“Alright class, let us begin today’s lesson,” Mr. Stevens began.
“Curses.”
“Curses!”
“CURSES!”
Various cries of ‘curses’ filled the air as Mr. Stevens began his lesson, which was in fact about curses. My name is Carmen Jonas and finally, finally, FINALLY, we had gotten to our unit about curses. Not the rude word kind of curse, not the ill-will kind, but actual, magical, curses. That, and the power (as well as danger) that comes with them.
“Can someone tell the major types of curses?” Mr. Stevens asked.
I raised my hand.
“Yes, Carmen?”
“There are three major types of curses,” I said. “Psyonic, elemental, and core based curses.”
“Very good,” he responded. “Now, can anyone please elaborate on Carmen’s statement?”
Several hands flew up, but one stuck out to me. My friend, Sora Deltoro's hand was in the air, maybe just an inch over everyone else’s. What was surprising was that Sora almost never participated in class.
“Ah!”, Mr. Stevens exclaimed. “How nice to see you participating in class Sora! Why don’t you say a word?”
A small voice, Sora’s, spoke, “Curses, when properly managed and overcome, can become what are known as cursed blessings, which can be used to grant magical abilities. All blessings and curses have an ‘essence,’ which manifests over time, and cursed essence can be harmful.” Then he went on, “Both cursed and blessed essence are extracted from the body through meditation.”
“Very good, Sora!”, Mr. Stevens said. “Now, we will be splitting the class into two groups. How many of you in the room have at least one curse?”, he asked.
About half of us raised our hands, including me and Sora.
“How many of you already regularly extract curse essence?”
Only me and Sora raised our hands.
“Alright, then. All those who have at least one curse, head to room A107 to learn about extracting essence. Carmen and Sora, head to the library for now. The rest of you, stay with me where we will try to find areas where we might develop blessings. Now, blessings are less powerful, but can be…”
At that point, Sora and I had already left for the library.
“Hey, Sora,” I whispered. “I figured out something cool to do with curse essence. Wanna see?”
He nodded. When we got to the library, I produced an empty fountain pen from my pocket. When he displayed a confused expression, I began to explain.
“Alright, so here’s what I figured out. You know how curse essence can cause a person to succumb to the curse?”
He nodded.
“Well, I realized that curse essence, once removed from the body, still contains the power of a curse. This way, you can utilize it using some sort of medium, like this pen,” I said, waving the pen. Then, I pulled out a small, empty inkwell from my bag. I extracted a little bit of curse essence, the glowing warmth growing in my chest until it was pushed out. Concentrating, I funneled it into the inkwell. A flash of recognition lit up across Sora’s face as he realized what I was doing. I dipped the pen into the inkwell, which was now full of essence, and filled the pen. Sora, intrigued, asked “Which one of your curses is that?”
This was a fair question, as he was one of the few people who knew of my multiple curses.
I told him, “Elemental, flora. I thought it would cause the least damage if anything went wrong.”
He nodded as I took the pen, now full and glowing green, and drew a small tree on a sheet of paper.
“Now, the interesting part. Watch this.”
Sora watched, intrigued, as I tapped my first finger on the paper. An amazed look replaced the curious one as a tiny tree sprouted out from the drawing.
“Pretty cool, right?” I said.
“DUDE!”
“What?”
“Do you know what this means?”
“Uh-”
“Scientists, real, actual scientists, who dedicate their entire lives to studying curses haven't figured this out yet!”
“Yes they have… HOLD ON A SECOND!”
Now I was yelling. I had accidentally discovered some completely new and rare information. But what to do with it…
As if reading my thoughts, Sora asked, “What should we do with it?”
I considered this for a moment.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he nodded solemnly. “Let’s meet up at your house to test what else this can do.”
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