I'm Elke Taffy.

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It’s not long before some people decide to remove the memory of receiving sensitive information that they wished they hadn’t acquired. others go as far as forgetting potentially dangerous secrets of their own.

In an attempt to read the map, you cut yourself on the paper. Your health decreases, but not only your health, your enemy’s health decreases too, exactly the same amount.

You’re really confused and decide to find out what’s going on. You cut yourself on the paper once again, but this time on purpose. Your and your enemy’s health decreases, again exactly the same amount.

Questions start filling your head, “am I the enemy? No, no, no, that can’t be. “ Your thoughts change immediately when you look at the cuts on your arm.

These are not from previous battles, you did this to yourself. You are constantly fighting in one of the hardest battles, the one that is going on inside your head. It all makes sense now.

“I am the enemy”

Water starts filling your eyes, and soon tears are running down your cheeks. All those horrible memories, all those painful thoughts.

Now, the only thing left to do is win this battle…

You look at the sword in your hand, you don’t want to do this, but you have no choice. You look death brave in the eyes, and stab yourself right in the heart.

All your feeling disappear, you feel nothing anymore. No pain, no sadness, there’s just blood. Lots and lots of blood.

Just as you’re about to take your final breath, you see something in the sky.

RESTARTING GAME…

Then everything goes black. Moments later you’re back in your old room, with a razor in your left hand, but no cuts yet in your right arm.

“Another chance”, you whisper. A smile appears on your face, you get up and start crying, out of happiness this time.

He knows how it feels to see their faces pinch outside the window before they hurry to the next room.

Shane grew up in a 100 point nursery. They had torn, ratty, books and no teachers, and when snack time came, the tray was pushed through a slat in the door. They were called “unruly” and “damaged” and “stupid.” A lot of the other kids threw tantrums and broke furniture (and sometimes other kids). A lot of the other kids went quiet after the first few years when they realized they’d never be adopted until they were old enough (or pretty enough) to be useful. A lot of the kids cried and didn’t stop until they got taken away or were aged out.

Shane’s grown up a lot since aging out. He put himself through school, got himself a job, shed his 100 points like the torn clothes he’d left the facility in. He’s powerful now, successful, and he’s grown out of the twisted nose, big ears, and gap-toothed smile that had made him one of the less attractive 100 point babies. Or maybe he’s grown into them. Who’s to say?

It’s taken him a long time to get enough Parent Points to do what he wants. Being a man is, for once, somewhat hindering as most of society equates “parental” with “maternal.” He’s lost count of how many social workers have politely hid expressions of surprise when he told them he wanted to adopt stag, that he’s willing to take the classes, get the grades, make the oaths to get even one Parent Point.

Well written, Greek (and Norse) mythology,

and

GAY?!

*

“Mom, I’m home!” 

“She’s out shopping, go do your homework.”

“Aunt Ingrid, they didn’t even HAVE homework when you were alive, why are you BUGGING me - “ 

“When I was alive we churned butter instead of our mother going to the store to buy it, do you want to learn how to churn butter?”

“Fine, okay, homework it is.” 

*

“David, don’t walk through the walls.”

“Opening the door is too hard.”

“Then walk through the DOOR like your sister. Respect the conventions at least.”

“Fiiiiiinnne…” 

*

“Mom, what are you doing?”

“Fixing the fence.” 

“Uncle Roger, are you possessing my mom?”

“We tried just having me tell her how to do it, but it was taking too long and she got frustrated.” 

“It’s WEIRD, though.”

“Do you want to do this?”

“No, I - “

“Too late. Come and learn how to fix this. You’re the man of the house now.”

“NOBODY SAYS THAT ANY MORE, UNCLE ROGER.”

*

“Did you have a fight with David?”

“No.”

“Then why are you both making that face?”

“There’s no FACE.”

“That’s what he said.” 

“We didn’t have a FIGHT, okay…”

“Aunt Ingrid is worried, she says he’s been moping all morning. He’s barely visible half the time.” 

“Look, we didn’t have a fight, I just asked him how he died and then it got weird.” 

“STEVE YOU DO NOT ASK PEOPLE HOW THEY DIED THAT IS SO RUDE.” 

“Mom, it came up, okay, it wasn’t just out of nowhere!”

“YOU APOLOGIZE RIGHT NOW.” 

* 

“Steve! David! Isobel! Who broke this vase?”

“Meteor did it.”

“It was not the dog! Which one of you was throwing things in the house?”

“No, really, Mom, it was Meteor.”

“And how did the dog get up on the mantlepiece?”

