from the beginning. 

I grew up in a small town, unique in its language and culture. In a way, my town was an alien, like me, in its surroundings. A bubble of highland northern traditions and people in a distant world. Mixing in some points around the edges and staying forever the same in its core. I guess I love my hometown…and hate it. 

My parents are loving and wonderful, so are my siblings. Well, most of the time at least. I am ashamed to admit I’ve manipulated them in ways I regret.

I am not evil, just weak sometimes. I do have dark in me though. In that, I am not much different than all. Maybe if my powers were given to me after I was done growing up I would have been more responsible with them, but I was born with them.

You see I can sense people’s reactions and intentions. I guess you can say that what I sense are thoughts and feelings but I can’t read minds like you would read words. Thoughts are much less coherent than you would think. Sometimes they can be so random and elusive but they are usually connected to feelings that are so much more predictable. I know you think it should be the other way around. Thoughts should be logical and orderly and feelings are just uncontrolled urges. Well, not from my experience. 

Think of thoughts as radio waves floating around, that your mind picks up. The feelings are your frequency or channel. I found that people can pick up certain kinds of thoughts in certain moods or emotional states.

Sounds complicated? Well, imagine having the ability to sense all that per every person around you as a child. As I grew I learned to differentiate people by their distinct patterns. For instance, I would know who’s in the room before I entered it or locate one person in a crowd.  

My mother always says that I was a difficult baby and toddler, I couldn’t sleep for long and I cried a lot. Till the age of 6, they took me to every doctor and developmental expert in the area. I was diagnosed with multiple communication disorders. And then, after the age of 6, I got magically better. No one could offer any explanations but I did not need much support after that in everyday life. I suspect that was the time I began to somewhat control my power.

My initial way to deal was by blocking the sensations. Efficient as a start, it allowed me to collect myself and focus again. The next step was to identify the basic range of sensations and learn to predict them for my family members. Naturally, after that, I realized I can enhance a certain shade in that range or overshade another. 

It was when I identified my mother’s guilt that I understood how terrible my power can be. I think I was around 8 years old. I noticed a familiar feeling appearing every time my mother got angry with me or with my younger brother. It was almost hiding behind her anger and sometimes it came with her fatigue or tiredness. I don’t think I knew it was guilt, I just recognized it as being there tormenting her. When it was strong enough it caused her to pull back from her threats of punishment or banning something. So, I tried to focus on it and make it stronger. I’ve done it before with playfulness and other fun stuff so I didn’t think much of it, I just did it to get what I wanted. This way I got away with so many things and I loved it. My mother who was normally strict and fair started giving me an unimaginable amount of freedom. But another feeling was lurking. Well connected to guilt and more powerful was her depression. My mom was overwhelmed by it and I could sense it taking over her. It was so strong I couldn’t manipulate it anymore to make it go away. I created a monster and it devoured my mother and started to destroy my whole family. My dad felt so helpless, my younger brother was confused, neglected, and miserable. My own feelings of guilt and fear didn’t help either. 

Thankfully, my dad sought professional help for her. I was too afraid to even help her by enhancing her positive feelings of achievements and moments of happiness. I learned to respect the delicate balance of feelings and thoughts that keeps us going. It took me a long time to dare use my powers again. But power, any kind of power, is too tempting not to use. I told myself I will never overuse it again though. 

It’s like a prayer I still say every time: never overuse again…never overuse again…never overuse again. But after all, I was my own judge and sometimes I tended to be generous with myself.

By the time I was a teenager I developed a relative sense of comfort in my own skin. I was still afraid of my own powers (I still am), but they were almost impossible not to use as they were so much part of me. 

You must be thinking ‘wow! A superpower, I would have used it all the time’. But you see, I had very low self-esteem, I felt weak whenever I used it and not the other way around. Instead of facing a hard situation as a ‘normal’ person would do, I manipulated my way around it by taking advantage of my ability. 

I wish I could tell you that now since I know who I am, I feel completely comfortable in my skin. But it’s not so. 

My life felt like a scattered puzzle game before I met Mazgosh, the mistress of the forest.

The day she told me that I was a Nart my first reaction was disbelief, my second was a relief. Somehow everything made sense in a surreal way. But how can I be Adeef of the Narts if the Narts were legends that were told centuries ago? Well, according to Mazgosh, that’s because what everyone knew as myths were actually prophecies…