Tuesday Flashback: School Days

Gage from the Asylum Tales is back for this week's Tuesday Flashback where he's talking about his younger years before he was whisked away to the Ivory Towers.

Within the Asylum Tales world, when a human child shows a spark of ability to control and use magic, the child is immediately whisked away to study in the Ivory Towers.  It is what is best for the child and for those around the child.  If the child does not learn to control this ability, he/she could become a threat to those around them without even trying.  While the Towers have proven time and again to be a terrible place, they do teach the child control.

And, even a bit reluctantly, Gage has come to admit that a part of him misses the Towers.  He may have hated his mentor Simon Thorn and all the witches and warlocks that he met while there, but being able to use magic, to tap into something larger than himself and feel a part of it, gave him a sense of belonging that he struggles to find in the regular world where he's not supposed to be using magic.  For Gage, living in the world without using magic is like willingly keeping his right hand behind his back as he goes through his day.

Before being taken away by the Towers at the age of seven, Gage was able to spend several years with his family as a normal little boy in a normal, middle-class family.  If you'd like to read about elementary school Gage and get a better glimpse of his unique world, please click the link here to read his short story School Days. (PDF)