The Gifted

# ~1~

### Sabrina

I slowly open my eyes and look around, lifting my head. With a jolt of horror, I realize: they have me. I feel my senses coming back and pull at the chair I’m tied to. Ropes bind me to it, and cloth gags me. I freeze as the door opens and a man with pale hair, skin, and eyes enters. I let out a muffled scream.

“Sabrina Cowell. You are dangerous. And you need to be contained.”

No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

“Sabrina, you can’t get away. I’ve made sure of that.”

I sob as more people come in, untying me and retying me to a wheelchair. I let out muffled screams the entire time they push me down halls full of scientists making different devices until they roll me into a room. They close the door, and I look around. All I see are some devices, a counter, and a scientist. He fills up a needle with neon orange liquid and I thrash as he comes closer. I feel him stab the needle into my arm and I start to feel woozy. My head lolls forward and I black out.

\* \* \* \* \*

I wake up and find myself still in the room, but now strapped down tightly to a hospital bed. A male and female scientist both loom over me. I shake in horror as the male takes off the gag.

“Burn it out of her. I am sure it will work this time.” Doctor Gardam says from across the room.

The scientists clamp clips and stab tubes into my arms, legs, and chest. They put two tubes into each of my temples and push a breathing tube down my throat in case the experiment starts to kill me. These people are mad. Mad to do these things like this to a fourteen-year-old girl.

“Do it.” Gardam hisses and the female flips a switch on a machine.

Fire floods through my body and I thrash on the bonds. Heat over one hundred degrees pulses through me and I shriek through the breathing tube, choking on it. I choke as fire burns my every cell. But still, my ice doesn’t melt. My magic doesn’t go away.

“Harder.” The voice is one I now can’t quite place as my vision blurs and my breathing gets shallower.

My breathing turns into shallow gasps, my chest rising and falling in big ups and downs. My eyes roll into the back of my head and thrash, scream, choke, and gasp. And still, the magic doesn’t go.

“Turn it off. Jeffery can work on it some more. Tweak it a bit.” Gardam says.

The burning slows until it finally stops. And then, the orange blurry needle comes at me again. I feel a pinch on my arm as someone pulls tubes off of my legs. And then… black.

# ~2~

### Caleb

I’ve been here for thirty-two flippin’ days now, according to the clock in front of my stubborn face. It’s me and anyone else with a gift trapped inside this giant lab, being tortured, and poked, and prodded. If I can stay strong for one more day, I’ll be powerful enough to break myself out of here, and save anyone else with the gift. The gift to use magic. But until then, I have Miss Penelope Oona Thang here to try taking my gift again. ‘Cause, y’know, nothing screams ‘fun’ like having someone profusely torture you in different ways to steal your ability to absorb strength if I focus. Maybe that’s why they took so long to catch me. Or maybe that’s when they realized, ‘hey, if we can catch the strongest dude, we can catch ‘em all!”.

Either way, these doctors want my gift. Because, of course, torturing an innocent sixteen-year-old is ‘fun’. When torture time is over, and Miss Thang is nice and mad, I wait until the clock in front of me turns from 11:59 to 12:00. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for. When it’s dead-silent, and all of the doctors and scientists are gone. Because I’m getting the flip out here. And taking everyone else locked up with me. I focus until I silently break free from the chains holding me. I shake them off and wrench the doorknob hard enough to break the lock. I open the door quietly and look around.

Six large rooms fill up the hall and three have lights on. Everywhere else is dark. From down the hall, I can see more light lighting up the left turn. More people are down that way. I walk to the first room with the name, Sabrina Cowell on it. I break in and when I see what’s going on, gag. A girl- about fourteen- is strapped to a hospital bed. I hate how these doctors act like they’re helping people. I tug at my own hospital gown, a bit nervous about what I see. Sure, she’s in the bed, but the people seem to have planned to torture all night. Tubes and clamps stab into her pale skin, and the tubes connecting to her temples pulse. A breathing tube keeps her both alive, and silent, even as she screams.

I touch her and feel her skin burning. That means she must have a gift to do with ice and snow. I look at where the tubes are connected to, and see a machine sending something into her. Something that is over one hundred degrees hot. She thrashes so I turn off the machine. She keeps struggling as if heat hasn’t left her yet as I rip off tubes and clamps. I pull off the sucky things on her head and chuck them to the side. She seems to be a little cooler but is still burning up and having trouble breathing. I can only imagine what would happen if I took the breathing tube away.

I keep her on the bed and with the breathing tube, but untie the straps holding her down. She stops struggling, but her breathing is harsh and her eyes are closed. I lift the machine for the breathing tube onto the rolling bed and next to her. I creep out of the room, pushing the hospital room until I reach the next lit-up room. I look at the name: Fallon Edgar. I go in, holding onto the Sabrina girl in case anything happens to her, and look around. A girl about my age with long brown hair and white skin is inside a giant tank of water. It’s like a cup with a lid. And there’s nothing with her to keep her breathing. So she must be able to breathe underwater.

