Chapter 1

On nights like this, with the breeze coming in through the open windows, I can usually forget that I don’t belong here. Cassie’s in her bed not even 5ft from mine, snoring away, and the wind tickles my face. I should be completely content. I’m safe. They are my family. This is where I belong. There is a digital clock sitting on my desk warning me in bright green numbers that it’s already 3am. We have to be at the education center at 8:30, but I have been lying in bed for hours with an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. With nothing else to do, I have been repeating the mantra I’ve been reciting in my head for years: I’m safe. They are my family. This is where I belong.

It’s not the first night that I have had this unshakable feeling that something is wrong, but this is the first time that the dread has hovered over me so completely. It is a warning, one that I know I need to heed, but I don’t know what it is warning me of. The need to do something other than lay here silent and still in my twin-sized bed is building to a point where I think I’m going to explode, so I quickly peep over to ensure that Cassie is still sound asleep – not that it really matters. Cassie is the one person I know with my entire being that I can trust, no matter what. She is more than just my sister; she is my best friend. My favorite person in the world.

Finally giving in to the desire, I concentrate on the pencil sitting on my nightstand, calling it to me without even making a sound; a new trick I’ve mastered. I may be having an existential crisis at the moment, but at least I’m getting good at making writing utensils bend to my will without even so much as a twitch of the eye. That has to be worth something, right? I wonder if my biological mother could make her pencil write whatever she pleased with just a thought, or twirl it in the air without ever touching it. Do I have a real sister or brother out there? The stray thought breaks my concentration, and the pencil falls to the ground with a distinct Tap!

“What are you still doing up?” Cassie rolls over to look at me, concern all over her freckled face.

“Sorry, I was just drafting my report for History. It’s due on Friday. I must have started to doze off.” She gives me an obvious ‘I don’t believe you’ look, but says nothing. Cassie always knows when to push and when to leave me be, so often that I sometimes I wonder if she is ‘different’ too. I know it’s only wishful thinking, though. I just don’t want to be alone.

“Get some rest, Ri. Tomorrow, I’ll let you levitate me.”

I giggle as she settles back in to her pillow, mostly for her sake, but a small and childish part of me is excited at the idea. The last time we tried it, I kept her suspended in the air for twenty seconds, which is now my current record. Levitating living beings is proving to be more difficult for me, as I need to connect with them in a way that I don’t have to with inanimate objects. To make it more difficult, Cassie is the only one who allows me to practice on her. Mom, dad, and Morris think it’s safer if I don’t use my ability at all, living as normal of a life as possible. It’s to keep me – and them – safe, of course. I know that, but I also know that I can’t stop doing it. The urge to use my abilities is stronger than my desire to fit in. Still, Prommius is not a place for anyone who is differently abled. They do not tolerate my kind here.

Cass, though, understands. We made a pact when we were 10 years old that I would only use my abilities in one of two places: Our shared bedroom, or our hideout. (It’s not really much of a “hideout” given that it’s in just an open field surrounded by a few dozen trees.) Still, nobody else goes there, so it is ours. For her, it’s all just for fun. Maybe a small rebellion against the monotony of our day to day lives. For me, it’s more than that. I want to master everything, to have a real use for an ability that, so far, just exists to remind me that I’m not like anyone else in our boring town - maybe even from everyone in the entire city of Prommius.

The Montmore family took me in when I was little more than a toddler. Caitlin – my adoptive mother - found me crying, begging for her to help me find my mommy and daddy. I barely remember sitting in front of the Kid’s Home – a building in the center of town for those whose parents die an early death, are exiled, or renounce their citizenship but do not want to take their children with them. I was intended to be one of these children, left parentless at a tender age of four. She didn’t know when she brought me home that I would be anything more than your average four-year-old girl, but when I began to throw fits, screaming for the parents who left me behind, I would send books flying aimlessly through the air or plates smashing against the wall. I don’t remember much about the earliest days of joining the family, but I do remember that Ross, my adoptive father, used to be afraid of me. Cassie was 5, in her first year of primary education, when our mother brought me home. She is the only one who I felt an instant connection with, never once feeling as if she didn’t want me here. She had a room to herself, all pinks and purples back then, that was filled with dolls of all sorts, handmade rocking horses, and little learning books that the education building sends home with the first-year students to teach them the importance of math and reading. She shared it all with me. I never felt any reluctance or selfishness from her. A five-year-old child and she was already the kindest person I’ve ever known.

