The only light source illuminating a small portion of the room is a tiny red bulb, blinking in the corner. On, off, on, off, on, off. Repeatedly. It mocks me as I sit on the cold hard floor of my cell, replaying the moment when everything went to hell inside my head. One minute, it all seemed to be going according to plan, and the next, we were being taken away. Separated and locked up like animals. The clear glass walls that greeted me when I first arrived have been tinted black, keeping the outside hidden from view. More important, keeping me hidden from the outside. Watching the light blinking in the darkness, I press my lips together to try and push down the twisted amusement that rises in my chest. It's a security camera, meaning that even in the confines of this pitch-black room, I'm still being watched. His face resurfaces in my mind, and I hold back a sneer.

I wonder if the rest of the team is being kept in rooms similar to the one I'm in right now. Are they close by? Are they safe? Had they, too, felt dread creep up their spine when they were shoved inside and handcuffed to the wall, nothing but the feeling of cool metal digging into their flesh keeping them from hoping that this was all just a horrible dream? A twisted nightmare from which we would shudder awake, chest heaving as we drew in lungsful of much-needed air, in the safety and comfort of our beds back at the compound.

I yank on the chains, using the pain to anchor my mind to the present the way my body is anchored to the wall. This is no dream, and this certainly isn't the home we had built for ourselves during these past few months.

Just as my mind starts to wander again, as I try to come to terms with my current situation, a door I hadn't been able to make out in the darkness pours bright white light into the room. I squint, trying to adjust to the sudden change, and I can barely make out the silhouette of a tall figure standing in the entrance of my cell.

"Brianna," says a deep emotionless voice.

It's a voice I had come to trust. To admire. The voice of a man who had become like a father to me, to everyone back at the compound.

"I'm so sorry it had to come to this."

The laugh that has been building inside of me pushes past my lips, sounding hysterical even to my own ears. He isn't sorry, not in the slightest. The tiny ember of anger that had ignited in my chest when I saw his face, when I learned who he really was, transforms into a roaring fire that threatens to consume me, and I clench my fists to stop them from shaking.

Why did it have to come to this? Everything we went through, everything we lost, only to end up here?

"You're not sorry," I say, and I make sure to pour every ounce of hate and loathing I'm feeling towards him into those three words.

I hear him sigh before he turns around, letting the door shut behind him, plunging me in darkness once more. But this time, when the door closes, I'm determined to see it open again. And when it does, I will be the one walking out of here.

I inspect the cuffs that are secured around my wrists, lifting them as much as they allow me to while being firmly chained to the wall, and angle them towards the light. no keyhole is visible; they look like two hoops of perfectly smooth silver. It's moments like these when I wish I had a physical Gift or a Gift that would tell me how to get out of sticky situations such as this one. But if what they have been telling me is true, if I really am as special as they keep insisting I am, then I should be able to get out of some handcuffs, piece of cake. Right? Ten minutes and a lot of hard pulls later prove that no; it isn't as easy as it sounds. Stupid spy movies, why do you make everything look so simple!

But I am not giving up. I will tug until my wrists bleed, and I will use that blood to slip my hands through the metal rings. I will pull and pull until I can't pull anymore to break the chains that are keeping me in here. I will fight tooth and nail until I am reunited with my friends and we find what we came here for. So just one more yank, one more pull, and somehow, I will be free. And once I am, heaven help those who stand in my way.

"Think Bri, think!" I say to myself.

Use that brain of yours. You are not going to stay in here forever. This is not how Brianna Acero goes down!

I'm about to try another tactic when there is a loud bang near my cell. I hear yelling as people run around, what I can only assume, is a larger room. But before I can start to hope about who I think is causing such a ruckus, my whole world is bathed in white.

"Miss Acero!"

I jump, leaving the land of daydreams behind only to come face to face with a very angry, very disappointed-looking teacher. I bang my knees under the table, closing the notebook I had been doodling in with one swift swipe. He stands with his arms crossed in front of him, staring down at me. Judging by his narrowed gaze and the hard set of his mouth, he called my name more than once before he managed to get my attention. Heat rises to my cheeks at having been called out in front of the class yet again, and I shrink in my seat even more, when I hear low murmurs coming from my classmates. How many times does this make this week? Four? Five? I've lost count at this point.

"Yes, Mr. Roscovic?" I meet my favorite teacher's gaze only for a second before looking away in shame.

