Obliteration

Chapter 1

^^This is Addison

(This is the first story that I have ever shared with people so please be patient, it may start out slow but it's full of many twists! Please let me know what you think of it!)

The heat of the summer encases my skin while the wild breeze kisses my face, and as I sit atop the roof of my dorm I think about how happy my life has become.

It has not always been like this. All of the struggles of my life started at a very young age, so young that I cannot remember them clearly, but I, like the rest of the Island, know the stories.

I was a happy baby, so happy that my parents thought something was wrong with me. I never once cried, never got angry, and if I ever needed anything I would just simply clap my hands as well as a baby can. When I was three my parents had another daughter and they named her Masey. Masey wasn't as
happy as I was as a baby, she was the typical fussy baby who cried when she needed anything, but overall nothing was bad and we lived peacefully.

Life stayed this way until I was five years old, and my parents got used to it, they thought that they were just lucky. The age of five is very important for the people on the Island. This is the age that a child starts to develop their mind, and they access their Control. When this happened to me people started to notice that I lost my constant happiness, and became more of a normal child. I learned how to get angry, and occasionally my Control pushed my anger to another level, a dangerous level.

I lost power over my Control in one stupid five-year-old tantrum, and it ended in the loss of my parent's lives. It became clear that my Control is not one of the typical five, but it wasn't really understood until two years after the incident. 

"Mara!", the voice of my best friend Addison pulled me from my thoughts, "I've been looking everywhere for you! Hurry up or we'll be late for class." 

Addison's been my best friend for about five years, when we first got selected as roommates in the campus dorms during our middle school years. She's the first person on campus that wasn't afraid of me, the first roommate that didn't go crying to the school Dean to be switched out because they were afraid I would hurt them.

Before she came along I was the outcast, feared by my classmates and never invited to any sort of group gathering. I look up at her just as she finishes climbing on top of the roof. Her familiar blond hair blowing behind her like a movie star as she walks up to me. Her bright, unnaturally green eyes that mark her as a telepath shine as she squints against the sun.

"Why should I hurry to sit in a classroom for an hour listening to Professor Snorestrom drone on about something that happened two hundred years ago? I swear I lose brain cells listening to him go on."

    "Just hurry up! And you shouldn't call him that, Professor Marstrom is actually very nice when you get him talking about something other than the eighteenth century."

She's not wrong, Marstrom never gives us a lot of homework and is one of few people who aren't scared of me. I go to class and it's just as boring as expected, The only perk being that Addison and our other friend Kayla are in there with me. Kayla and I spend the time passing notes while Addi uses her Telepathy to participate in the conversation.

It's the same routine every day, and just like every other day we meet up with the rest of our friend after class. The good part about living on campus is that even though we're still in high school, classes are run as though we were at a Normals college. The three of us go to our typical table in the outside commons area and see Quinn, Landon, and Julian already there waiting for us.

The six of us met on our first day of high school. The school has a tradition of putting everybody into groups of five to go explore the high school campus and learn where your going to be living until you graduate. Since there are five different Controls they typically try to put one of each Control into a group, but our group had six because of me.

After killing my parents I agreed to be a part of many experiments in an attempt to find out what I am. My Control is unique. It's new. They discovered that I am the start of a new development mentally, proof that our minds are still evolving.

My Control was named Obliteration. I am able to control the nerves in the human body and make them painful, or, as I unfortunately found out at a young age, I can make them burst, causing permanent, or even fatal, damage.

When we were separated into these groups I was added to the one that Addi was in, as a way to make me feel not so excluded from the rest of my classmates. It was in this group that the six of us all met, and we clicked into a lasting friendship immediately. Addi's a Telepath, meaning she can read minds and speak into other people's minds. Kayla is a Precog, which is lingo for Precognition, which means the ability to see into the future. Then there's Quinn. She's an Empath so she can feel the emotions of those around her and when needed she can also control them. Empaths tend to feel useless when in reality they are the most important part of the lives of Transcendents. When we lose control of our emotions we also lose control of our Control. For me this can mean permanently injuring somebody or even killing them, and it's the same for a Telekinetic. If they lose control they can push people or objects without ever touching them which can be dangerous.

That's why Quinn is so close to our friend Landon. He's a Telekinetic who is not afraid of defending his friends, which is especially needed in my case.

And last but not least is Julian, the quiet one in our friend group. He's an Illusionist. He can fool the mind into seeing something that's not there, or can it's perception of what's is truly happening. Before my ability came along Illusionists were the ones cautioned, feared. Luckily they can control their Control, so people don't fear them like they do me.

I guess that's why I've always felt connected to him more than the rest of the group. That and the fact that every time he looks at me I get butterflies in my stomach and a blush on my face.

And that's where we were, sitting at our normal lunch table surrounded by our classmates and just hanging out, when suddenly a piercing alarm cut through the friendly noise.

It was the sound of a Campus lockdown, but unlike with the normal drills that we have there were no teachers waiting by the doors for us to come inside and get locked in a classroom. When the teachers arrived they were all out of breath, with shock and worry on their faces. As I was waiting for direction my heart started beating fast, and I just knew that this wasn't good.

My vision flooded with red and I couldn't see. My body knew where I was going but I couldn't focus on anything but the red sky in front of my eyes, and the black stars that floated in it. They directed us into classrooms and made us sit quietly for what felt like forever before we finally received the same message.

It was Professor Sunning telepathically reaching out to all Transcendents on Campus at once,

"I am here with the Dean. We ask that you don't freak out, stay calm and listen to these directions. The school is under attack. We don't know who or why but the Island Officials are currently outside fighting our attackers. Stay calm. Stay silent. We are trying our best to keep you all safe but we cannot do that unless you cooperate. We will let you know when we are all safe."