It took mom months of working with me to find ways to keep my ability from surfacing uncontrollably and even longer for dad to stop fearing that I’ll out myself accidentally. Over time the pity and occasional mistrust evolved into adoration, and finally true, unconditional love. There is a distinct difference in the way I sense mom’s affection and that of my father’s. She is bursting with it most parts of the day, the emotion so strong and endless that I can feel it from across the room. Dad’s is calmer, almost undetectable. I figure he and Morris are the same in that way, they just don’t feel as strongly as Mom and Cassie do. I don’t know how it works, or why it only comes out when the people around me are displaying a particularly strong emotional reaction, but it’s always been a part of me. Another thing that makes me a freak.

Eventually, a bed was added to accommodate me, and the room went from being filled with the brightest, pinkest colors we could get our hands on at the market place, to the more sensible designs that are found easily in the town of Humnus. Today, we have our beds on either side of the large window. Each decorated with matching brown and teal comforters and pillows, with amber sheets. The toys have all gone back to the shops they were found in - everyone returns everything once they have no use for it anymore - and replaced with large wooden desks and plush teal chairs, with Solar-Com devices and Primary Education booklets placed on top. Brown and teal are the easiest colors to find in the city because they are the Banner colors of Prommius, which is the city that our small town of Humnus resides within. The walls are a plain white, with large, chocolate baseboards and trim that our dad taught us how to install. Above her bed, painted in the same shade as the baseboards in order to keep everything uniform, hangs a large plank of wood displaying her name. The same is above mine. It is a message to us just as it is for the outside world. We are the same. We are normal. We will comply.

Cassie keeps her Solar-Com on her person most times, even sleeps with it occasionally - The girl has an addiction to the games and social platforms installed on the device - but I opt to leave mine on my desk usually, often even forgetting to bring it with me to school (and getting in trouble for that forgetfulness). Most of the work assigned is automatically uploaded anyways, so it’s always there when I get home. The education center keeps a paper copy of the work as well because they don’t want us to forget how to handwrite, even though technology has completely taken over, and it’s no longer necessary. This is okay with me, though. I prefer to write on real paper, with real pencils and pens. Cassie calls it barbaric, but it’s the only nondigitized luxury left in Prommius. I drift off to sleep, wondering what life was like before the war destroyed Old Society, trying to picture in my mind all of the rudimentary ways in which they made it through their daily lives.

“Riley! It’s 7. You better get up if you want to...” she drops her voice, “play before classes.” I groan. It can’t be morning already. I open my eyes to the sun shining in through the glass windowpanes. Damn.

“Give me ten more minutes,” I whine, as I yawn and roll back over. Cassie giggles as her footsteps retreat, apparently giving in to my request. With all the shuffling around, and Morris brushing his teeth louder than a human being should ever be able to scrape bristles against their own gums, there’s no way I’m going to be able to fall back asleep, so I begrudgingly get up, throw on whatever is clean, and glare at Morris with my best ‘I hate you’ expression as I pass the bathroom. He doesn’t even notice. Mom and dad have already left for their duties for the day, as always, so I am free to make my breakfast come to me. I Sneak a glance behind me to make sure Morris is still in the bathroom, and then focus on my goal. It takes some concentration to call the banana over from across the room. Since it has no energy to connect with, I have to picture it perfectly in my mind, and then pull it towards me. This may sound complex, and maybe it once was, but it is second nature to me now. I’ve all but mastered controlling small objects, it’s the living I struggle with. The banana lands gently on the countertop in front of me, and I grin, full of pride before calling over an apple for Cassie as well. The practice can’t hurt, after all, and what Cassie doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

Considering doing the same for Morris’ breakfast, I sneak a glance towards the bathroom to see how he’s faring with scrubbing off his enamel, just to find that he is standing behind me, looking on disapprovingly.

“Please don’t tell mom,” I beg. I don’t know why I bother. He always tells mom.

“Why do you have to be so lazy about it though, it’s like 10 feet to the fridge!”

