Secret Society

Chapter 1 - Before Normalcy

I have always thought that I was different from everyone else. I wasn't born 'normal' per se. However, being in an environment with many people similar to you, I came to I realize that I was wrong. The moment news of Cassie getting hospitalized set ablaze in the big hallways of our boarding school. Cassandra Walker is the most beautiful girl in this rural place, in the entire academy and outside, which included the nearby small town.  For girls, it was either you hate or you simply just never cared about her. I was the latter. But then maybe I should have cared. If I had, then maybe he would have noticed my presence a little bit longer than usual. But it doesn't matter now.

Our boarding school has a lot of students; we had kindergarteners, first to sixth graders, seventh to ninth graders (middle schoolers), and then we have the highschoolers that had freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Four years of High school, if I didn't know any better, I'd say they just like keeping us here for an extra year.

Most of the students here start going to this academy from first grade but my batch was an exception, among the few other cases. My batch was the only one that started nursery here, the caretakers tending to us before kindergarten. There were four children that were in that batch, me, Zeke, Danny, and Rui Amane. The Japanese kid had violent tendencies and his sharp teeth developed way earlier than most of his relatives. 

The academy has many secrets but this was their biggest secret, which many of the rich families around the world have knowledge of. They specialize in children who have strange abilities.

We used to call Rui, 'Sharkboy', because of his teeth and strong desire for bloodbath. The younger Welser boy was said to crawl on walls in the middle of the night, crying, and scaring his parents shitless. They were lawyers too so when Danny developed another skill, such as making people tell the truth, they were losing cases and had to get him under control. Zeke Davis was a fire starter and had caused a lot of his parents' warehouses on fire, eventually giving his older cousin burn marks. In my case, I was sent here because my maternal grandfather was an assassin and so were his ancestors. My parents feared that I was exhibiting similar qualities such as heightened senses and early development of archery skills. 

The only reason I  could gather all that information and could remember this much is because of my assassin skills. Because I was also getting the hang of knives, let's just say I almost accidentally killed a burglar who happened to rob our house. He managed to live but he lost the ability to speak because I hit a vital organ, sort of.

Normally, those weren't enough reason to admit us really but our parents were good friends with the current chairman and we exhibited deadly skills earlier on. Everything was fine in the academy for a while until Rui went amok and one of the teachers, accidentally let him out. He killed off twelve people and the academy was able to make news of Rui seem like an isolated case. For five years since then, children with deadly abilities were targets under the shoot-to-kill protocol. A total of 84 children were victims of that protocol, Rui included. 

Parents were then inquiring more about our academy, even though almost every student here are normal. Danny, Zeke, and I remained friends until first grade. When we got into second grade, Danny and Zeke started hanging out with Gab. It was then that I met Sierra Johnson, or as I'd like to call her, 'Sera.' Besides her, I also had April May Miller in my group. Because I had exceptional memory, thoughts of Danny, Zeke, and Rui never left my mind. I always thought of them and maybe that's how I started liking Zeke.

Zeke was a mysterious boy who had dimples. He really stood out even from a younger age because he was one of the most handsome boys in the academy. During fifth grade, I had mustered the courage to tell him I had a crush on him. I made sure everyone hasn't returned yet from one of our classes. Only Zeke and I were inside the classroom at the time. I fidgeted the whole time. Confessing to him was the easy part, hearing the answer was probably the most difficult one.

I wasn't sure if it was the aura of being popular that made kids seem like jerks or maybe Zeke had been like that all along. But when he laughed at my face, telling me that it was impossible for him to like such a gloomy and boyish girl like me, I felt the smallest in that room. Suddenly, I was reminded of all my flaws, and when everyone started showing up, I had instantly regretted the fact that I chose a time period where I could meet my "social death." It never crossed my mind that he'd say no. But who was I kidding? I wasn't the pretty kid. Since then, I became the butt of everyone's jokes. Even April stopped hanging out with us. I was starting to lose hope for myself when Sera held my hand tightly. She would always hold my hand when she feels I'm getting anxious and for me, her presence in my life, would always be the best miracle one could ever hope for.

It was during seventh grade, when Cassie got admitted into our school. The moment she stepped in, she got along greatly with Zeke. He even asked her to hang around him and the Welser brothers, that to which she agreed on. Now eighth grade was the most unbelievable part to me. I don't know if April got a glow up or something, but she somehow had managed to become part of Cassie's clique. Yes, the same April. But the unbelievable part comes in when Danny bumped into me. He was nice to me, unlike the other kids who listened to Zeke. He was the joker of our batch but with me, he seemed sincere. I don't know if this is when I started having special feelings for him. The only ones who know of this is Sera and me ofcourse. I wouldn't want to feel the same despair as I had before with Zeke. To have someone you thought knew you well look down on you as if you're the most disgusting thing in the world, is probably not something I'd like to feel again.

As everyone tries to get used to Cassie's disappearance for a while, April then uses this chance to get closer to the remainder of their well-known group, which included Gabriel and Daniel Welser and Zeke Davis. Gab and Danny are brothers, only a year apart in age. Danny, the younger one, is Zeke's best friend. April is probably Cassies' only female friend. But between you and me, I think she's just friends with Cassie because she wanted to interact better with Gabriel.