From the first moment I opened my eyes, I knew the world was different. Nothing had changed—I was still in the tent, and the air was still filled with cries from throats twisted before birth, until they could scarcely be recognized as those of children. Though I had grown used to it, the hues that filled the air—reds, yellows, greens—shifted and blended together. They flowed like rivers, unconstrained by walls or flesh.
Hesitantly, I reached out to touch one of the shifting shades. I watched as I waved my hand, and the drifting currents responded, moving slowly at first, as though uncertain. Over the next few days, I realized that when I pulled on certain tones, the children would grow quiet. When I twisted them another way, they would cry out. I began to understand: these were the emotions of the other children, radiating from them like smoke from a fire. I watched the colors shift, entranced by their otherworldly beauty.
Slowly, I raised my hands and brought them down like a maestro demanding silence.
And so it was.
The room fell quiet.
To anyone watching, the stillness would have felt unnatural. The tent seemed hollow, as if some unseen flame had been snuffed out. The air no longer trembled with feeling; it hung heavy and dull. I did not notice. I was too consumed by the power—something I had only ever seen in fiction—now resting at my fingertips.
But I was not alone.
Somewhere in the camp, a thin figure sat before a fire as shadows danced and twisted in its light. The flames shifted in color, writhing as though alive. To any ordinary eye, it was only fire. But to one who looked too long, shapes began to form—eyes glaring from the embers, lips stretched wide in silent screams, whispers curling upward with the smoke. They promised blood. They promised hunger. They promised desire so thick it could have dragged a lesser man to his knees, reduced him to a babbling, drooling wreck.
Instead, with a lazy wave of a hand, the voices fell silent, and the fire stilled.
Within the flames, a figure appeared—small enough to be mistaken for a baby, were it not for the patches of brown fur and the head of a calf, small nubs protruding from its skull. Yet what drew the watcher's true interest was not the creature's form, but the power that flowed from the child's hands. Even from afar, the fire shifted in subtle response.
Cracked lips parted in a deranged smile, revealing sickly yellow teeth.