Upon entering into the Vague Club, members go through a rigorous examination of their bodies to make sure their Mark isn’t just somewhere hidden. Many people are eliminated from the club in that fashion to ensure that their time isn’t wasted.
After I pass through that phase they take and x-ray of my entire body. There’s apparently been some cases where people had a Mark embedded inside of them.
I can see that my case is special, as I begin going through multiple examinations.
They catalogue every pimple on my body, every follicle and scar. They pull out special needles to look through my eyes.
It’s for no use, I’m 19 now, and no one has been able to find my Mark. Mark’s take the form of a tattoo, and your powers are derived from said Mark. A flame usually means you can manipulate fire, seers always have a third eye Mark on their head, as evidenced from the person currently examining me. Seers are rare, usually with there being one in about a million born. This is how I can tell I have an unusual case. They are extremely expensive, and getting ahold of one is very hard to do. I’ve had to wait for several years at the Vague Club to be seen. But to the Vague Club, the expense is worth it, as people with Vague Marks tend to be some of the most powerful.
But so far, there’s been no one with that had had no Mark, and the seer in front of me seemed to realize it. They kept on going on about I had a great power in me, but that was all useless without knowing where my Mark was. You couldn’t activate your powers without first knowing of your Mark, and then drawing from it.
The Vague Club helped people find their Marks, and then taught them how to use it, because most people develop with their Marks as children, and learning it as an adult is much harder.
Right now, there are about 15 other people in this particular Vague Club. My best friend among them is Riley, who has a Mark of a vortex hidden in her ear. My other friends include Tyler, who has a star Mark under his eyelid; Barnaby, with the Mark of a book just faintly visible under his fingernail, which had had to be removed to find it, and Julia, who has the Mark of light, which was a lighter shade then the rest of her skin, and was located on her foot.
I’ve had fun hanging out with them, but it’s difficult when they know, and are developing their Marks, as they become clearer with more usage. But they keep on supporting me, and make me feel welcome.
The seer in front of me finally gives up.
“It’s useless!” He concedes, standing up abruptly from the chair and moving out. “I’ve looked into her future and power, but there’s no hint of her Mark!” The helper standing in the room nods, noting it down.
“She has the most incredible power source I’ve ever seen! She could do untold things, probably reshape the cosmos. Her power level exceeds all else by at least a hundred! But she has no Mark”. The Seer exclaimed.
The helper nodded again. “We’ve never encountered so difficult a case, the longest lasting case until her took less than a year.”
I spoke up, “So, I don’t have a Mark?”
“It appears you don’t, and as such, we’ll going to be releasing you in two weeks. We’ve tried everything we can do, but if we can’t find your mark in that time, we’re going to want to make space for someone that we can help. I’m sorry, but it may just be that you have nothing.” The helper replied.
“What do you mean?” My head was fuzzy, until this point, they had always encouraged me, that I was worth something.
“The Vague Club has spent an enormous sum of expenses on you, and now we know that it was all for nothing. I’m sorry that we couldn’t find your Mark, but we can’t afford to maintain you any longer. We’ll continue to support you for the next two weeks while you find a means to support yourself. Again, I apologize.”
The helper led the seer out of the room, trying to look reassuring to me, that I could still contribute to society. But that was a lie; he was just saying bullcrap nothing to me. The Club had probably already come to the decision to get rid of me unless the seer found something. Because everyone else had Marks, it’s extremely hard to find a place to work unless you had a power associated with it. Every food and grocery store had people who could grow the food in front of you. Telekinetics could store and process products with ease, and they had the Intellects to monitor and compute anything you needed. The helper knew I wouldn’t be able to find a means for myself. No Mark meant I couldn’t get a job, as there were people with Marks that could do it better, so I would just have to live off of others.
And that was the worst part. In a world where everyone contributed, I would become the one who couldn’t. I was good for nothing for anyone else. A nobody.
