🎁 The Unexpected GIFTS!
03.17.24 | 🌱📝🌱| Your Weekly Dose Of Humanity Law Is Here! (With A Few Updates, Of Course.)
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Creator of Humanity Law
Chapter One: The Unexpected GIFTS (Part One)
By Neshamah CrosbyJones
Ember Academy
GIFTS Evaluation (Gaze, Instinct, Focus, Testimonial, and Stride)
Blood-bound Candidate: Amiyah St. John
Date: June 16, 2105
The atmosphere is charged from the moment I step into the evaluation room. It wraps around me like a cloak, pulsating with an energy that invigorates and overwhelms me.
The GIFTS, the test that ranks all blood-bound candidates for the final rites of passage, lay before me like a daunting challenge. Goosebumps rise at the nape of my neck, and a shiver runs down my spine. This evaluation can make or break my future as a Blood-bound Witness. "Today's my chance to prove myself," I reflect quietly.
"Slow down, Amiyah," I breathe deep to calm my racing heart. "Find the rhythm."
Ziyah loves to say how every space has its own natural rhythm, an invisible current coursing through it like electricity. And she's right; I've felt it, too. When you tap into it, it becomes a guiding force, flowing through you like a sixth sense. It's not easy to connect with, but once you do, you instinctively know exactly where to focus your field of vision.
I can sense the proctor's eyes on me, but I refuse to let the sensation break my focus. "Just secure a top-three ranking," I murmur, "then no one will side with Abigal anymore.”
Abigale Dennis - what a piece of work. Every chance she gets to undermine me in front of the class, she reaches for it. It's been like this since we turned nine, and in the three years since, she's never missed an opportunity to turn the girls against me by bringing up my mother. "If it weren't for her mother's position on the High Council, I doubt she would have even passed the aptitude test," she says, trying to goad the other candidates into excluding me.
She’s wrong, and today—today will shut her up once and for all. When I rank in the top three, I'll earn the opportunity to complete my field assignment in any of the zones. With a high enough score, I may even move up to tier one. Then Ziyah and I can be partners for the rites of passage just as we planned.
Two months ago, that would have been impossible. My assessment scores for stride and focus were too weak, but since Ziyah and I started practicing after school, they’ve jumped fifteen percent. They’re still my weakest areas, but if I do what we’ve practiced, I know I can pull this off. Ziyah is the only girl who’s never shunned me. She’s the only one I'd want to work with in this dangerous field.
I scan the room for an empty section. The classroom is getting crowded. It hums with the lively chaos of students settling into their seats—shoes scuffling, chairs scraping, and a symphony of excited banter punctuated by bursts of laughter and the occasional rustle of papers. From the front of the classroom, the teacher orchestrates the scene with the animated grace of a conductor, trying to create harmony from the bustling chaos.
“You can take a few more minutes with your notes, but before we begin, you must have all papers and belongings in your bags and stored under your desk,” the instructor shouts above the crowd.
I pan over to a row of empty seats, but navigating the narrow pathways between desks is a challenge. "Saunter, glide," I coach myself, adjusting my pace to counterbalance the chaotic drumming of my adrenaline-fueled pulse.
A sea of animated and diverse faces fills my vision. Gazing over my shoulder, I catch glances of a whiteboard filled with colorful equations and diagrams. The scent of dry-erase ink still hangs in the air from doodles that bear witness to countless lessons. Out of my peripheral, I take note of the walls. They’re adorned with educational posters and vibrant student artwork—a colorful backdrop to the lively scene. I can’t believe they assigned a basic classroom setting for my simulation. I'd expected to witness in a more demanding environment during a GIFTS evaluation. Then, I could really showcase my skills.
There's a sudden break in the chaos as a thunderous crackling sound shatters through all the commotion. Automatic gunfire! In an instant, a stunned silence engulfs the classroom. I pause when I feel the sensation of pressure grip me in my torso. Red fluid erupts from my chest. My body goes rigid with panic. “Wait, am I bleeding?”
I glance down at the slick, viscous substance covering my hands. It's cool and sticky to the touch—not real blood. It's the synthetic blood from the tactile immersion feature on my V-Tech harness. It sprays everywhere around me. For the record, including a full sensory immersion feature on student-grade virtual harnesses was a questionable decision from the start. Witnessing in an unpredictable environment is difficult enough for us twelve-year-olds; adding a tactile element to the harnesses is just overkill. If it were not for the in-depth POV footage, the instructors might have scrapped the tech long ago. Still, something doesn't add up. I get that these are outdated models, but I’ve never heard of one malfunctioning before. At least not like this. There goes my top-three rank. This isn't fair? Maybe they'll let me redo my evaluation.
I have too many thoughts to dissect. Then I hear a chuckle that grows louder and more intense. Suddenly, I realize I’m convulsing with laughter I don't really feel. Of all the times and places for my body to betray me, this one could not have been worse.
There is nothing funny about any of this.
Synthetic blood splatters everywhere, yet I'm helpless. I fight to regain control, but the laughter persists, a mocking reminder of my shaken composure. Anxious, I peer out towards Dr. Willard, but it’s apparent she doesn't know what’s going on any more than I do.
"Cut the sim!" she yells, rushing to the control booth, but she’s not as fast as I need her to be. As she reaches the controls, the edges of the scene, where I stand laughing, blur like a glitch in reality. The faces of the students become pixelated for a fraction of a second, and the ambient sounds start to distort. Suddenly, the classroom begins to dissolve. The once tangible desks morph into streams of data, and the vibrant walls become cascading lines of code. There is an eerie silence, and the virtual teacher, frozen mid-sentence, flickers like a glitchy hologram replacing the noise of discussions and footsteps.
In the blink of an eye, the bustling classroom is revealed as nothing more than a simulation. I stand amid the room as the virtual façade cracks, and the immersive sensations wash away from me. My surroundings, once vivid and tangible, now feel surreal.
"Too insane to be real," I continue to laugh in disbelief. The lights come up, revealing me covered in synthetic blood, staring into the faces of my actual classmates. My arms flail, and my body thrashes as I scramble to get off the slippery stage. I want to disappear. But, again, the moment is disrupted. This time by a different eruption - the roaring cackle of my classmates, sitting in the front row of the grand auditorium, thoroughly entertained by the whole insane display of me slipping across shallow puddles of synthetic blood, laying a trail of zig-zags and figure-eights as I flee to the girls’ locker room.
My mind races as I stumble through the halls, but the more I think on it, the less any of it makes sense. When she issued our harnesses, Dr. Willard made sure to manually lock the immersion feature on every Sense-VT unit. Plus, the academy also has the feature deactivated in the administrative control settings. Either way, the simulation's virtual feed shouldn't have synced with my harness in the first place. I don’t get it. It’s one thing if a safety precaution fails, but for two separate safety precautions to fail at the same exact time? Something or someone must have activated the feature, but how?
Thank you for reading!
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