He sighs, drops his arms, and points at the words written on the large white board. My attention is drawn back to the lesson he was in the middle of teaching.

"Since you seem so interested in this class, maybe you should be the one up here teaching it." He watches me with a disapproving frown.

I wince at his condescending tone and shake my head.

"Good, well then, where were we?"

A few rows ahead of me a girl with bubblegum pink hair raises her hand.

"You were about to let us leave," she says, earning her a few smirks from our classmates, who seem just as tired of this lecture as I am.

We've had this lesson drilled into us over and over again for the past five years. I'm confident we all know it by heart. Yet, they insist on having us review it. Every. Single. Semester.

Mr. Roscovic rolls his eyes. "I'm sorry, Miss Rosse. I'm pretty sure that is not what I was about to say, but keep up those comedic lessons, you are doing an excellent job."

A few hearty chuckles at his comment has the girl's hair turning from a bright pink into a vibrant fire red that matches the shade of scarlet raising up her neck to her cheeks. Huh, I think to myself, so that's her Gift. Granted, it's not a very useful one, but having hair that changes colors depending on your mood is still pretty cool.

"No, in fact, I'm pretty sure we were about to answer your favorite question," continues Mr. Roscovic. His voice drips with sarcasm. "Which is, what was the first-ever Gift to present itself?"

He scans the seats, and the ends of his mouth turn downwards when no one volunteers to answer. "No one? Come on people I know you all know this."

Seeking redemption, I throw my hand in the air before I can fully register what I'm doing. I'm the last person to want to draw attention to herself during lectures, generally preferring to sit in silence and observe from my usual corner, but to win back the respect of my favorite teacher, I'll make a sacrifice.

I think I see the ghost of a smile before Mr.Roscovic schools his expression into his usually stony mask.

"Thank you, Miss Acero, good to have you back with us."

My mouth twitches before letting the answer I've known since the beginning of the eighth-grade roll off my tongue with ease, not even needing to search my brain or pause to remember any information I could be missing. It's practically muscle memory at this point.

"It's a trick question," I start. "no one knows why Gifts came to be, or which one had been the first Gift to present itself, but science has been able to construct a theory on its origin thanks to historical facts. Should I continue?"

He nods, and I mentally pat myself on the back. Teacher-student points get ready to be restored.

"It is believed that the very first Gift appeared around the end of the Fifth World War." I say.

My teacher cuts in before I can continue, as he always does during this part of the story.

"And the war started, why?"

"China had been tampering with genetics. They decided the best way to survive a nuclear war was to create cells that would allow the human body to adapt itself to the environment that would be caused by a nuclear attack, making sure that we would be able to survive the radiation that would be released. However, the constant rise of tensions between the world's two most powerful countries was making the rest of the nations fearful"

I swallow, waiting for my teacher to stop me, but he just nods, prompting me to continue. So, I take a deep breath and keep telling the story.

"When the United States caught wind of what the Chinese were up to, it became a race to see who could succeed first. Soon, countries had taken sides, and the threat of a nuclear attack was long forgotten. But that didn't mean the war was over. Countries did anything they could in order to slow down their competitors: stealing their research, sending spies to their labs, and even going as far as killing their scientists."

Mr. Roscovic nods. "Very good, Miss Acero. Is this when the first Gift comes in?" He pushes his silver-rimmed glasses up on his nose.

"Yes, at least the first we know of. We can't be sure if any other ones presented themselves before this one. When the fighting was at its peak, everything was pointing to Euro-Asian alliance as the winners, so an American scientist by the name of Dr. Phillip Frost decided he needed to do something to make the tables turn in our favor."

My teacher smiles approvingly, and a few groans are heard towards the back of the room, which he promptly shushes with a quick turn of his head. This is where most people tend to fall asleep or start to tune out the story, but unlike my peers, I believe that this is the most interesting part. So, I shake off their comments and continue.

"He was a genius, specialized in genetics and genetic transfiguration; two stems he believed would be the key to winning the war. He was the first person to successfully manipulate the human gene code for the purpose of causing significant evolutionary traits that would have otherwise taken years to present themselves. He set to work, hiding his project so he wouldn't be shut down by the government."

A hand goes up, and I stop my rant to let my teacher answer the question, but to my surprise, he waves me on instead, as if saying 'you are practically teaching all of this, you answer.'

"Uhh. Yes?" I ask, nervously calling out the girl who raised her hand.

