Chapter 1
Born in the Earth Kingdom was Ritho. His part goes like this…
"C'mon. It's the latest video game. Everyone's playing it," Ritho's older brother, Harue, was literally on his knees begging Ritho to help him buy this game. Ritho glanced at him with his sharp green eyes speckled with gold and looked back down. He slowly traced his forefinger across a pile of soil in his backyard. He knew that Harue didn't have enough money to buy this so-called awesome game. Ritho did, and more, because he'd been saving his money. Never spent a cent in his eleven-year life. He wasn't going to start now.
He shook his dark brown hair no. "I'm not going to. Maybe you should have thought of that before you bought Bloody Ruins IV. Besides, if my money's going into it, it's gotta be something I'm going to like too."
"You might like it," Harue's dark eyes asked pleadingly.
"Bloody Ruins V?" Ritho asked suspiciously without looking up from his drawing. It sort of looked like a platypus bear.
"You're such a wimp," Harue scowled at him before walking back into the house.
"And that's supposed to make me want to give my money away?" Ritho called before Harue slammed the door shut.
Ritho sighed and lay back on the soil. Harue constantly teased him saying that it was dirt. It's soil. Ritho thought. It's just that no one understands. Whenever he was feeling soil tricking down his fingers or just touching, he just somehow felt connected to it. For a while, he never knew what it meant, but just that the feeling was with him so often.
His parents thought him strange too, him being the only one with green eyes for generations and that he never liked things the average boy thought was cool. Sure, he fist fought and watched TV, but it wasn't like he needed to do it.
"Am I strange?" he silently questioned himself. He wasn't sure of that. What he was sure of was that he felt a pull to the ground stronger than he thought possible.
Maybe if I get off the ground it'll stop. He thought. But what happened next nearly made him run inside. For as he got up, so did the ground. There it was. Spikes of rock that was never there before.
Ritho was staring at it mouth open. Maybe this confirmed that he was strange. How was he going to explain this to his parent and Harue? He looked at it again and noticed his arms were up starting to feel sore. He put them down and as they fell, so did the rocks. This really got him scared and he ran inside his house and into his room before he started recounting what had happened. After what seemed like hours, he took a deep breath and walked across the hall to the dining room were there was a prepared meal. And an almost prepared table. Mom and Dad were sitting down eating soup, noodles, and noticeable lump of mystery meat. You'd think they'd have that only in schools. Guess again. He quickly sat down at the table and took a spoon of his soup.
"Where were you, Ritho?" Ritho gazed from his bowl to the seat across from him. There was Harue with a scowl on his face. Ritho remembered how long he could hold grudges and looked back at his soup.
"In my room," he answered.
"What were you doing?" His dad asked him. Ritho mentally groaned. This was routine, trying to make conversation out of him since he hardly ever spoke.
"Just thinking,"
"I see," Dad said.
"Your brother said you were also out for a while in the backyard drawing on the dirt. Is this true?"
Ritho wanted to remind her that it was soil, not dirt, but he thought otherwise. "Yes,"
"Son, your father and I don't want you to be so alone during the afternoons. It's not healthy. You need to get out and do something." She gazed at him with soft brown eyes. "We want the best for you,"
"Yeah, I know," Ritho said. Then changing the subject, he said. "But I like the earth. I feel a connection to it. I don't feel alone," He was a little surprised to have said all this.
His parents glanced at each other as if they had accomplished something. "You'd think he was an earth bender by the way he's speaking," His father mumbled to his mother.
"What's an earth bender?" Ritho asked never hearing the word before.
Instead of answering his question, they went to ask Harue how his day was. He made a mental note to check in the library tomorrow. Apparently, it was so important that they didn't event mention it again. Then what was it? Why didn't they tell him? Could it be dangerous? These thoughts formed in his mind as he gulped down his food and went to his room.