Ablaze »»DARKEST MINDS««

PROLOGUE

THE ZONE
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The first thing they took from me was my name. Then, everything I was, everything I am, was stripped, leaving me a blank canvas to be remade as the person they want me to be. A slave to their unforgiving hands. The looks they sent us were full of disgust, like we were the scum of the earth.

I was lucky, though. I could've been taken away to a rehabilitation camp where the kids there were tortured, but instead I was saved by these "generous" men and women and taken to a community. It was based in an abandoned motel, which now served as the home for the adults. It was bordered by a creek at the back and a thick woods on all other sides. A highway was nearby, hidden somewhere deep in the trees, and the only reason I knew was because the sound of cars driving past every so often was hard to miss.

The community was called the Safe Zone, but the other kids and I called it the Zone. It wasn't safe. The adults in charge would rough house us and starve us to the point where some would die. While they were all horrible towards us kids, Derick was a different kind of monster. He was the leader, at least 35 years old. He was big and intimidating, especially towards me. There were rumors going through the kids at the Zone that he had broken kids' bones. He had. And he'd done much worse. My hands wore permanent scars from where he poured boiling water over them once he found out I could manipulate fire. Derick hated fire with a passion. I wasn't sure why he hadn't killed me yet.

There was a simple system here.

The kids cleaned and cooked and did whatever the adults told us to do. The adults fed us as little as they could in order keep us barely alive.  The adults slept in the motel where there was air conditioning and beds. The children slept in the shed beside the motel as it was locked from the outside to ensure we didn't get away. The kids who acted out were traded to the PSFs  for supplies. If we were low of supplies, a random child would disappear and extra rations would appear. If we tried to escape, we were punished. If we talked out of line, we were punished. If we fought back, we were punished. If we used our powers, they would give us up to the PSFs.

One thing the adults made sure of was that we knew we were expendable.

There were twenty kids at the Zone when I first arrived at the ripe age of eleven. I had just learned that I was different — even more so than the rest of the kids who survived IAAN. The others all fell into the categories of either Green, Blue, Yellow, Orange, and Red. Greens had advanced intelligence, the Blues had telekinesis, Yellows could conduct electricity, Oranges had some sort of advanced telepathy that allowed them to mend other people's minds, and the Reds had fire powers. No child had a power outside of these, and none of them had more than one.

That's where I was unique — I had all the abilities. I knew it would make me a target for the PSFs, so I tried my best to hide it. Unfortunately, Derick found me lighting the nightly fire one night without matches, and ever since he'd been singling me out. I was the only Red at the Zone. I was also the only of my kind. But no one had to know that.

At first I thought I only had fire abilities. I started accidentally catching things on fire when I was ten, but I lived with the "symptoms" for a year before the others trickled in. Second to come was the Green abilities, which became extremely evident in school that I had to sabotage my own homework. Next was Blue, and Yellow, and then Orange. By that time, most of the kids were either dead or in rehabilitation camps.

I had only barely escaped being shipped to one of the camps; an Orange on the bus controlled the mind of the driver and made him run it off the road. The PSFs captured some of the kids, but most of us got away. I only lived in the woods by myself for two days before Derick found me and brought me to the Zone. From then on was manual labor, being berated left and right, no rests for food, and a boiling hatred towards the people who kept me here. Towards Derick. Towards my parents for giving me away, even though I didn't remember them. Towards the PSFs. Towards that Orange on the bus who might have made our lives worse than if we were in the rehabilitation camps.

Night after sleepless night my hatred for the Zone grew and grew. Every time an adult slapped me, every time I was told that I'm a monster, every time Derick would scar me, I just let the hatred build up. One day I was going to get out of there. I knew it. I would burn the motel down myself and free the other kids.

But at some point the hopeless dreams had to come to an end. I knew that if I left, I would be alone with no sure way of getting food or water. PSFs and Skip Tracers were everywhere. A little girl couldn't survive in the wild by herself, especially in this world.

So, I waited, hoping maybe one day the other kids and I might be rescued from this hell.

Five years later and that never happened. All the hope I had of being saved had vanished. I know that if any of us kids want to get out, I have to save us myself. No one is coming for us.