I hit his neck. Once. That's all. And he's dead. Definitely not my fault.

LANCE

I don't have anything on me. No swords, no scabbards, no boxing gloves. Damn, why am I thinking of boxing gloves right now?

My knees turned jelly, my body is shaking so bad I feel like I'm gonna pee this instant. I watch his long nails going straight to my neck. My mind is frozen in the spot. But my body isn't.

The years of training Dad put me through bear fruit. I dodge. In my peripheral vision, I watch him shot straight towards his rusty gate. Predicting he won't die by smashing his face on the gate, I did what was natural to do. I respond to my reflexes.

What I learn from all those torturous hours of training. I plunge my elbow to his neck. So hard I could have sworn I heard three bones snap. And he went down with a loud bump.

His wings flump on his back. This is the chance I could take a closer look. I stretch it wide, while he's still out. They're connected to his body somehow, especially on the ribs. The texture is silky thin. Rough to the touch, dark brown in color. Why do I feel like I'm watching a real life materialization of monsters from Hollywood movies?

He started to stir so I took a step back. But I never let go of his wings. If he ever wakes up and attacks me again, I could rip this wing off and break his knee so he can't stand. Then interrogates him.

I think I may have caught the monster responsible for killing the cornfields. Plants don't die that easily. Not in just a matter of hours. If science can't explain this phenomenon as Dad implies, maybe this could be the work of supernatural.

I blinked. My heart is ramming against my chest. My blood is pumping in my ears. I'm feeling hot. This is the adrenaline rush I've felt while running earlier. But it's strange. Cause the effect tripled.

Normally, adrenaline would die down after staying at rest. Not peaks up. No, not like this. My face feels hot. My hands feel like burning. The old man with his doubled protruding teeth grinned at me. I didn't realize he's awake.

"Draining life. Uncontrolled power. What a fool you must have been." His voice is deep, upbraided and so malicious I barely recognize him from the grumpy man earlier.

"You killed all the plants didn't you?" I asked, he produced a cynical laugh.

"Answer me creepy head! Or I'll snap your wings in half." I tugged on his left wing. Not too hard for it to rip but strong enough to let him know my threat is real.

"I left my brethren and hide deep in the woods to escape. My masters…the Dark Elves are calling out for us to scatter, to hunt the Eklektos down. To bring your head to them. To skin your Mark out of your flesh."

He flash his bony teeth. It took me a while to notice his color is starting to wash out. His lips cracked. His arms grew frail. And he's coughing too much blood. His wings started to burn in my fingers. I let him go and he flunk in the mud. With a groan, he slowly flip himself over. His torn jacket got stain in black mud.

It came into my mind I should brought him to the Academy. For help. Maybe the infirmary could alleviate whatever pain or transformation phase he's going through. Maybe they could give him magic pill to turn him back to human. But his transformed body can cause panic in school.

I definitely can't.

I'm not so surprised now that I saw him in a weakened state.

I lived with a paranoid father for years. Who always talk about aliens following us and trying to kill me in cold blood whenever he's wasted.

"Hey.." I crouched down in front of him. "What are you?" The need to ask for help still lingers at the back of my mind.

Moments ago it was just his wings singeing without actually getting in fire. Now it's his frail hands, slowly turning to black ashes.

"What's going on with you? Are you dying?" I know it's a stupid question. But I can't help it.

He chuckled which turns into coughing too much blood.

"I don't need an enemy worrying about me. If I've known there are two Eklektos in this town I shouldn't have come here."

I reach out to touch his shoulders but he shoved my hand away.

"Can't you see I'm dying because of your blessing? You want to kill me that bad?"

"I – I don't understand."

Half of his body is disintegrating to ashes. A shudder went through my back. I don't think he's undergoing body transformation. Is he really dying? Why? Because of me? But I didn't do anything.

Except maybe cracking two small parts of bones on his neck.

"Hey, boy." He croaked. His eyelids are half open. He's panting really bad.

"Find your Seeker. And your fellow Eklektos. You without training, is a disaster. You unknowingly killed the plants, absorb my life force, who knows what next? Kill the whole school?"

I'm stumped. Too stupefied to ask anything I gawked at his bodiless figure. The singeing of his body parts speed up. The burnt remnants of what made up his body earlier became ashen papers blown by the wind.

I just realize what a weird and somehow repulsing feeling it is, talking to someone who has no body, only head.

"If you can't understand, ask your father. The parents of Eklektos are warned in dreams. I'm sure your father knows what powers hides within you. What it can do. How lethal it is. He must have put you under intensive training to prepare you for this. Good luck…and be careful. My brethren will stop at nothing to hunt you down."

With a final burst of light he disintegrates into dust.

He said I'm responsible for the cornfields…he said I killed him. But I didn't do anything. He said I have powers.

A power that could kill? Was there something like that? I open and close my fingers. Let's test it out. Maybe I may have something. A power. An ability, anything.

Maybe that could explain my Dad's weird behavior. Maybe that could explain the dead fields. Maybe that could explain why a monster shifting human is nothing but dust in front of me. I take a deep breath then exhaled. It's so unlike me to easily believe in someone. But I know…

What people tell you in their deathbeds, no matter how crazy it sounds, it's all real. Now I must remember. What did I do to old man here and dead corns there to result their deaths?

Power. Death. Power. Inner self. Death. I remember running like a crazy madman in the field. Adrenaline filled me with too much energy.

Is that somehow related to the plant's death?

Their life force... became my new source of energy?

I scampered on my feet and kneeled next to a small with long leaves plant. If it's power what did they normally say? There must be some kind of chanting or spells to say in here. I rubbed my fingers at the plant's flimsy stem.

"Uhh... hoppocus poporupus." I waited. Nothing happened.

"Abacadabra velanska." Still nothing. Hmm, last one.

"Bibidi bobido booh." I shook the plant a bit too hard it fell off.

Oh, damn. I stashed the broken stem and turn to leave. Can't believe I just did that.

I'm so stupid.