“Uh…”

“ISOBEL WERE YOU LEVITATING THE DOG AGAIN?”

*

“This is completely inaccurate.” 

“Roger…”

“I mean, look at those clothes. I’ve never seen *anyone* dressed like that.”

“They weren’t very careful about accurate costuming in these old movies.”

“I read ALL the Sherlock Holmes stories when they were first published and I ASSURE you he was a GENTLEMAN, not like - “

“Roger, will you just let us watch the moving pictures in peace?”

“But they’re WRONG.”

“We don’t care. Shush.”

*Roger mutters about bossy women and levitates popcorn*

*

“Steve, what happened to your face?”

“I got into a fight.” 

“I would surmise from your bruises that you lost.”

“I always lose.”

“Oh, we can’t have that! Come, I will teach you the manly art of fisticuffs.”

“ROGER NO.”

*

“Aunt Ingrid, can you teach me how to make pie?”

“Of course I can… why? I know boys do a lot of things now that girls used to, I understand that, but why pie?”

“I like pie.”

“I can make you a pie if you just want to eat pie.”

“… Ava likes pie too.”

“That girl who lives down the street?”

“Yeah…”

“Then I’ll help you make the pie. What kind?”

After I pass through that phase they take and x-ray of my entire body. There’s apparently been some cases where people had a Mark embedded inside of them.

I can see that my case is special, as I begin going through multiple examinations.

They catalogue every pimple on my body, every follicle and scar. They pull out special needles to look through my eyes.

It’s for no use, I’m 19 now, and no one has been able to find my Mark. Mark’s take the form of a tattoo, and your powers are derived from said Mark. A flame usually means you can manipulate fire, seers always have a third eye Mark on their head, as evidenced from the person currently examining me. Seers are rare, usually with there being one in about a million born. This is how I can tell I have an unusual case. They are extremely expensive, and getting ahold of one is very hard to do. I’ve had to wait for several years at the Vague Club to be seen. But to the Vague Club, the expense is worth it, as people with Vague Marks tend to be some of the most powerful.

But so far, there’s been no one with that had had no Mark, and the seer in front of me seemed to realize it. They kept on going on about I had a great power in me, but that was all useless without knowing where my Mark was. You couldn’t activate your powers without first knowing of your Mark, and then drawing from it.

The Vague Club helped people find their Marks, and then taught them how to use it, because most people develop with their Marks as children, and learning it as an adult is much harder.

Right now, there are about 15 other people in this particular Vague Club. My best friend among them is Riley, who has a Mark of a vortex hidden in her ear. My other friends include Tyler, who has a star Mark under his eyelid; Barnaby, with the Mark of a book just faintly visible under his fingernail, which had had to be removed to find it, and Julia, who has the Mark of light, which was a lighter shade then the rest of her skin, and was located on her foot.

I’ve had fun hanging out with them, but it’s difficult when they know, and are developing their Marks, as they become clearer with more usage. But they keep on supporting me, and make me feel welcome.

The seer in front of me finally gives up.

“It’s useless!” He concedes, standing up abruptly from the chair and moving out. “I’ve looked into her future and power, but there’s no hint of her Mark!” The helper standing in the room nods, noting it down.

“She has the most incredible power source I’ve ever seen! She could do untold things, probably reshape the cosmos. Her power level exceeds all else by at least a hundred! But she has no Mark”. The Seer exclaimed.

The helper nodded again. “We’ve never encountered so difficult a case, the longest lasting case until her took less than a year.”

I spoke up, “So, I don’t have a Mark?”

“It appears you don’t, and as such, we’ll going to be releasing you in two weeks. We’ve tried everything we can do, but if we can’t find your mark in that time, we’re going to want to make space for someone that we can help. I’m sorry, but it may just be that you have nothing.” The helper replied.

“What do you mean?” My head was fuzzy, until this point, they had always encouraged me, that I was worth something.

“The Vague Club has spent an enormous sum of expenses on you, and now we know that it was all for nothing. I’m sorry that we couldn’t find your Mark, but we can’t afford to maintain you any longer. We’ll continue to support you for the next two weeks while you find a means to support yourself. Again, I apologize.”

The helper led the seer out of the room, trying to look reassuring to me, that I could still contribute to society. But that was a lie; he was just saying bullcrap nothing to me. The Club had probably already come to the decision to get rid of me unless the seer found something. Because everyone else had Marks, it’s extremely hard to find a place to work unless you had a power associated with it. Every food and grocery store had people who could grow the food in front of you. Telekinetics could store and process products with ease, and they had the Intellects to monitor and compute anything you needed. The helper knew I wouldn’t be able to find a means for myself. No Mark meant I couldn’t get a job, as there were people with Marks that could do it better, so I would just have to live off of others.

