The gems on our heads shone the same light, despite our different gem colors. My clear crystal suddenly didn’t strike anyone as unusual or inferior; that sent excitement chills through my nerves. I have been waiting for a moment like this for my whole life, a feeling that I belonged. Yet something felt off. For a second there, I felt a frown from the deepest parts of my being; my gem started to dim and the power that had elevated me lost it’s touch and gravity took over. This time a scream made it’s way through my throat and the waves from the loud yet scared scream slowed time and my body was laid to the ground with the gentleness that only a petals touch can give.

I rose from the concrete just as fast as I landed. Instinctively, my hands touched the gem on my forehead. Realization struck me when I felt the gem was cold. At that point in time, I was the only clear crystal gem- the rest had perished. It was bizarre, I even started doubting my existence when the other clear gems vanished into thin air. The Council, made up of mostly grey gems, blamed it on me; I didn’t understand then what they meant. Again a strong wave of revelation hit me, it almost felt physical because I took a step back as if from a tornado hit.

There was a glowing stone some throw away; childhood memories of holding them till they stopped glowing flowed almost as if from an archive. That’s when I put two and two together. I always absorbed energy unlike other Gems of other colors. That’s the reason I couldn’t be with my type in the sky. Adrenaline hit and my feet responded by carrying me to a tall building nearby. Darkness was creeping in and a strong wind was blowing. My blood froze when I recalled all the lies we had been fed with; how The Chosen were the saviours and how the Gems were the guardians.

A tear flowed from my eye at the intensity of the betrayal. Heart felt heavy from the doubt of my next move. The Chosen were just as corrupted as The Others in fact, they must have been working together this whole time. The Chosen could only power the Others if Gems were involved; the gem was a type of power transfer. All of them except my gem; my gem worked in a complete opposite way- it absorbed energy. I looked into the sky where the power transfer was almost taking place. I figured if I could stop the connection between the ignorant Gems and the Others, their lifespan would be doomed to end.

I trembled out of fear and anxious feelings of failure and of being wrong. At the rooftop of a tall building, the wind is blowing through my flesh into my bones. The Ray that is transferring should be visible in five, four, three…

I took a leap into the sky, a thing I didn’t think possible. Gravity forgot to pull and the second my countdown hit zero, a ray appeared from the sky and I knew I had to meet it before it got to power the Others. All the small energy sources I had acquired and absorbed over the years gave me a mighty push while I struggled to focus everything I had to the ray. I closed my eyes. A light ray hit my chest; pain intergrated into my system. I let the ray cut through me as I tried to focus it on my gem. Finally, the ray was just above my gem. Healing swept over me as the slash I had gotten from the ray fixed itself. I felt a mighty shout from below, meaning the Others were perishing for lack of charge from the Chosen.

The Gems dropped to the ground like beaten up flies raining down from the sky. I was still in the sky even after the ray dimmed down. My thoughts turned to the Chosen and their deceptive manipulation triggered anger. I stretched my hands for no particular reason only to discover the gem was directing my moves. The washed-up Gems were powered up by my stretching and rose to the sky next to me. Together we destroyed the Chosen and immediately the land was healed. For the first time in that century, green pasture was seen, flowers grew and the people didn’t have to suffer such fate.

*The End*

I’m sent spiraling in a span of what seems like forever and finally my body hits a vertical solid and it bursts, all sand around me. I understand that I shouldn’t be glad that i hit a wall but the concept of flying through the air after a humongous blow doesn’t exactly strike me as heroic. I can’t feel my anything but I can hear my heart beating and that’s all that matters right now. It doesn’t hurt, but everything is a blur, whirling and passing me by. A slight wiggle and I drop from the engraved patch on the wall to the grey concrete.

Life’s been chaotic around here since The Others arrived. They are responsible for every wrong thing that’s happening. From secretly poisoning newborns to wiping clean a whole village with all it’s young and old; they are definitely not welcome. My eyes narrow as thoughts of the catastrophic happenings run around my head. In a normal life, my feelings would be enough to freeze an entire continent but these are not normal times. I start having feel in my head as it gradually grows to irredeemable pain.

