Day Of The Apocalypse
It started slowly, the evolution of mankind. The first person to gain what we now call “gifts”, was a man named “Jesus Christ”. He was the first of our kind, and he changed the world. People used to think that he was the son of God, but now humans look back at him and laugh. Because compared to the power we have now... he was nothing.
After the appearance of “Jesus” more and more evolutionized humans started appearing throughout history. Napoleon, Hitler, Picasso, leonardo da vinci, you can name some of the most famous people throughout history, and they were all people with gifts.
Yet as more and more people started appearing with these so called gifts, chaos ensued. Because the more powerful a gift was, the worse the side effects were. The side effects can be anything from influencing the personality or influencing the body itself. Some of these side effects were minor, some were major, some were even beneficial, but most weren’t. Scientists tried to figure out what caused this weird phenomenon, but they had no luck. And as more people were born with these gifts it brought chaos to the world. This chaos eventually lead to World War I and WWII.
These wars brought so much chaos and destruction to the world that an organization was formed. This organization was known as United Powers Front or “UPF” for short. With the creation of this new organization consisting of some of the most powerful people from countries all over the globe. They enforced Law & Order. They created the Academy system, where young people with gifts go to learn to control their gifts so they can one day benefit society.
Excerpt from the book “History Of Our Gifts”.
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I slowly open up my eyes and look down to realize I am covered in sweat. After thinking about this I look around the room. What I see is weird red haze. As I am thinking about how hot it is I slowly slip out of my bed and head towards the door.
“What is that weird crackling noise? And why is it so hot.” I thought to myself.
As I reach the door, I reach up and try to turn the knob.
“AGGGHHH!” I scream as tears come to my eyes and I bend over while holding my hand in pain.
For some reason the metal doorknob is really hot and it burnt my hand.
“Man I am probably gonna have a scar.” I think.
After saying this I try to think of why the door knob is so hot and how I am going to get it open.
After thinking about this for a bit I try to ignore the pain and I go grab the sheet from my bed. I then tear part of it off and wrap it around my hand. Then I walk back over to the door and try to open it again. The sheet did not manage to keep my hand from being burned a little bit, but it was not enough to not burn me as much as it did before, and it allowed me to open the door.
As I open the door I feel a scorching wave of heat slam against my skin, much worse than when I woke up. What I see outside in the hallway is a raging inferno. As I realize our house is on fire I feel lots of fear, but that fear quickly turns to dread as I can’t help but think about my sister.
“Lily!” I scream while walking out into the hallway.
While trying to keep low so I don’t inhale too much smoke.
“Brother!”
I hear Lily scream to the right down the hallway, so I head that direction. As I head down the hallway I call her name again.
“Lily!”
“Brother I am in here!”
I hear a scream and someone banging on the door next to me, so I try to get it open. As I ram my little shoulder against the door I hear a crack as the door breaks free and opens. I see Lily standing on the other side of the door with tears in her eyes.
“Ah Lily.” I say as I walk into the room.
“Brother!” She says as she runs up and hugs me.
*oof* “Hey Lily.”
“Brother, what is going on? I’m scared.”
“Ah, that's right she probably doesn’t know what is going on.” I thought.
“Lily you are gonna have to keep calm, I think the house is on fire, and I know you're scared but we have to get out of here. So come on, i’ll carry you on my back.” I say.
“Kay.” She says with teary eyes while trying to muster a brave face.
As Lily hops on my back we exit her room and slowly walk down the hallway while trying to stay low away from the smoke.
“Brother, what about Mommy and Daddy?” Lily asks with a frightened voice as she squirms on my back.
“We can go look for them right now.” I say with as brave of a sounding voice as I can muster while walking down the hallway.
“MOM! DAD!” Lily yells.
We don’t hear a single response, but Lily keeps yelling.
“MOM! DAD!”
As we walk into the main room with 3 other exits leading to different parts of the house. I realize we have nowhere to go because all the exits besides the one we came through are blocked by raging flames. As I think about this I put Lily on the floor, and she looks up into my eyes with scared, teary eyes as she starts to sob.
“Brother are Mommy and Daddy not coming?”
“No! Of course they are! They will definitely come for us.”
I lie to keep her hopes up, because I already fear the worst. While I am thinking about where my parents could be, Lily begins to cry and grab onto my shirt.
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As I kneel down and hold her close I whisper “Shhhhh, Lily it's going to be okay.”
As I say this I hear loud snapping noise above me so I look up. What I see is a large wooden beam above us starting to fall down due to the fire. I quickly throw Lily onto the ground and cover her with my body.
I look down at her and smile while saying “It’s all going to be okay.” before I feel a horrible burning pain on my back.
It only lasts for a second before the darkness overtakes me.
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Modern Day 2016
I slowly wake up as I hear a distant voice.
“waaaakkkkeee uppppppp.”