I feel my face heat, more embarrassed at my lack of discretion than anything else, but also noticing that he didn’t agree not to snitch. This, of course, prompts me to use bribery, in the form of extra chores, as a last-ditch attempt to win his silence. For us, this usually consists of wiping down counters, or powering up the ASCA (Automatic Sanitization and Containment Appliance), it cleans the floors, dishes, baseboards, and shower on its own, we just have to make sure to turn it off when it’s done and dispose of the dust and garbage that it collects. Normally we trade off days, but I’d take extra days of cleaning over mom’s disappointed gaze any day. Instead of responding, he just looks at me as if he’s going to say something, but then thinks better of it. Thinking the conversation is over, I grab my banana and Cassie’s apple, and turn to leave.

“Why are you so afraid I’ll tell mom? She never does anything to you, just the same old lecture” he asks tentatively.

“She just gets so ... Disappointed in me,” I admit. Just thinking about the sad look in her eyes as she reminds me of how dangerous it is to ‘show off’ is enough to bring tears to my eyes, and shame to my heart. I really am careless, anyone could have been looking through the kitchen window. That window is a tiny little thing, sitting above the sink taunting me. Anyone could have been looking.

“Alright Mor, lay off on the sister shaming,” We were both distracted, staring at the glass that separates us from the outside world, so neither he nor I saw Cassie come in. “We are going ahead of you today. There’s something wrong with my Solar-Com, so I’m going to get it checked out before heading to the E.D.”

Cassie is a better liar than me, so it’s always her job to come up with the cover story. Her face looks so honest that people never doubt anything she says. Waving goodbye, we take the normal route towards the school until we reach the intersection of 6th and main street, which is out of sight of our home, and then turn left on main street rather than continuing straight, heading to 7th Street, and then back track in the opposite direction of the education building – and the rest of town - which leads to our favorite spot. It’s the only empty, unused space in the entire town as far as we have ever seen. We found it years ago while strolling along the tree line, sick of walking through the same boring, identical, streets every day with nothing new to do. Our spot is surrounded on three sides with trees and bushes with nothing in view except for the backs of the few buildings on the edge of town. They don’t bother maintaining the grounds that can’t be seen from the road, so the grass is overgrown, obscuring us from view if anyone bothered to come this way for whatever reason. This, of course, makes it the perfect space for doing anything you wouldn’t want other people to see.

We finish our breakfast, and she stuffs the core of her apple in the small bag holding her solar-com and a notebook as I zip the peel of my banana in mine.

“Alright. Shall we get started? We only have about 20 minutes,” Cassie says as she sets her perfectly functioning Solar-Com to the timer function, preparing it to keep track of how long I can hold her above the ground.

Just then, I hear a rustle in the brush from the direction we came from, but when I scan the area to see who’s there, all I find is grass.

“Did you hear something?” I ask, just in case I’m not crazy.

“Nope. Focus.”

I do as she says. Staring intently at her chocolate colored Tennis shoes, I work to connect myself, or my energy rather, to hers. Once I feel the familiar sensation, I envision her floating exactly 4 inches above the ground. Not wasting any time, she clicks timer. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 - More rustling in the distance distracts me, and Cassie drops.

“You could have been more gentle,” she complains, even though she landed on her feet. I ignore her, focusing instead on the noise.

“Are you sure you don’t hear anything? I think somebody is out here.”

“Who else even knows about this place, Riley?” Insisting it’s nothing, she prepares to try again, but I know I’m not imagining it this time, and years of warnings to keep my abilities to myself, as well as the reminder of this morning, come barging into my mind. For a moment, I just stand there, frozen in fear and maybe a little bit of paranoia. Soon, the overwhelming feelings of guilt and terror loosen their hold on me, and I tear my gaze from the landscape, still unable to see who is out there, and focus on Cassie.

“Lets just go,” I urge. She looks disappointed but doesn’t argue, and we gather or things silently before heading back.

