Outcast (Camp NaNo 2015)

Prologue

In the dark room filled with inadequate light fixtures was a group of thirteen men sitting around an oval table made of oak. The person on the immediate right side of the table's head wore a look of deep annoyance whereas the one on the immediate left looked pleading and concerned.

"She's a danger to everyone! She's a mindwalker--a magic user, a psychic!" the angry man to the right barked. The head of the table sighed.

They had been sitting here, arguing for hours and it made him wish that he wasn't caught up in all of this. It had been hard enough to keep his daughter out of the room for the last eight hours. Almost an entire day and he had kept her in the dark--or rather, he kept himself locked up in the dark while they discussed her. His daughter, the mindwalker.

And here he was, trying to decide her fate without her knowing, without her consent. It felt like a little part of him was slowly dying inside. Two sides, two choices and there could be no stalemate, there could be no truce and no third option. Control or chaos. Which did they think--which did he think--would rule his daughter's life?

"But with time we can teach her to control her abilities!" someone on the left exclaimed.

"And how many will die before that time?" the right hand man growled, pushing up a pair of glasses before they slid any further down his nose. "How many people?"

The head of the table put his head in his hands. He had to admit that his right hand man was right.

"I see your point." he said at length, "She is a danger, but, if after eighteen years--" the leader didn't get to finish his sentence, as his mind was launched into searing pain that made his vision turn black around the edges. However, he knew that he had no gotten the brunt of the force, for when he recovered, he saw his advisors on the floor around him, clutching their heads, one man gone limp.

After a few moments, the pain was gone and the first thing to break the terrible silence was the loud, deep roar of his right hand man, "You see now what she can do! she cannot remain here, for she has taken away one of the very people who aimed to keep her here on Sanurs! She has no knowledge of right and wrong, but that is nothing that can be fixed here. She must get far away from this place as fast as possible!"

The small girl stepped back, bumping the door and making bright sunlight spill into the room. The 12 men stared at her and the little girl ran out, her cries echoing as she was obviously just as frightened as they were.

"You can't do this to the girl!" a voice tried to reason. Nobody listened.

"No, ikshes!" the girl called to her father, pulling against the soldiers that dragged her away from her father and into the ship. she kicked, fought and dragged her feet but his daughter was no match for the soldiers.

He watched her stare out the window as the ship launched silently into the sky. He couldn't bear to see her disappear, so the leader of the planet Sanurs turned away, wiping tears from his eyes and desperately hoping that no one saw him do so. Banishing his daughter was supposed to be the hardest thing he would ever go through, but what came twenty years later would crumble that expectation like a biscuit.

A.N. Thanks for reading the first chapter of Outcast. On the top/side is a cover that @FreeAsTheWolves made for the novel! Thank you very much! :) Because of this and their awesome support (and for being a fellow Canadian) this chapter is dedicated to them. :)