Special

Chapter 1

My fingernails dug into the cushion of the examination table I sat on. I grit my teeth and shut my eyes. The injection was quick yet painful as usual.

Dr Graham threw the used needle in a trashcan. 'Do you feel any different?'

'A bit,' I lied. Apart from some nausea and increased appetite, I was still an abnormal fifteen year old girl. The part of me desperate for results, the ounce of optimism left within me, believed saying I felt kind of different might actually help. 'I've been feeling a little queasy and more hungry than usual,' I confessed.

Dr Graham removed his rubber gloves and disposed of them. 'I wouldn't give it much thought. It could be weeks before we notice any results. In the meantime, I'll prescribe you an antiemetic for the nausea.'

He walked over to his desk.

I put on my jersey, hopped off the table and followed him.

He scribbled something on a prescription note and handed it to me. 'Take one or two capsules whenever you feel sick.'

Nausea, increased appetite and vomiting were only three of a laundry list of side effects associated with the cytotoxic "miracle drug" Co-tritopotine. Other side effects included rash, fatigue, hair loss, anaemia, constipation and mood swings.

'Is there anything else you wish to discuss?' Dr Graham offered.

I shook my head, no.

He opened the door for me. 'Good. I expect to see you same time next week.'

Colour-coded toy blocks levitated around the waiting room when I exited Dr Graham's office. The pieces gravitated towards each other, assembling into an aeroplane as a preadolescent boy sitting on the floor focussed on them.

Blood trickled down his nostrils, his brows furrowing in concentration while the last few pieces connected.

A woman sitting on a chair beside him retrieved some tissue from her purse and wiped his nose.

Crash! The plane model fell to the floor, splitting into pieces. A few blocks tumbled to my feet.

I picked them up, handing them to the boy.

'Thank you,' the woman told me before helping him collect the remaining blocks.

The entire waiting room was a circus.

A barefoot boy — about eight — walked on the wall in the corner of the room. A nurse observed him, scribbling something on a digital tablet.

A girl — barely ten — hovered in mid-air, tethered to a large adjustable dumbbell via a skipping rope tied around her ankle which served as a home-made anchor, preventing her from floating away. She nonchalantly played with a smartphone.

Mum sat next to a couple beside the floating girl, engrossed in chit-chat. 'These can be confusing times,' Mum said.

'Definitely,' the woman responded. 'We hate having to tie her down, but it's the only way to keep her safe —'

A boy my age — Asher — waved at me. He sat by himself on another end of the room holding one of the waiting room books titled "Perfectly Normal: Understanding ADSD."

I walked over and greeted him.

He cleared his throat. 'How's the treatment going?'

'Still no abilities. You?'

'"It might be weeks before we notice any results,"' he said, perfectly imitating Dr Graham. He changed to his regular voice. 'I can easily switch between voices now, but no luck on a new ability. You know who developed a secondary ability, though?'

I shrugged.

'Izzy.'

'Seriously?' I exclaimed. It couldn't have happened to a worse person.

'She's apparently telekinetic now,' Asher explained.

I sighed. 'Life's definitely not fair.'

Although we had been at the same school since the first grade and were locker neighbours for years, Asher and I never quite bonded until we met at the hospital.

Asher could replicate people's voices. His mimicking ability was, however, defective. He often got stuck with the last voice he copied for hours or days, hence his treatment.

Everyone in my world had special abilities — some less special than others, but abilities, nonetheless. Through ill fortune, I was born without any. As a result, I was subjected to multiple treatments, of which none were a success.

'She's just a late bloomer,' I overheard Dad say to Mum long before the treatments started. 'My cousin Sam didn't get his abilities until he was nine,' Dad reassured Mum. 'I couldn't fly until I was sixteen.'

I had just turned eight and a half — more than a year late from the seven-year average most kids began developing abilities when my parents became concerned.

After running some standard tests, the paediatrician concluded I was perfectly healthy. My parents were referred to a geneticist, and that's when the real tests and treatments began.

I had CT scans, angiograms, blood tests, complete blood counts, the whole works. Some procedures, like the bone marrow biopsy, were excruciatingly painful.

Special abilities were hereditary and passed on through the maternal or paternal copy of the OME3A gene. Although over seventy-five per cent of the population only inherited abilities from one parent, a rare twenty per cent got abilities from both parents. The sporadic five per cent inherited three or more abilities through their lineage. Only a mere one per cent had more than four abilities. It was extremely rare, but abilities could mutate and form an inverse or unique ability entirely new to a bloodline.

After nearly two years of extensive tests and probing, it was concluded that my lack of abilities was due to a unique form of Ability Dysfunction (AD) called Remo's.

AD was a neurological disorder characterised by dysfunctional or underdeveloped abilities caused by a dormant paternal or maternal copy of the OME3A gene on chromosome fifteen and a mutation on either one or both active genes.

AD was included within Ability Dysfunction Spectrum Disorder (ADSD), which was initially documented as consisting of two levels. Level one or High-Functioning AD and level two denoted as AD or Classic AD.

My diagnosis added an entirely new third level on the lowest end of the ADSD spectrum called Severe AD or Remo Syndrome (RS) — generally referred to as Remo's. The disorder was named after Dr Jack Remo, a paediatrician specialising in AD first to diagnose and document my unique condition. Five years, four operations and seven treatments later, I was still without abilities.