Gifted

Chapter Thirty-one

|Thursday|

Liza

PurePride Gaining Ground in Some Countries

The headline jumps out at me as I scan the paper as I fly to school. (I don't really have to think about where I'm going, since I've been traveling to school this way for years now. So I can do other things while I do.  The only thing I have to worry about is the wind ripping the paper out of my hands...that and the stray bird.) Intrigued and a bit worried, I begin to read.

The recognized hate-organization known as PurePride, which advocates the active discrimination and destruction of powered individuals, has made disturbing progress among certain African and Middle Eastern countries, recent reports say. In Uganda, rallies for the deaths of powered persons within their borders are flourishing, as well as the proposed passage of an amendment to their constitution that legalizes the summary death penalty for powered persons. In Iran and Saudi Arabia, similar incidents have occurred, including the recent stoning of one powered Imam, who was quickly denounced as a devil-worshipper. These disturbing events continue to crop up around the world.

The leader of PurePride has revealed himself to the world, PurePride itself stated Wednesday. This man is known as Jacobi Martinez, originally hailing from Newport, Wales. From what little information has surfaced regarding Martinez's past, Martinez was born John Schottler on 8 March 1963, to Nancy Porter and James Schottler. He attended Wellington Primary School and then continued to Elsworth Secondary School. Graduating at the bottom of his class, it was not expected he would continue on to pursue a degree at university, but he went on to study Public Relations at Eton College in England.

We do not know what Martinez's life was like or what he was doing between graduating from Eton and forming the hate-group PurePride just last year, a period of over thirty years, but he likely encountered a powered individual at some point, which led to his later hatred and/or fear of them. If he did, it is unknown why he did not come forward with the information there were powered individuals in the world before the Great Revelation on 4 September 2010.

I stop reading. There's a bill in Uganda to allow powered people to automatically get the death penalty? That's... I don't have the words how barbaric that is.

I fold and tuck the paper into my jeans pocket as the huge school comes into view. Pensacola is so small, we don't have separate schools; everything is K-12 here. Oh well, at least I've known everyone here basically my whole life. I touch down on the sidewalk next to the front doors, waving to a few friends before heading inside for track practice.

I start feeling ill around the fourteenth lap. Like, sick to my stomach ill. I ask to sit out the rest of practice. I'm never sick, so people are staring. At one point, my stomach cramps hard and I bolt for the bathroom, barely making it in time, throwing up until there's nothing left in my stomach. I just feel hideous.

Mina and Jake do not show up for track practice at all. Afterward, I phone home to see what's up.

"Hey, why weren't you guys here for track?" I say, managing to suppress a groan as my stomach cramps again.

There's silence on the other end for a moment, then I hear Jake cough, hard. "Liza, are you sick, too?" he says after getting his voice back.

"I, um, I threw up earlier. I just feel awful. I guess it was something I ate--"

He laughs hollowly. "Yeah, that might work...except that we're all sick too. We don't get sick, right? I don't know, I'm not in that class. Listen, you need to come home. Ok? Come back home. Something is--" He coughs again, and it's like he's coughing his lungs out. Horrible. "Something is really wrong," he finally manages.