The Gifted (Txt x Itzy)

五十

They burst through the heavy door, and as it swung shut it sealed up and vanished. A deep corridor awaited them, and having no other choice, they ran through it. Their shoes kicked up puffs of dust-the corridor has not been used for a long time, maybe even never. The end of the tunnel was a cave entrance, cleverly hidden with mist and rocks. They stumbled out and stopped. Heaving pants, they all stood or squatted as they caught their breaths. Yeonjun scowled, "That was a terrible idea." The sun was struggling up through the darkness and heavy clouds of smoke, so everything was still cloaked in shadows. Kai flicked his fingers, but was shocked when rewarded with nothing. "Wait, what?" Everyone turned to him as he rubbed and fluttered his fingers, and looked up, his blood turning cold as he told them, "I can't shift." Yuna looked concerned. Ryujin then gasped as her dangling strings frayed and shortened. She flicked her eyes up and said, "Don't take this personally, I'm just gonna-" She clenched her fist as she squinted at Beomgyu, who waited anxiously. After a good minute, Beomgyu said, "I suppose it's not working." The girl was staring in terror at her own hands.

Jisu winced and tried to rub her ankles, but obviously her shoes were in the way. She unlatched them, expecting to float up but she barely hovered three inches off the ground. "Oh gods," She whispered to herself, then looked up with a mixture of emotions in her eyes. The wind rustled the trees ominously, whistling shrilly. Kai licked his lips nervously, eyes darting from one place to another. "What if we get ambushed? There could be people surrounding us and we wouldn't know it!" "What, now that you don't have your powers you need to hide behind us now?" Soobin taunted. Kai glared at him, "I can still beat the shit out of you." "Try, I dare you-"

"I can, watch me-"

"Stop it!' Yeji shouted, freezing the two in their positions, "What is wrong with you?" Kai's eyes flashed angrily. "Ask him!" He pointed furiously at Soobin. The older glared, "I could take your power away in a matter of moments if you still had it-"

"Stop," Yuna commanded, and instantly the two relaxed. "Something is affecting us all, some of our powers don't work, and we have to stick together if we want to solve this." She sounded so confident and sure, unlike her snobby and rude past self.

Taehyun took a deep breath, "Okay, so let's try to link everything, the powers than don't work are-"

"The physical ones," Yeonjun intercepted.

"Which means something that controls the physical gifts has been changed."

"Namjoon showed me the shrine," Taehyun recalled, "Where there were those things that gave us our powers, orbs, he had called them. He told me they needed to be together in order to work well."

"The humans must have taken them, and separated them," Jisu said as she nodded.

"And when taken and separated, they affect us."

"But why is everyone so agitated?" Yuna wondered.

"It's corrupting them," Taehyun realised, "Corrupting us. With the lack of those orbs, we are literally losing it."

"Going insane and mad," Beomgyu added helpfully.

"Well, then we need to get them back," Jisu said.

"And another thing," Yuna added, "Last night, I overheard Jeongguk give a prophecy, about a cure, for us."

"That's kinda terrible, no offence."

"How are they even doing that?"

Yuna scrambled to unfold a crumpled piece of paper, "I wrote it down, the prophecy."

"Blood of an angel," Jisu recited, "It must be the blood of a gifted, who can somehow remove gifts?"

"Well, then we have to stop the production of it."

"Bah, another thing to add to our list."

"But what if people want the cure?" Yeonjun asked softly, the first time he ever spoke in such a way, "What if they don't want to be monsters?"
Yeji grasped his hand tightly, as if worried he'll let go and disappear.

"Regardless, there are still some gifted that want their power, to keep them safe. Either way, gifted or not, the fear is that the humans would not accept them even if they had no power left. Anyways, the gifted they are using, they're using his blood, draining him to 'cure' us. That's not fair. I don't care if you want the cure or not, we can't let a kid suffer to make some gifteds happy," Jisu said.

"There's also one more kid," Yuna reminded, "The kid with the nuclear stuff. If the government manages to use his power-"

"The war would be serious. And millions will die," Yeji finished off.

"The child would be blamed, and everything is just going to worsen," Chaeryeong said.

Beomgyu exhaled slowly, "Okay, so we know our priorities, we need to get the orbs back, that's the first thing."

Soobin nodded reluctantly, "And then the gifted with the neutralisation gift."

"Lastly the nuclear kid," Taehyun ended.

"Don't call him that," Jisu muttered.

"Well, good list," Yeji sighed, "Where to first?"