Our hideout is in the opposite direction from the education center, so we have to dodge the road our home is located on in case Morris is just now leaving, since the Solar repair shop is actually on the way to the EC and we don’t want to be caught in a lie. It takes about seven minutes to get to if we jog even with having to take a detour, and it’s just now approaching 7:50am, so we can stroll leisurely down neatly placed rows of houses and corner stores. Everything in Humnus is functional, and nothing is left empty once it loses its purpose. If there’s anything you can say about the Building and Disassembling Crew, it’s that they are efficient. There was once a trading center in the building on the right-hand corner two blocks away from home. It was the least visited in one in town, so they closed it down. Apparently, they decided that the city needs another enforcer hub instead. The entire inventory was transferred to the nearest operation trading post and that building was repurposed within two days. Cassie and I pass that very building as we slowly close the distance from where we were never meant to be, to where we spend 7 hours of the day, every day of our lives. We arrive on time, early even, then head over to the composting bins to deposit the inedible portions of our breakfast. Waving to students we are friendly with; we give each other a quick goodbye and separate to join our own social groups before heading inside.

The date: March 23rd, 303 AC. It was over 300 years ago that Old Society took its last breath. We don’t know much about what happened - just that there was a war, and almost everyone either died in battle or starved to death in what they call a worldwide economic collapse. And also, that people like me didn’t exist before the collapse.

We don’t use money anymore, as it is what historians believe drove Old Society to destroy itself. Now we just have simple rules: Become a citizen in one of the cities, graduate from Primary education, and get an apprenticeship wherever they have an opening. (You get to apply to your top three, but if none of those choices have an opening for you, you’re randomly placed instead – this is what happened to both mom and dad, who both had some rather ambitious applications to be placed in the top three political tiers.) Here in Prommius, Even the people have a specific function. In exchange, we are provided with anything we could possibly need. There are some basic laws, of course – You can’t kill, kidnap, steal, or generally harm yourself or anyone else, but everything has the same punishment: Banishment to the lost lands, or if you can make it, to another city (which all rumors say is impossible). Needless to say, not many people disobey. Right now, the teacher is droning on and on with half-fact/half- assumption about a life that no longer exists, and I doodle while I pretend to listen. History was always my least favorite because what I really want to learn, is something that isn’t in the curriculum. Why do people like me exist, and why are we considered such a danger? Other than, of course, the fact that technically we are not supposed to exist.

The day goes on as it always does: Chatting with the other students during breaks, and taking notes as the exhausted-looking teachers try to keep the attention of a group of teenagers who just don’t care. We do the same thing every day from age 5 to age 20. With me being 16, Cassie 17, and Morris 19 - none of us actually have any classes together. They like to keep us with our age groups, but we have mostly the same teachers from age 5 to graduation, they just teach slightly more complex versions of the same classes as the students age. Basically we have 6 main classes: Math, Science, History, Reading/Writing, Physical/Sexual education, and Law. You get a workbook, an unwelcome little gift on your birthday that you must complete throughout the year; exchanging the old, completed, book for a new one. If a student doesn’t fill the workbook with correct answers, he or she is held back until the work is done correctly. When there’s someone older in a younger class, it causes quite the scandal, mostly just because it breaks the norm. We all want to know if they’ll graduate on time, and what happens if you can’t graduate at 20? Will Tristen get exiled just for being stupid? But I haven’t seen a single person get so far behind that they can’t catch up. They stopped letting the intellectually underdeveloped go to school years ago. Their parents are expected to give them up, or one parent must work an extra shift to make up for the extra mouth the city has to feed. I have seen one boy in Humnus who has been deemed intellectually unfit for school or work, and he looks normal to me. Happy, taken care of, just like the rest of us. Of course, he isn’t just like the rest of us, given he isn’t allowed to go anywhere unaccompanied. He may look happy, but I feel sad for that boy. He will never know independence, never have a choice. Never get to find a little hidey hole in the back of town and steal just a moment of freedom. Here though, in the center of town inside the EC freedom is just a dream. Everyone knows by now what is expected of us; what to do, when to do it, how long to eat and where to dispose of the leftovers. There are times when it feels like I’m living the same day over and over and over again, stuck in a never-ending loop of boredom. We all fall in line every single day, like little robots willingly controlled by our overlords. Occasionally, I’ll have fleeting moments where I think the Lost Lands might be a better option than this, but vocalizing these thoughts wouldn’t be appropriate, so I dutifully keep them to myself.