"I never really understood this part. Why would the government of the time shut him down, if he was trying to do good? I mean, he was trying to stop a war, isn't that, like, motive enough to help him and not stop him?"

I take a moment to think about my answer before I continue. I feel special getting to answer a question. Olivia is one of the top students in the class, which means I have to give her a good answer. Besides, out of this entire bunch of hormonal teenagers, she's the only one who doesn't act as if I'm lesser than. She never goes out of her way to be nice to me, but she doesn't run because of my 'condition' either. Everyone else seems to think it's contagious. The fact that she is asking me a question, and waiting for me to answer, seems like a win in my book.

"Well," I start. "Back then, people debated about whether or not tampering with the human gene pool was moral. Human rights and all that jazz. And he didn't want people to get the wrong idea, so he kept it a secret." My words die off, and I wait for her reaction, trying to gauge whether my explanation was good or not.

She seems to like my answer, as she quickly types it up, and I feel a sense of pride at having been able to help someone for once. I look at my teacher, who signals for me to continue.

"So, you are right, he started doing it for a good purpose, but eventually his ambition got the better of him. He started to lose hope when none of his experiments gave the results he wanted. He always followed the same pattern, tap into a person's genetic code, leave it susceptible to change, allow it to adapt to his modifications, and wait, but nothing seemed to happen. By the time he realized that what he did had unexpected side effects, it was too late."

I pause, momentarily drawn into the story. What must it have been like? To find out your life's work had failed, only to discover just in time that it was successful, that there was still hope. If he had given up a little sooner, society as we know it would have never existed. I shake my head, ignoring all the "what if's" floating around my mind, and continue.

"The first-ever Gift was broadcasted live when a man in his mid-forties appeared on the news one day when he seemingly had the ability to levitate. That's when Frost realized that when he left the DNA open and susceptible to change, it meant not only his modifications, but the body's natural response to adapt to its surroundings as well.

He had chosen this man specifically because he was disabled. He was born with a rare genetic disease that didn't allow his legs to form properly, and after Dr. Frosts experiment, his body had somehow adapted to fit his predicament, allowing him to transport via air instead of using his legs."

Mr. Roscovic writes down the most important bits of the story on the board for the rest of the class to copy. I watch as everyone takes out their Tekpads, unlocking them and placing them on their desks, fingers flying across screens. We may know all this already, but we need to have a record of the lesson for our end of the year credits. No notes, means no time spent in class, which means no grade.

"This was what we believe to be the first-ever Gift. When Dr. Frost discovered what he had done, he was thrilled by the possibility of a faster evolution"

I wring my hands together. This next part always makes me uncomfortable. Which is why I can't help but breathe a sigh of relief when Mr. Roscovic asks Trevor to finish the story, who huffs in annoyance but does as he's told.

"The scientist dude kept doing his research, using more dangerous methods on his test subjects every time. He exposed people to situations where their bodies would need to adapt to survive — leaving them out in the cold with no clothes on, having them locked in a tank slowly filling with water, injecting them with poisonous toxins, all that good stuff," He says with a smirk, earning himself an eye roll from our teacher.

How could someone do that? And yet, if I had to choose between losing the lives of some, to save the lives of many, would I have made a different decision? I like to think that I would.

"Many lives were lost," He continues. "By the time the officials learned about his schemes, the deed had already been done. His research had made it all around the world, sold to America's allies in hopes of conquering the European-Asian forces. Mutations appeared all over, and soon, everyone had modified DNA.

"The new generations adapted or inherited the skills from their parents. Now we understand that we owe our thanks to Dr. Philip Frost. If it weren't for him, we never would have gotten our Gifts."

Mr. Roscovic thanks us both for our answers, but Trevor wants to add one last thing to the lesson.

"Even though some of us still haven't." He stares right at me, and the class chuckles as his friend lightly slaps him on the shoulder. I bow my head to look at my hands.

What he said is true. At seventeen, I'm two years past the final age that a Gift is said to present itself.

And I mean, it's not as if I'm asking to be an Elite. Those people with Gifts so rare or so powerful, that they have to be trained by the governments' most secret groups in order to learn how to use those special abilities for good, to protect society from the others that want to harm us.

Ever since the war society has been divided, with Elites at the top of the food chain, and Norm's getting nothing but their scraps. That's why everyone wants their child to be an Elite, to have a brighter future.

But not me. I would like at least to have a Gift.