What's Your power?

Life As Always Goes On

Thomas' POV:

"I, Thomas Cartwell, Hereby solemnly swear to protect the innocent and control chaos while upholding the law"

This is the school mantra we must repeat it every morning, similar to how average American students have to recite the pledge of allegiance. As a student of Divine Gardens school for gifted youth we must be a united front since this is in fact a military academy. Well its not exactly that kind of military academy. See Divine Gardens used to be a run down school but about 15 years ago they fixed it up to make a school that was safe for students with super powers. The reason its considered military is because that's where our funding comes from, we're used to solve small problems world wide, and all our parents signed wavers saying that if another world war breaks out they're okay with us being in it. I find it kinda crazy that all these parents let their students come here. I personally don't have any family to sign the paperwork so they let me do whatever.

Anyway as a school we have places where students can live, shop, work, and eat. This school is essentially a small town. We all live here because the outsiders, the normal people, are afraid that one day someone will snap and attack people. I see where they're coming from there but then there are students like me where our powers aren't dangerous more ... helpful? I can talk with animals sometimes its useful but others it's obnoxious. Ever wonder what birds were saying when they chirp well lets just say it's not always appropriate.

Where was I? Oh yes, classes, we have all the average ones (math, science, etc.) with one addition that would power training. That is one of my least favorites because I spend the entire class talking to the schools animals making sure they're feeling okay. The school has a rhino, a buffalo, a cheetah, and a gorilla for us to train with during training and PE. Maybe I should talk about the living situation? Well most students are assigned an apartment but the more dangerous students get cabins out in the woods surrounding the school. We still can't escape they have 20 foot fences surrounding the place. I'm forced to live in a cabin because of my animals. My eight dogs, 12 cats, two crows, five hummingbirds, and Harold the owl. Harold is special to me he actually saved me on the day my parents were killed.

My parents were killed when I was five one day I went over to a friends house down the street and when I got home the front door was open and there was a man with a knife covered in blood. I did what anyone would do in that situation. I screamed and ran away. The man barley had to try to catch me. Before I knew what was happening Harold flew in and collided with him. Giving me enough time to run to my neighbors house and have them protect me. The husband grabbed a gun to go find the man. The wife called the police and I went to find the owl. He was lying exactly where they had collided still disoriented. "excuse me Mr. Owl, I wanted to thank you for saving me"

He rolled over and stared at me. "I'm just glad you're okay, but if you don't mind I'm going back to sleep. Stay safe sonny."

He started to flap his wings assuming all I heard was bird noises like everyone else. "wait mr. owl did you just talk to me?"

He turned and looked at me. I don't know what it was that made him turn around maybe it was my green eyes that had turned red from crying or my tan hair that was filled with branches but he did and I've had him with me ever since. The school allows me to bring him everywhere. He and I talk during most periods and he helps me with my tests. I mean test in this school are pretty easy anyway there's a mind reader and a hyper intelligent student in every class. The mind reader just so happens to accidentally share the answers with everyone. I'm pretty sure the school knows about our little cheating ring but they don't really care. Right now I'm sitting in math my teacher gave us homework and she sat down. Now everybody is ignoring the homework and talking to their friends. I have a group of friends quite a few close friends and everybody knows me but I only hang out with like three people. There's Steven, my boyfriend, he can quite literally spit fire. He's tall and average looking with short red hair and dark brown eyes. Next is Mandy she can manipulate her hair to move and grab things. She's short and curvy with long silver hair. Finally there's Bailey, they don't fall within the gender binary and prefer they/them pronouns. They're short and a little hefty with long neon purple. They have amazing healing powers so they are really popular. Like I said the students are used for small conflict resolution well Bailey is always deployed because of their healing powers.

Math never has been much trouble for me. I'm going to be a vet so I only need to know algebra, really. I never decided that I wanted to be a vet. The school assigns us a career and we live our lives on campus doing those jobs sometimes heading outside to do small jobs. They decided since I can talk to animals I should be a vet and they've been pounding that into my head since I was five. I'm fine with it but some of the students don't like the jobs they've been assigned. We can protest but we really have no power over it so most have quit whining.

Class is over quickly so I head to my next class. Then the next class and I continue on until my day is finished. Harold is sitting on my shoulder. As I walk towards my little cabin. The school has one of the students feed my small army of animals and any new animals that wander up. Her name is Kathleen and they pick her to do quite a few little jobs around the campus because she has what I call sand skin. When in reality she can turn parts of herself into sand. So she can extend her arms create sandstorms. I think she's really cool ... apparently I'm the only one though. That's part of the problem if you don't have multiple powers or one power that can change everything then the school only needs you for funding. They keep the students even after graduation purely to get more money since our classes shrink through the year. To the outside world we're freaks so we don't fit in. We can pass for normal until we do what we're there to do then we have things thrown at us. It can get really dangerous I was called out a couple of time. It's really cool out there but it's still really dangerous.

I mean a lot of the fatalities are from curiosity of us students. One girl could manipulate her skin to be different things. One day she tried fire and kinda cooked herself ... that was a weird day. She is just one of many students who practice their skills and try something new and die. That won't happen for me because all I can do is talk. The most dangerous thing I did was for school they were wondering if I could talk my way out of stealing from a bear. So they hid my phone and wallet in a bears cave. When I went in I explained what happened and she just told me to get me crap and leave.

I step into my little shack it isn't much. There are three rooms in the place. A bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen/living room. I tend to spend my time here just resting and doing homework. The animals know where they are allowed and where they aren't so I just leave the doors open unless I'm showering or changing. I plop down onto the couch and decide to do my homework. I don't finish until nine pm so I slink into my room and slowly fall asleep in my bed.