The Gifted

Chapter One - Whispering Fate

Ash fell softly from the grey skies, fooling the naive into thinking it was snow as it piled on the ground. It was only a week since the world became something else - a shell of what it had been just the week before. Thriving, hopeful, vivid. All now dying, ashen, dull. What hadn't been reduced to blackened stumps was now standing alone in the grey wind, serving as sanctuaries for the few souls left stumbling through the ashen storms.

A small group was left in one such sanctuary, where the owner had been wise and had just enough to keep them going. His house was sealed from the outside, with a complicated inner air filtration system in order to keep the ash at bay for as long as possible. Plastic sheets covered every window, layered three sheets thick with duct tape sealing every possible crevice. The door was surrounded by a sheeted 'room', where the sheets could be sealed with weights when the door would be opened to let others in. A high powered fan would be activated once the sheets were sealed to suck the soiled air to the outside, making it safe once more. However, knowing the system was nowhere perfect, everyone inside had to wear dust masks. The elderly and the children got the most advanced masks, while the adults had the simplest masks. Food was rationed. Sleep space was beginning to get limited.

Eventually, the masks stopped working. The system stopped working. The elderly died first. Then the immunocompromised children and adults. Ash was settling, but by the time the air finally cleared it was already too late. Billions were dead, and only a few survived.

This marked the beginning of a new calendar, a new era.
It was year 0, P.D.

--11 Years Later--
13 P.D.

"Come on Dylan! We gotta get some of these berries - our mom's will love these!" a voice as high as a squirrel squealed. 11 years after the war and the fallout that followed, nature had recovered. Berries, animals, flowers - even trees had made a comeback, according to their parents.

Mud flew across the blue sky and plopped down with a splat as a young boy sprinted towards the coveted berries. "Are ya sure they're the good ones? You know, the ones we can eat?" he asked eagerly, kneeling next to a girl in the muddy pebbled ground.

"I think so. They don't look like the mutant ones my mama keeps telling me 'bout. What do you think?" she asked, leaning into the bush to look at one. The boy squinted, his freckled face wrinkling in thought. "I dunno. But surely one of our moms can tell us if they're bad or not. Let's pick 'em!"

They both reached for the blackish berries, eager to collect them in their shirts so they could present them as proud trophies. The girl picked rather fast, grabbing as many as she could possibly stuff in her shirt, when she noticed the boy's hand just holding one of the berries.

"Dylan?"

He looked down at his hand, then at her with his mouth wide open. "It grew."

"Of course they grow stupid. That's what berries do!" she said, giggling.

"No Manda, it grew! It got bigger when I touched it!" he stated, eyes wide. "These hafta be mutant berries. I'm not touching 'em."

She shook her head and laughed harder. "Fine, don't touch 'em if you don't wanna. Why don'tcha go and let your mom know about the berries so she can get 'em herself then?" she grinned, her hazel eyes dancing with delight. Of course, she didn't want to make him run off, so she quickly corrected herself. "Ya know, you're probably right. Mom wouldn't want me to risk it. Let's just keep looking for a good fort. I think I saw one over there in the woods."

His eyes got big and he took a step back from the bush and Manda, as he called her. "The woods? You know we aren't supposed to go into the woods Manda. They're dangerous and 'sides, it's starting to get dark out."