At the choosing ceremony, instead of getting one of the 4 gifts, fire, earth, water, and wind, you get Sun. But the only problem with that Sun is illegal

“Jessie Lane, come up onto the stage.” Kara, the headmistress, says into the mic. She has called up at least 123 people ahead of me. They all got sorted into the gifted classes. As I walk up to the stage I’m looking around at all my soon to be classmates. My mothers side of the family had the gift of wind but my dads side of the family had the gift of fire. So it could go either way towards fire or wind. I hold tightly onto my test as I walk up the four steps onto the stage. God, why do they have to it in front of everyone, including our parents? I don’t want to let them down. They have been so proud of me so far and I can’t bear the thought of disappointing them. “Jessie, stand right here please.” She says motioning to the spot next to the box. As I step on the tape she looks at me and says into the mic “alright put your test into the box and watch what gift it becomes.” As I let me test go into the box a bright light emerges from the box and blinds me. As the light fades away and I can see again I see a picture of the sun floating above the box. “Oh, wow. We haven’t had anyone get the sun in over 400 years.” Kara says and then she turns the mic off and says “Jessie I need you to discretely head to my office and I will be there as soon as the ceremony is over.” She smiles handing me my test and turns the mic back on and says into it “Jake Lange, come up onto the stage please.” I slowly walk away from the stage towards the back stage, like all the other students before me. As I get back stage everyone who is still back there is staring at me. I didn’t do anything to be stared at, except get a gift no one new about. I just walk right passed them as they make a pathway for me. As soon as I’m out of the back stage area I take off in a sprint, my mind racing. Did I disappoint my family? What’s going to happen to me? Why hasn’t anyone gotten this gift in 400 years? What did I do to get it? Did I do something wrong? Was I too nice? What is my mother going to say to me when i see her next? Wait am I going to see my family again? When I finally stop running I am in front of a door that has ‘Headmaster’s office’ on the door. I didn’t even know where this was but I somehow ended up in front of it. I look around the hallway and see that it leads to a dead end with the end being the office. I spot some seating off to the right of the door and take a seat trying to calm my now racing heart. What can I do? Am I going to be kicked out of this school because of this? Like I don’t know why I would be but you never know with things like this. Someone clears their throat and I jump up scared. Am I going to have to fight this person? As I calm down I see a male about 6’5″ standing in front of me. Well more like towering over me.

“Hi, I’m Jesse. What’s your name?” I ask as I stick my head out in greeting. He glares at me.

“I know who you are.” He snaps at me. “Just leave me alone.” I stare at him as he takes the farthest seat on the bench he can from me. What the fuck is his problem? He scared me. I take my seat again and just stare at him. Once I realize that I’ve been staring at him, I look down at the ground. I hate being stared at so why would I stare at someone else? Why did I stare at him? He is kind of cute with his shaggy blonde hair and the beard, that looks so soft. He has a tattoo going up his right arm, that looks like a dragon on top of a mountain. The dragon is a dark blue. But I can’t see what’s right above it as his shirt covers it. “Fucking hell.” He says out of nowhere making me jump. This dude knows how to startle people that’s for sure. “How much longer is damn thing going to go on for?” I stare at him again not know what to say.

“Well, depending on what your last name was, it could take awhile.” I say sassily. This makes him look at me again.

“Damn miss peppy has a sassy side. And my last name is none of your concern.” He says with the same amount of sass I used. Well, damn. He doesn’t need to be an ass. He could’ve just said that he didn’t want to talk to me. Wait Jessie don’t make this about you. He is obviously upset about something, try to be nice to him. I hear my older sisters voice in my head.

“Fine, let’s just go back to sitting in silence then.” I say. He sighs.

“Great” he says sarcastically

“Okay, look here, you can hate the world all you want but you don’t need to be an ass to everyone. Especially when I haven’t done anything to you, other than try to be nice to you.” I say fed up with him already.

“Do you even know what the sun means?” He asks but before I have a chance to answer him he continues on. “Four hundred years goes by without anyone getting it as a gift and now all of a sudden two people in the same grade get it, what the hells up with that? Or for that matter that it is an illegal gift to have?” He asks shutting up any response I would’ve given him. Wait did he say it was an illegal gift? Wait he said two people have it as a gift, does he mean him?

