Lingering Curse

Since I was small, I had this lingering sense that something was missing, or rather, suppressed. I couldn’t understand what it was, or even why I felt that way, and whenever I brought it up with my parents, they were quick to talk about anything else.

As the years passed, however, I began to notice things others didn’t: patterns that no one else but me could see. Whenever I was happy, I saw that everyone around me was peaceful and content, but whenever I was sad or angry, only misfortune seemed to encircle the people I cared about. My parents had fights, my siblings failed their classes, and even my grandfather fell ill.

When I reached my teens, things became worse. My parents’ marriage was strained to the point where they were considering a divorce, and both my siblings were slowly isolating themselves and sinking deeper into depression. I asked my parents’ advice and saw a therapist, but even though I saw better progress over time, it seemed like my family’s mental health was yet to recover completely.

Not long into my therapy, my grandma paid us a visit and, following what looked like a serious conversation with my parents that I was not allowed to take part in, the three of them approached me and said there was something I should know. Grandma apologised to me and said she had sealed my powers on my mother’s request when I was born. I was a witch…

Neither my mom nor my siblings had inherited such powers, and because of a lingering curse, everyone who inherited them was plagued with misfortune. In my case, sealing my powers made everyone without powers around me fall prey to the curse instead. It’s what my grandmother had learned while looking for a way to break the curse.

Grandma said that she finally knew how to free us of the curse, but that she’d need my help to undo it. My mother was reluctant to unseal my powers, but we had no choice. After regaining my powers, I trained every day with my grandmother to sharpen my skills. Six months passed, and I was finally ready.

Our target was a trickster demon who had placed the original curse on one of our ancestors. Grandma set a trap for the demon and, with my help, performed a summoning spell to ensnare it. Once summoned, we performed a ritual to syphon away its powers and distribute them among my mother and siblings. The demon was rendered a powerless mortal by the end of the ritual, but my grandmother was thorough: she banished it to an empty realm, imprisoning it for life.