Gifted

Part 3: Extraordinary

       

In my world, everyone is special. Everyone is born with a unique ability that can never be explained by science. All we know is that everyone has one. Everyone. All except for me. I have a dad that can fly, a mom who can mimic other people's abilities, a sister who can turn invisible, a brother with superhuman strength, but I, on the other hand, was born with no power at all. There is nothing special about me. I'm just Nora Evans.

    All around me, I see people soaring in the sky, talking to animals, running faster than trains, or doing some other crazy shit, but I can't do anything. For some mysterious reason that has baffled doctors I had seen since birth, I've never developed an ability of my own. The doctors had never seen a case like mine before: a human without a power, so there apparently is no cure for my problem.

    When I was very young, my mother took me to many different specialists for people whose children showed late development of abilities. My mother hoped that I was just a late bloomer. At first, she figured I was a person whose ability was to talk to animals, because that ability always showed up later in childhood development, but, soon, I began speaking, and not to animals, just people. My parents were very disappointed. My mother was so worried about me, but eventually, even she gave up on me. I learned at an early age to accept my defect, and live with it.

    When my siblings were born, my parents were worried that they would be powerless like me, but to my parents' relief, even when they were babies, my siblings' abilities showed. Chloe gave my mother a hard time when she was a baby because she would sometimes vanish, and my mother would have a panic attack, but always, she reappeared, and my mother would be relieved.

    Michael would often accidentally break his toys. As a baby, he was unaware of his own strength. Instead of trying to fix the old toys, my parents simply bought him new ones until he eventually learned to control himself. When we were little, I didn't understand the huge differences between my siblings and me, but as soon as we were old enough to understand, my siblings constantly made fun of my defect. They excluded me from all games. They would invite friends over and play games that involved abilities, so I would be forced to drop out. I told on my siblings for excluding me once to my mom, but to my surprise she didn't defend me.

    "You can't blame them for playing a game that everyone can play but you. That isn't exclusion. They're just having normal fun. If you can't do something then leave them alone and maybe they'll come around eventually. Just try not to get in their way." she said.

    I sadly went to my room, and looked out the window at my siblings who were playing invisible tag or super strength dodgeball or some other insane game I could never hope to play. There was only one thing I could do at the time, so I took my my mother's advice and stayed out of my sibling's way.