“Wait, you got the sun as well? Also how can it be illegal if we can’t choose it? It’s given to use?” I ask rapidity not giving him a chance to answer me as I start to panic and the world starts fading out.

 You Receive an old Letter dated 1941 but Its from yourself

“Sarah” Jace, The mailman, greets me as I walk up to the Mailboxes. I wave Back to him in greeting. “How’s the throat doing today?”

I sign “It’s doing okay. How are you doing today?”

“I’m glad it’s doing okay today. I’m doing good, I have a weird letter for you.” He says as he starts digging through his mail bag. “Where did it go?” He says more to himself than to me. “Ah, there it is.” He says pulling out an old faded yellow envelope. “We found this in the lost mail pile from 1941” he hands over the envelope carefully. Written in my weird half cursive was my name and my family home address, which I just bought from my mother three weeks ago.

I put it under my arm to sign “that’s weird. I don’t remember writing this”

He laughs and says “your great grandmother had the same name as you or at least that’s what the records say when we looked up this address in the database. There is a high chance that she wrote it and it just got lost in time.” I nod my head eager to get home to read it. I wonder what it has to say. “Actually it would be really cool to see if you post something about the letter on your blog.” I look at him in surprise. “Yes I know about your blog. Your a very talented writer.” He laughs lightly. “Now run along and read that letter. I can’t wait to hear all about it.” He waves me off.

“I can’t wait to read it. I hope you have a good day today” I sign rather quickly making him laugh.

“Have a good day, Sarah” he says walking up to the Mailboxes and opening them and I quickly walk back to my home. As soon as I get home I head to my office and place the envelope on my desk. As I sit I run my fingers lightly over the writing. My stomach tightens and uneasiness with a hint of fear settles over me. An urgency takes over to open the envelope and find out what it says. I carefully open the top flap of it and pull out four yellowish paper with black ink writing over it.

Dear Young Sarah.

I hope this letter finds you well. This letter contains answers about what is going on with your body. No I am not talking about coming into womanhood. I am talking about the curse starting to affect you. If I did everything correctly you should be getting this right before you turn 25 years old.

I drop the papers onto the desk. Is someone playing a trick on me? Why would someone do this? There is no way that anyone outside my close family and friends would know that I’m about to turn 25 in a few weeks. This is so freaking weird. I pick up the papers again to try and figure out if there are any clues to who is behind this.

No, someone is not pulling one over on you. I know it may feel that way but my great grandmother left me a letter just as I am doing with you. You have great abilities. You need to know how to hone in on them and make them flourish. These abilities are a result of a curse that was placed on Xandera Marie Miller in 1689. The curse is that every fourth generation of our family their life is forfeit in the line of service. Mary Magellan cursed us with four abilities. The first one is the ability to tell when someone has the desire to harm those around them. This is the hardest one to gain control over. It is also the hardest to tell you how to gain control over it as it presents itself in different ways. Some of our past ancestors have had visions, others had passing thoughts and the worst one of it is the voices that tell you everything that they are planning on doing to the people around them. However it presents itself to you just remember that you are not crazy. I know that it is hard to do but it is what you need to do.

The second one is the ability to sense how someone is feeling by touching what they have written. Most likely when you touch the writing on this paper you sensed uneasiness and maybe fear. I can tell you the reasons for that is putting this into writing may get me killed and then you willnever get this letter. I’ll never truly know if you get the letter seeing as my daughter, Mary Beth, is not talking to me which makes me even more fearful. This is the easiest of all the abilities to control, just be careful of where you touch paper that has been written on. You have to touch the writing itself for you to get the feelings.

The third one is the ability to predict the outcome of a woman’s pregnancies. How many pregnancies they will have, how many of their children will live to birth and if they will live past birth and why they do not live. This is hard to deal with because you take on their grief and happiness. How this ability works is by touching the female and thinking about babies. Which also makes this ability easy to control. There is not much that needs to be said about this ability. 

The last ability is hard to put into a good light. You will have the ability to see when your lover will die and how they will die. You have no control over this one, it will only show you how and when they die twice, I do not know when that will be but once you’ve seen it once you don’t have to worry about seeing it again until 8 years have past then that will be the last time you see it.

I set the papers gently down. Someone has to be playing a trick on me. Someone has to be. Either that or they are giving me writing material. That’s it. That’s exactly what they are doing.