The Specials

chapter 1.

She's crying again. Her loud, dramatic sobbing can be heard from the room across. It doesn't help that the house is mostly made from drywall and wood—just a single pin drop from the first floor could be heard from the second floor.

Fate has the urge to bang on the wall hoping her sister, Chrissy, would know she woke her up, again, with her loud wailing.

As if her sister was reading her mind, the sobbing slowly fades into small, barely audible sniffles. Fate's heart aches for her sister but it's been over two months since her ex-boyfriend broke up with her and it's getting tiring having to be woken up by her.

Fate's sister and her boyfriend, Paul, dated for approximately two years and a half. They were the type of couple you'd think would make it to the marriage stage but Paul had other plans, apparently. Fate tries not to intervene into their relationship mishaps, but she's losing sleep from the aftermath and is close to snapping.

Fate takes a deep breath, relaxing her mind and body. Letting the tingling sensation flows from her brain to the tips of her fingers. She relishes in the feeling of her power (magik) flowing through her—scorching her like hot coal. It was the only time she felt alive.

She casts a quiet.

The silence is deafening; the crickets outside goes unheard. Fate feels uneasy.

"I can't sleep in the noise and I can't sleep in the quiet." She mumbles miserably from under her duvet.

Fate Hanson, eighteen years old and a fourth year at Newman Academy for Fire Cultivators—an institute for specials who has fire as their element.

Newman Academy is divided into what they called The Four: Academies for Water, Earth, Fire, and Air Cultivators. 

Each cultivator had a special mark that represents their elements. The mark only shows up on the cultivator's skin on their thirteenth birthday, but before then everyone would've already known their element. It's very rare for a Water cultivator be born from two Earth cultivators. In fact, it's impossible—unheard of. 

Fate found out about her powers when she was twelve years of age. It was during winter, she was out in the backyard trying to build a snowman. She had given up while trying to make the body, frustrated she had unintentionally unleash her anger at the failed attempt of a perfect ball and blowing half of the snow across the yard. Scared, she had ran back into the house.

She never spoke of the incident until months after catching Chrissy accidentally freezing her juice in front of their mother. Knowing water was neither of their element she eventually told them that same night. That's when she found out what they possessed was rare and could get them killed. Her mom never went into details about it, but she did make them promise that they wouldn't use the magik outside of the house.

She rubs at her mark unconsciously. There has been something bothering her for a while that wasn't her sister's nightly loud sobbing.

She lives with her mom, her older sister, and their beagle, Tootsie, in a two-story manufactured house that's across from St. Antonia's lake.

Fate is an average sized girl, her skin tone a pretty shade of caramel, her hazel eyes big and bright, her tight curly hair unkempt on a bad day and well-groomed on a good—she looked nothing like her mother; her mom is pale as porcelain, hair straight as if freshly pressed, and her eyes are brown as fallen autumn's leaves.

"I must look like my dad." Fate would say, in her room, for her ears only to hear.

Fate never met her father; Chrissy knew him but says she barely remember what he looks like. Their mother had made it clear that nobody—as long as they live under her roof—shall not speak of him, ever.

Fate have many questions about her dad whereabouts and why he left them—it's a constant itch that she knows will never be scratched, unless, she digs for information herself. Fate has been searching for her father for the past two years and the results are always the same. Without any full name or a picture of him, the case is hopeless. 

The only thing she has left of her father is a watch with a long crack in the middle.

Fate sits up, a yawn threatening to force its way out. She scratched the back of her neck then checked the time. It's thirteen past three. Fate isn't a morning person; she hates the morning just as much as she hates the idea of pineapple on a pizza. The fight between yawn gives out.

Fate blinks at the dark and yawns.

She crawls back under the blanket after sitting in the quiet, waiting for her sister to fall silent again before taking down the spell—closing her eyes and falling asleep.

Her dad on her mind.