I slowly got up, and wandered to my room. Inside there was a terminal to the Intellects, a bed, and a myriad of posters hanging up on the wall. There were also some weights in the corner next to my desk. If I could do nothing, maybe it would just be better if I was nothing. Oh they would regenerate me, people with the Mark of the heart could do that, but they wouldn’t if you left a note detailing you wanted death. The number of suicides today were almost nonexistent, like I was about to be, because there were Marks that could help those. They kept one in every Vague Club as well, because so many people feel helpless about finding a Mark. But now I knew that I didn’t have one, while everyone else did.
After I finished the note, I grabbed a blanket and began winding it up. I was almost through tying it to the fan when Riley rushed in.
“What are you doing?!” She shouted, as she extended her hand. The blanket immediately pulled through a vortex and appeared behind here.
“I’m nothing.” I replied, seeing no better answer. “I have no Mark.”
“That doesn’t matter, you can still live, still live a life!”
I shrugged, than began reaching for another blanket, which disappeared as well. “Would you please stop that!” I shouted, and then reached for another.
Soon all of the blankets were piled outside the door.
Riley took a second, then raised her palm down the hallway, I quickly reached out and jerked her hand down. “Do not call the Psychic.” I growled, “If I don’t have a Mark then what’s my purpose?”
She struggled to lift her hand up. I twisted, grabbing her other hand, which had begun reaching out, and grappled her to the ground.
There was momentary churning sensation, then I appeared back a couple feet from her. I quickly scrambled over just in time to pull her down again. This time, I balled her hands into fists, and tied them with a blanket. Then I went back to work, after ensuring no one else had heard what went down. Screams and rough noises were commonplace as people practiced using their Marks, but just to make sure, I put a blanket over the door to block out the sound.
“I didn’t run away from home, friendless, just to find someone like you, only to have them kill themselves the second they lost hope!” Riley cried. “Please don’t take away my friend.”
“You’d do better to find a new friend, I’m entirely worthless,” I answered without turning back from my work.
“I thought I was worthless too, my father constantly told me so when he couldn’t find my Mark. He didn’t want to be disgraced for having the only child who had no Mark, so he tattooed one on me himself. He violated me to put a false Mark so that he could claim that it was just hidden. And now that I’ve found a friend who made me feel like I’m not worthless. You aren’t worthless, you mean something to me.” Riley sobbed.
“At least you aren’t nothing, at least you had a father who cared at least somewhat about you.” I retorted.
“Please don’t do this… don’t make me see you do this.” She had turned around, and seemed defeated.
I finally finished. I stood up on my bed, and got ready.
But the world ended first.
I couldn’t see anything but fire; I began coughing out, expelling black smoke. It was rare for someone to Snap. Snapping only happened when someone’s Mark was removed, but doing so was extremely hard. But some people had Marks of chaos, Marks that continually changed and shifted, covering the whole of one’s body.
And they were the reason the Vague Club sought so frantically to help people with hard-to-find Marks. Only the most powerful Marks could contend with them.
I turned up, and looked around more. In what was the commons, I saw my friends. I stumbled up; my death was no longer on my mind. I walked around fire and pools of chaos, which were slowly spreading. When I finally reached them, I fell down.
They were dead, Tyler and Julia. I couldn’t see Barnaby. I quickly turned from the corpses as fires of chaos had begun burning them through.
Remembering Riley, I turned around quickly. She couldn’t be dead too, as the chaos looked like it was emerging from the center of the building.
I gazed out towards the city.
I looked up, and saw evil incarnate.
A humanoid of a shifting Mark held up a cage of some of the other members that had Vague Marks. I saw Riley with them.
It was moving away. And my pain grew, coming out in a haunting scream. Maybe if I hadn’t been so distracted with myself, I could’ve saved her.
I wanted that Chaotic Marked person to be gone. To become nothing.
The cage began falling from the sky, so I willed the gravity there to become nothing. And so it was.
Before the cage hit the ground, it was pulled through a chaos portal, as another one of the Chaotic Marked came in.
So too the other Chaotic Marked become nothing.
I am Null, Zero, In-between. My Mark is nothing, as I can make others.
And I want something back.
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