And that was the worst part. In a world where everyone contributed, I would become the one who couldn’t. I was good for nothing for anyone else. A nobody.

I slowly got up, and wandered to my room. Inside there was a terminal to the Intellects, a bed, and a myriad of posters hanging up on the wall. There were also some weights in the corner next to my desk. If I could do nothing, maybe it would just be better if I was nothing. Oh they would regenerate me, people with the Mark of the heart could do that, but they wouldn’t if you left a note detailing you wanted death. The number of suicides today were almost nonexistent, like I was about to be, because there were Marks that could help those. They kept one in every Vague Club as well, because so many people feel helpless about finding a Mark. But now I knew that I didn’t have one, while everyone else did.

After I finished the note, I grabbed a blanket and began winding it up. I was almost through tying it to the fan when Riley rushed in.

“What are you doing?!” She shouted, as she extended her hand. The blanket immediately pulled through a vortex and appeared behind here.

“I’m nothing.” I replied, seeing no better answer. “I have no Mark.”

“That doesn’t matter, you can still live, still live a life!”

I shrugged, than began reaching for another blanket, which disappeared as well. “Would you please stop that!” I shouted, and then reached for another.

Soon all of the blankets were piled outside the door.

Riley took a second, then raised her palm down the hallway, I quickly reached out and jerked her hand down. “Do not call the Psychic.” I growled, “If I don’t have a Mark then what’s my purpose?”

She struggled to lift her hand up. I twisted, grabbing her other hand, which had begun reaching out, and grappled her to the ground.

There was momentary churning sensation, then I appeared back a couple feet from her. I quickly scrambled over just in time to pull her down again. This time, I balled her hands into fists, and tied them with a blanket. Then I went back to work, after ensuring no one else had heard what went down. Screams and rough noises were commonplace as people practiced using their Marks, but just to make sure, I put a blanket over the door to block out the sound.

“I didn’t run away from home, friendless, just to find someone like you, only to have them kill themselves the second they lost hope!” Riley cried. “Please don’t take away my friend.”

“You’d do better to find a new friend, I’m entirely worthless,” I answered without turning back from my work.

“I thought I was worthless too, my father constantly told me so when he couldn’t find my Mark. He didn’t want to be disgraced for having the only child who had no Mark, so he tattooed one on me himself. He violated me to put a false Mark so that he could claim that it was just hidden. And now that I’ve found a friend who made me feel like I’m not worthless. You aren’t worthless, you mean something to me.” Riley sobbed.

“At least you aren’t nothing, at least you had a father who cared at least somewhat about you.” I retorted.

“Please don’t do this… don’t make me see you do this.” She had turned around, and seemed defeated.

I finally finished. I stood up on my bed, and got ready.

But the world ended first.

I couldn’t see anything but fire; I began coughing out, expelling black smoke. It was rare for someone to Snap. Snapping only happened when someone’s Mark was removed, but doing so was extremely hard. But some people had Marks of chaos, Marks that continually changed and shifted, covering the whole of one’s body.

And they were the reason the Vague Club sought so frantically to help people with hard-to-find Marks. Only the most powerful Marks could contend with them.

I turned up, and looked around more. In what was the commons, I saw my friends. I stumbled up; my death was no longer on my mind. I walked around fire and pools of chaos, which were slowly spreading. When I finally reached them, I fell down.

They were dead, Tyler and Julia. I couldn’t see Barnaby. I quickly turned from the corpses as fires of chaos had begun burning them through.

Remembering Riley, I turned around quickly. She couldn’t be dead too, as the chaos looked like it was emerging from the center of the building.

I couldn’t see her.

Where was she?

I gazed out towards the city.

The city was gone.

I looked up, and saw evil incarnate.

A humanoid of a shifting Mark held up a cage of some of the other members that had Vague Marks. I saw Riley with them.

It was moving away. And my pain grew, coming out in a haunting scream. Maybe if I hadn’t been so distracted with myself, I could’ve saved her.

I wanted that Chaotic Marked person to be gone. To become nothing.

As my Mark is nothing.

The cage began falling from the sky, so I willed the gravity there to become nothing. And so it was.

Before the cage hit the ground, it was pulled through a chaos portal, as another one of the Chaotic Marked came in.

They were gone.

She was gone.

So too the other Chaotic Marked become nothing.

I was nothing.

I am Null, Zero, In-between. My Mark is nothing, as I can make others.

I HAVE NO WORDS