"Ow," I protested as the nurse felt my ribs.
"That's what you get for antagonizing them," she glared at me, "You are an idiot for going up against ability users like that. You can only see properly on your left side so before you even try to do anything you already have a handicap. That temper will get you killed."
"They took my patch again," I winced as she started healing my ribs.
"Yes," she snapped, "What of it? I'm not your mother, so I'm not going to sugar coat this for you. You cannot keep pissing off people who have abilities. You don't have one. You will never have an ability." she paused, "And that's exactly what the podium will tell you today. Just like it has every year since you started school. Now I know you're planning on going into a military career. It's the only thing that makes sense for you, but people with strong abilities can get away with literal murder in the military. Pissing any of them off will get you killed."
"Yes mam," I looked down subdued for now.
"Get that temper under control," The nurse finished healing me, and taped a gauze over my eye.
"Thanks," I smiled as I walked out.
And to think the nurse is one of the few people that gave a shit about me. Well I was in her office almost everyday. It was hard not to get to know someone at least a little when you were around them that much. The rest of my day went on without a hitch. Well besides the fact that Billy was enjoying showing my eye patch to me.
Mouthing the word cyclops, and laughing with Conrad. I knew where they'd put it at the end of the day, and it was pissing me off. Classes ended, and there was just the end of year assembly. Anyone could skip it, but no one without an ability would. The younger kids had a better chance at showing compatibility to an ability then us sixteen year old losers.
There were only twenty two kids in my year that didn't have an ability yet. Including me. With all the new abilities coming out each year there was a good chance that number would shrink even further today. My only hope was that I would be one of lucky late bloomers. There was some sort of inspirational speech about all the great things abilities did for humanity since the rifts had opened letting the Archaic's into our world followed by a quick description of how the podium worked. Then all the students with abilities that had actually bothered to come were dismissed.
Like usual they would start with graduates first, and this year that was my class. Since my name was Wyatt Nix I would be some where in the middle. It was mostly just waiting for the person called to walk up, and then be dismissed or asked to sit back down. Three kids from my year were asked to sit back down in the section of empty bleachers reserved for new ability prospects before it was my turn. Since I was number eleven to be called that meant that seven kids before me were just a disappointed as last year.
I walked up, and placed my hands in the scanners on either side of the podium. It ran through it's scan quickly. Eliminating abilities quickly until it showed a big red X. Which read
NO ABILITY POTENTIAL DETECTED
I kicked the podium, and was yelled at by the principal as I ran out of the room. I went to the bathroom's on the far side of the school, and swung my backpack around so it was in front of me. I pulled an airseal baggy out of the box of them I kept in my bag for emergencies, and shoved my way into the bathroom. I went to the last stall, and stared at the error message that was playing on the screen of the toilet.
Foreign material detected unable to flush waste.
I pulled the airseal bag over my hand inside out, and reached in to fish out my eye patch. I shook some of the nastiness off as the toilet flushed, and closed my still bagged hand around the eye patch as the bag closed, and sealed itself. I stepped out of the stall, and dropped the sealed bag into my backpack. This was another reason I preferred my false eye over the patch. Those two jerks thought it was too gross to fish the false eye out of my socket.
I left the bathroom, and headed for the park. Not the kind where kids played anymore. No I headed for the old park where a rift had opened a long time ago. Back when the first rifts appeared. The rift had long since been sealed off, but a couple of buildings had fallen through from one of the Archaic worlds, and caused the park to collapse into the old subway below. It took me almost an hour to walk there from school, and it was another hour away from my quarters, but it was quiet here.
No one wanted to go into the ruins of the park. Jagged metal stuck out from random playground equipment that had been destroyed in one corner, and the path had long been destroyed by the roots of the trees that had grown out of control since the park had been abandoned all those years ago. If you made it far enough into the park you would find the hole where the subway tunnel had collapsed. The park was only about five acres, but despite people trying to get it rebuild or renovated no one ever did. There was even talk of bulldozing the whole place, and building an apartment complex, but no one wanted to live where a rift had opened.
Especially not one that had been large enough to drop a building. Me? I headed straight for the hole the collapse had caused. Even destroyed Archaic architecture was more interesting then staring at a wall while I ate. Again.
I climbed down a piece of bent rebar to a chunk of white glossy destroyed building, and from there dropped onto the subway roof. It groaned under my weight as the metal bent a little further.
"That's not terrifying at all," I whispered to myself as I moved over to the old ladder I used to get down from there.