1: New School, New Me

I looked up at the intimidating building before me. I suppose not everybody would find school intimidating, but I certainly do.

Especially this school, one of the older ones. It was said that it came before Gifts, under a different name. Rift Academy. I walked inside, clutching the sleeves of my shirt.

I felt a presence behind me, and quickly turned around, my electric blue eyes flickered to life. Then I froze, seeing a strange pair of glasses that looked plastic. It had a swirl design on the lenses. Stepping back, I saw that under some angles, there was a cat's eye effect.

The girl who wore them was just as strange. Her hair was a colour that I just couldn't put my finger on, but it had the same colour as the ones in antique photos. Sepia? Her skin was mostly pale, but I could see flecks of dust on them.

"H-hey..." I greeted unsurely, looking at her. "Hi," She replied, her voice strangely mystical. "You're one of the transfer students."

I shakily nodded. She abruptly turned around, her long hair flapping behind her. "Sir said that you were in class 1-H. That's my class, too. Follow me." She said mistily.

Though I was slightly wary, I followed her. We passed through the corridors and I heard her mumbling to herself.

"What's your n-name?" I asked, trying and failing to not stutter. She paused, still walking, before answering. "Blanche."

Very vintage. Everything about her was.

"I'm Frederick Max Caydell." I introduced myself, no longer stuttering. That was a bit difficult. She nodded, seemingly distracted. She continued to mumble. I found the words 'good theory, Darwin' and 'not a good idea, Hitler' escape from her lips.

What exactly was her Gift?

Or maybe she's just crazy. I can't judge, my Gift could easily kill, it's driven me a bit mad. "We're here." She announced.

I looked at the door in front of us. Unlike all of the other classrooms around me, it was dead quiet. On the door, '1-H' was written into the wood. "Time to go inside," Blanche said. She pushed her glasses up, and from the inside I could see that they were definitely not see-through. How did she see where to go? Did she memorise where everything is?

I opened the door, peeking inside and felt Blanche gently push me forward. I opened the door fully, getting inside. I realised why this room was quieter than the others. This school, though famous, had very few students with only about at least sixteen students in each class. This one had ten chairs but only six students inside. I looked at the teacher, who was wearing a grey hoodie instead of the teacher's uniform. He had pale dark green hair, and his eyes were an aggressively neutral gray.

He looked up at me. "Not late, so that's good. Please sit over there." He said pointing to the seat at the front, beside the seat near the window. In that seat, one boy who wore a strange brown bear mask. It was simplistic. As if it was just half a sphere painted in brown, holes cut where the eyes should be and a cartoon bear face painted on top of it all. I sat beside him, and glanced beside me to see that Blanche was seated at the very back of the class.

Our advisor looked at his watch, seemingly bored and stood up. "Alright, it seems that some people decided to either not show up or are begging to change classes, maybe even late, but let's begin our introductions, shall we?" He said quickly, as if he had rehearsed all of this before. "My name is Xen Nul, your class advisor and also your mythology teacher," He paused, as if trying to remember something. "My Gift is, how do you say... Transfer. That's basically an oversimplification of it, since it's so much more than that. Starting from Theo, let's go to the right and introduce ourselves."

The boy beside me stood up. "I'm Theodore Graset, and my Gift is, um, 'teleporting.'" He said awkwardly, looking down. That was when I noticed something strange about him, he had a tail. It wasn't like a cat's, or any other animal. It was like a slender wire, pitch-black and as long as half of his body.

Sir Nul nodded and looked at me. "Your turn, kiddo."

I stood up. "My name is Frederick Max Caydell and my Gift is Fast-Forward." I said quickly, not liking the amount of stares on me. Sir Nul looked at me expectantly, "Well? Are you going to... explain it?" He asked.

Nodding frantically, I began to talk again. "It makes something I touch with my fingers age fast forward some years... and it'll are it older, I guess." I said, sitting back down. Nodding, Sir Nul placed a hand on his chin. "Hm, a rank 10, in my class of all places." He muttered, "why am I even surprised."

Another person stood up. They were a few seats away, far away from everybody else. They wore a gas mask, and every inch of their body was fully clothed. "Alan Wilxon. My Gift is Radiation." He said briefly before sitting down. "Please explain," Our teacher said half heartedly, as if it wasn't worth trying to make the kid explain his Gift. "I can cause radiation sickness." Alan said before continuing to stare emptily.

The next stood up. "I'm Laila Villanueva, from one of the oldest families and I basically have super-strength." She said casually, I realised how dirty her clothes were. Especially her shoes.

Sir Nul nodded, satisfied, and turned to the next one who was beside Laila. "R-Robyn, E-E-Eastborne, hi. I c-can heal people." He muttered, looking down. "But if I heal them too much their wounds reopen and they bruise and their bones grow too much for their skin and pierce it and..." He continued muttering about some of the more gorey details about his ability, and I turned to the Sir Nul who didn't even look the slightest bit fazed.

"Very nice, Robyn," He said dismissively.

Then he turned to Blanche. "And you?" He asked, looking at her expectantly.

"I'm Blanche Erinne. My Gift is Flashback, that means I can see the past." She said slowly, looking at us all through misty eyes. We're those cataracts? She wasn't even standing up.

Sir Nul nodded, smiling.

"That's everybody. Well, class, other than this, I have a sort of club where I act as a tutor for students. You can all get to know each other there, if you'd like. Theo has been in it for two years." He said, inclining his head to look at Theodore. "But that's for another time. The next class is Science, by the way. See you all in Mythology later."

He left.