It seems like only for so long though. Because when I look closer, I can see her choking and gasping for breath. She looks up and sees me, her hair floating around in the water. I jog over and break the glass. It shatters, sending her forward in a torrent of water.

# ~3~

### Fallon

I choke and gasp for a minute before looking up at my savior. A tall guy with curly brown hair, green eyes, and white skin looks back at me. God, I thought I was going to die. He helps me up and I lean against a chair, breathing deeply.

After a second, he asks, “How long were you in there?”

I shudder. “Eleven days.”

I spit out a little water. The guy blinks before asking, “So, you’re Fallon?”

I nod. “You?”

“Caleb,” he replies.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“Getting everyone stuck here out.” Caleb answers.

“Like her?” I ask, pointing at the girl behind him.

Caleb nods. “All of us stuck here have gifts. And I was finally able to build up enough strength to break free.”

I take a step towards the door and wobble. I haven’t walked in eleven days. I grab onto the hospital bed and push it out the door, using it to balance.

“Who’s she?” I ask, pointing to the other girl.

“Sabrina Cowell,” Caleb replies. We walk to the next room with its lights on. The person is labeled, ‘Rose Dawson’. Caleb throws open the door.

“My gift is strength,” he explains. I nod. I walk pretty evenly into the room and look around. A chair has a rope, gag, and blindfold in midair around it, but no Rose.

“Invisibility.” Caleb and I breathe. The bonds move and a girl flickers into view. She has hair dyed like the galaxy, and light tan skin. She looks small and skinny- around only twelve.

“Can you hear us?” Caleb asks cautiously. Rose nods, thrashing at the bonds.

“Here-” I start but Caleb covers my mouth, hiding him, Sabrina, and I behind a huge machine.

“What-?” I start to whisper and Caleb points at the door. Footsteps draw nearer until a doctor opens the door. I breathe silently as he walks over Rose.

“Rosey, you need to sleep tonight. You can disappear anymore.” The flashbacks hit me hard. Screams, water, and the same menacing voice of Doctor Gardam.

“Hey, he’s gone,” Caleb says, shaking my shoulder. I snap out of it, but feel a hot tear trickle down my cheek.

“What’s wrong? Do you know him?” Caleb asks.

“He was the one who captured me,” I whisper, brushing away a few tears.

“Oh. I had Penelope.”

I stand up and walk over to Rose. She’s still blindfolded, but where there was tape, there’s some sort of mask making her unconscious. I take it off as Caleb finds a knife and cuts her free. After a second, she stirs and grabs my arm. I jump back. Caleb helps her take off the blindfold and picks her up, setting her down in the hospital bed, next to Sabrina. At that, Sabrina stirs a little before opening her eyes. She lifts her head and Rose jumps, disappearing. I feel someone whoosh past me and grab Rose’s hand. She flickers back into view.

“You okay?” Caleb asks Sabrina.

She feels at the burns littering her arms and legs and winces. She nods. We walk down the hall, turn the corner, and walk to the next door. The card reads, ‘Darren Shoda’. It takes Caleb an extra try to open the much thicker door and the second I move to step forward, I’m frozen in place.

# ~4~

### Rose

I look at the people saving me, stuck in a frozen position as a boy about seventeen years old with tan skin and black hair stands in a corner, his hands thrown out. I’m invisible and watch as Darren realizes it’s not the scientists and lowers his hands. I reappear about a foot away from him and he backs up into one of the four padded walls. The room is completely empty. Just steel and padding. Obviously, he has telekinetic abilities.

“We’re getting out of this dump,” Caleb explains.

“Okay, so that kinda explains you breaking open a super heavy steel door with an invisible girl, a girl covered in burns on a hospital bed, and a girl sopping wet.”

Fallon shrugs.

“Come on, let’s get out,” Caleb says.

We run down the hall until we reach a room at the very end. “Why do you think it’s so separated?” Fallon whispers.

“I guess we’re about to find out,” Caleb replies.

The nametag is ‘Coco Warren’. Caleb breaks us in and I look around the room. In the center, a flat black table sits there. We take a closer look and I jump back. A girl is strapped to the table and bolts of electricity keep getting sent through some sort of sucking tubes on her temples. Every time the tubes pulsate, she groans or screams. Her skin is fair, she has high cheekbones, and pale, blonde-white hair. I watch in horror as lightning bolts blast from her hands. The many bolts turn into a giant pair of scissors, cutting her free. Coco sits up abruptly, and, noticing us, makes a force field erupt around her. So, it looks like her gift is channeling lighting and electricity. I silently show her my gift and she lowers her force field.

We explain everything until Darren asks, “Do you want to take those things off?” Pointing at the sucker things.

“I can’t. In the twenty-nine days I’ve been here, even if I break free, I haven’t been able to take them off.” Coco sighs. She winces.

“Let me try,” Darren says. He throws out his hands and concentrates, pulling at the tubes. Coco screams and Darren hesitates.

“Keep going!” Coco orders in a slightly choked voice.

Darren pulls harder and Coco lets out choked screams. Darren finally pulls them off and the tubes go crazy, wavy around the room. And then a lightning bolt heads straight for Darren.