“Ah” I mumble.
“wake up”
“Huh?”
“WAKE UP!”
I jerk up and fall off of my bed.
“Hehehehe”
I hear a light giggle so I look up over my bed and see my adorable little sister standing there beside my bed.
“Come on bro, get up! Today is your first day of school!”
Ah shit Im late aren’t I?
“I woke you up early, because I know you like to sleep in and forget to set your alarm.”
“Ah Really? Thank you!”
“Hey bro, are you ok? You were sweating and jerking around in the bed.”
“Ah… No Lil, i’m fine it was just a dream.”
“Alright, well go get a shower I will have breakfast ready when you come out.” She says while looking at me with a face of disbelief.
My sister and I live in a one room apartment, well two rooms if you count the bathroom. I bought this place after saving the paycheck from my part time job for a while. We knew I was going to have to attend the Academy soon so we used it as an excuse to move out of our Aunt and Uncle’s place.
“Alright i'll go get a shower, wait… what are you making?” I ask with curiosity coating my voice.
“Oh.. just some fried eggs, and bacon.”
Ohhhh….bacon that sounds so good.
I quickly head into the small bathroom and get a quick shower. As I am in the shower I can’t help but look at my scarred hand and think about what happened.
It happened again, I don’t know why I keep having these nightmares.
As I turn off the water and hop out of the shower I look at myself in the mirror. What I see is a lean teenager at about the age of 16 with shaggy black hair, and horrible burn scars on his back and chest.
Hm, I've gotten taller maybe around 6 feet.
After I finish looking at myself in the mirror I quickly walk out of the bathroom and head into our main room. Our main room literally just consists of a curtain which behind that is the bed me and my little sister have to share. Other than that there is a single stove and counter with a microwave, and a small table in the middle of the room, with a little TV against the wall.
I look around the room and I see my little sister standing over the stove wearing an apron with her long purple hair tied in a pony tail. I knew that one day she would grow up to be a great beauty and lots of guys would try to pursue her.
Pffft, like I would let that happen. NO MAN IS WORTHY OF MY SISTER!
“Hey is breakfast ready?” I ask.
“Yea.” Lily says as she sets two plates with eggs and bacon on the table.
We both then sit at the table and start eating. Lily turns on the TV to channel 10 which is the Daily News. We listen to the News while eating our breakfast.
“Ohhh, Bro listen to this its pretty interesting!” Lily says.
The news reporter was talking about a group called “Sentinel”. Sentinel is a group of people with gifts that don’t like what the “UPF” is doing. They feel that the “UPF” is to oppressive and that they control the way we use our gifts to much.
“Earlier today at about 3:12 am the group known as Sentinel broke into the UPF Correctional Facility where some of the most powerful criminals are imprisoned.” The Reporter said.
“According to our sources they did not take anything, but they did break someone out. They broke out a man known as “Liam Day”. Now Liam Day was originally arrested for mass murder when the Illegal research he was conducting caused him to accidentally destroy the neighborhood he and his family were living in. Killing his wife and many others living in the neighborhood.” the reporter continued.
But Lily and I stopped listening after that, because Lily quickly turned off the TV. We continued to eat our breakfast while having small talk until it was time for me to leave.
Before I leave I quickly head into the bathroom and brush me teeth. When i come back out Lily is standing by the door with a boxed lunch.
“Awww, you made me a lunch?” I ask while smiling.
“Yea, I wanted to do something special since it’s your first day.” she says while smiling brightly.
“Alright, thanks.” I say while giving her a quick hug.
I then quickly grab my bag and put the boxed lunch inside then head towards the door.
“Hey! Be careful okay?” Lily says with a worried voice as I walk out the door.
“Yea, don’t worry I will.” I say to reassure her.
After I exit the apartment I quickly run down the stairs to the first floor of the apartment complex and run out the door. We live in the part of town that some people would consider “Ghetto”. I mean you can see graffiti and stuff like that all over the walls of buildings, and there are lots of rundown lots with weeds growing in the concrete. But it doesn’t matter to me or my sister, as long as we can get away from our aunt and uncle.
But since we live in this part of town I have to walk about 10 minutes through this part of town, and roughly another 20 minutes through the nicer part of town just to get to the Academy. I would drive, but I can’t afford a car or a taxi ride. What is nice though is that cars don’t run on gasoline anymore. They run on hydrogen. This happened back in the 60’s when a man gifted with Superior Intelligence created Hydrogen Fuel Cells.
After walking for about 30 minutes I finally arrive at the academy.
The Academy is in the nicer part of town. It looks like a giant cathedral, in fact the building used to be a church before the decline of Christianity in the early 1950’s. Anyway the “UPF” took the place over and renovated it and now it’s an Academy. There are many different Academies throughout the United States, but I am attending the one in New York.
As I enter The Academy through the front gates, what I see inside frightens me.