He woke up in the morning feeling the crushing feeling of being worthless as he usual. “Get up you rat!” A man yelled into his “room”. He wouldn’t even call it a room considering that it didn’t have anything in it, but a straw filled pillow and scratchy thin blanket.

He pulled his thin, wiry frame off the ground, and prepared himself to face the day. He already knew what was going to happen; like always, he would be the test dummy for all the mages to see if their control would get better.

He was barely to his feet when the door to his freezing, cramped room was ripped open. “When I say get up, I mean NOW!” The large man in the door said pulling him out of his room by his neck. There wasn’t much he could do; he wasn’t strong enough, even if he was at his peak condition that being not half starved, and sleep deprived, he still wouldn’t be able to pry the man’s pinky finger from around his neck.

He let himself be drug out as fighting back would only leave him more bruised than what his neck was going to be.

The man that stood holding him around his neck was also a mage. All mages in this area specialized in animal training which is basically the ability to control an animal. Everyone is specialized to one animal and depending on how strong they are can be the difference in their control.

Most people seemed to represent the animal they were able to control. For example, the man that had drug him out of his room was big, burly, and used brute strength in a fight, or in this case out of a fight. He could control bears who were large, hairy, and extremely strong. That man was hairy in pretty much every place that he visibly displayed.

He wasn’t really sure what animal he could control even if he was strong enough to control an animal. Everyone was so sure that he could not control a single animal because he had such odd looks and his size was not exactly tall.

In fact, he was completely white: his skin was white, his hair was white, and even his eyes were an unnerving white that only had black around his irises, and black for his pupils. Although, the way he looked, one would never know considering his fair skin was littered with scars, bruises, wounds that had scabbed over, and most of all, dried dirt and mud.

His hair was matted and dirty and because of his lack of nutrients you’d think it would be lank, but if it were to be clean, it would have shown like a king’s hair.

The bear-man who he knew was really named Marcus let go of his neck and marched on. The man knew that he would follow otherwise, he would be hurt all the much more. He followed behind, grasping his neck between his thin fingers, gasping for air.