As I observed him, I thought about what the Ruler said and saw the others around me do the same. Annabelle looked at the Ruler oddly. Her eyes were narrowed as if she had expected something else from him. The Ruler yawned, seemingly ignorant of the attention he had brought on himself. If I didn’t see what he did mere minutes ago, I wouldn’t have suspected him of having enough energy to walk.

I looked over to Jason and ticked, breaking the thin sheet of silence that had slowly grown around us. “So,” I said, “what was your Gift.”

He looked back at me with an are-you-kidding-me expression. “Why would I tell you that?” he asked, genuinely confused.

I took a seat and shook my head.

“Never mind.”

After a few minutes of waiting for the rest of the initiates to come in, Vera and Annabelle returned to practising with their Gifts and I decided I should do the same. I closed my eyes and opened my mind. I remembered what the Ruler said about being able to alter your Gift. I knew I had entered Vera’s mind at one point but I wasn’t sure if I could replicate it. Even if I could, I knew that I couldn’t control the bodies once I was in them.

Instead of deciding to enter someone’s mind, I decided to try seeing with my Gift. With my eyes still closed, I opened my mind and tried to count every mind I could sense. I could vaguely feel the minds around ten meters around me but I couldn’t read them. I felt a light tingling in my head but it went away after a few seconds. I tried to refine my search. I narrowed the area which I was looking through. Oddly, I found I could not only sense people but objects too.

Frowning slightly, I focused my sphere of perception on the chair that I was sitting on. I could tell in the most general sense that it was a chair but I couldn’t see what colour it was nor could I feel the smaller details of it. I remembered what the Ruler had said about me maybe being able to perform telekinesis. The chair felt familiar to me though I hadn’t seen it until today. I tried to connect to it. With my Gift, I tried to make it mine. Just like how the Ruler made everything in his domain his.

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After a few futile attempts to connect myself with the chair, I felt a thin string connecting it to me. If I was looking at it normally, I wouldn’t see it. But in my sphere of perception…

First, I tried moving it with my mind. Imagining it shifting a bit to the left or it wobbling a bit. It resisted stubbornly, staying in its place firmly as if taunting me. I tried experimenting with my Gift imparting my will on the object, moving it like it was an extension of my own body. Tired of trying something elegant practised, I rammed into the chair with the force of my Gift. I smiled once I felt the slight tremors from the chair’s movement. It worked. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know why. But. It worked.

I opened my eyes and realised that I might have been fiddling with my Gift for longer than I had expected. On top of the people who were already in the room, there was Seraphina, Lucas and a pair of people who I assumed were twins. I feel like I’ve seen those people before. I stopped for a moment. Me, Vera, Lucas, Jason, Annabelle, Seraphina and two others. That’s eight. There are eight people for each year in the Academy. That’s everyone.

Seraphina was staring at me like I was stupid. I wasn’t stupid. That, I was mostly sure of. “You done yet?” she asked and I nodded dumbly. Maybe I was stupid.

The Ruler pushed himself off the wall and clapped loudly to gather everyone’s attention. A bit too loud. Sound amplification? He grinned right after all the eyes were on him. “Congratulations everyone. Guess all of you have passed the Culling.”

I looked around me. Vera who I had known since childhood. Lucas, a friend who had forgotten about me. Seraphina, a girl who hated me. Annabelle and Jason, who both remained an enigma and two unknowns. The reality of the Academy sunk in. I was going to live with these people for the next three years.

The Ruler smiled a happy –psychopathic– grin as he prepared to start a speech.