Death-thoughts cross my mind and I dwell on them for a minute, trying to come to terms with my worst fate. An overcoming scream almost tears through my throat with the intensity of a pregnancy’s nauseousness, but I suppress the feeling promising myself that the energy should help stay alive. Light with very high intensity keeps flashing; I can’t survive another hit from the Others so I close my eyes and wish them to oblivion. Only that it wasn’t the Others- I curiously open my eyes to blinding light. I scan my surroundings with narrowed eyes to discover the light around was a reflection from some source. For some weird reason, I feel excited; a smile curves on my lips. Almost immediately my head took a different path of thinking, I felt a burning sensation between my eyes.

That was it; the moment all Gems anxiously awaited, when the gem decides to respond to all physical pain and pressure from external forces. Books and other scrolls talked about the Invasion- the catastrophe that will discover the gem’s power. Those of us with gems were supposed to be special but living among usuals made us lose respect; we disappointingly couldn’t do anything extraordinary or different from the usuals. The Invasion had skipped two generations; the usuals alive had never experienced the power of gems thus the loathe. We were termed useless with time and it stopped being a joyful moment once a gem was born. In fact, anyone who bore a gem was ridiculed and forced into hiding.

Gravity had no hold on me as my body rose from grey concrete into air and higher. I thought my piece was illuminating the universe when it hit me that all other Gems had been ascended just above the city. The illumination was a call for help from The Chosen to fight this battle. All other times in history, the Others hit the road on fast strides and that’s what they should have been doing below, only that this time they were not. I looked around in confusion to others like me who reflected my thoughts in their expressions.

*TO BE CONTINUED*

Dressed to literally kill; I hug my gun, it’s just pieces of metal but at this point in time- my only hope. It’s only been three days since the Others held us under siege pushing us to the ocean. Each day our perimeter of influence was slowly turning into a death row. We are supposed to be six of us on the look out but I’m the only one who survived the shooting.

I quicken my footsteps as I come to sight with the stack of sacks marking our territory. A bullet that was aimed for my head misses it with several inches, forcing my whole being to freeze. I realize my mistake and correct it almost as fast as my last move by shouting our secret password in an accent. A man with similar uniform makes hand signals and I ran towards him with the speed of a broken lover’s heart desperately wanting healing.

It was a desperate call when the state started recruiting every young men and women to the army. Being a sixteen-year old girl, I’m left no other choice than to be my best self; I have no assurance for the next day leave alone the future. Three airplanes fly right above us and drop explosives. Instincts guide me to lie on my belly while hugging my metal helmet. Pieces of sand and rock splash on my body with the intensity a strong force of a child with nightmares. After what seems like a minute, I raise my head just to confirm my living state.

Horror fills my vision as I finally make it to my feet and parts of beings are splattered all around me. My eyes fill up but I swallow something dry and painful along with it. Shouts of pain is all my glands can pick up. Panic fills the air as planes are seen from miles away. My heart skips a beat as my legs lose themselves to fate. Each step we take to breaking free brings us closer to rubbing shoulders with death.

As the saying goes, everyone for himself; I focus on making it to sunset which is only three hours away. After that I lay my life in the hands of life itself.

Standing over the window I look out into the towers piercing the sky and the countless neon lights. From where I’m from such sights are only seen in photographs – our typical type of view is one or two buildings in sight plus the horizon somewhere in the picture. People are overly not concerned about personal space because from up here everyone seems impossibly close to each other. Inside this city, this place is a nightmare on a whole ‘nother spectrum.

Here humans believe in a notion of making a ridiculously big deal on how they dress up to present individuality. If Jerusalem is a place where energy pulls then this place is the perfect description of darkness and hopelessness. One could only find despair, disappointment, heartache and pain here. Combing through the streets and neighborhood today, while everything looked dreadful in my brown eyes, there were places that I even found charming. In Tagris, there is no space for charm, instead hope dies and I start to feel mine dim.

The people here have sunken cheeks and smiling teeth, flesh exposed and loitering the whole place like they have no purpose, more like they living but dead. I turned to Hypeiath, a tall boy I had met yesterday on the Subway with the same gem on his forehead as mine and asked about the strange zombies I see.

He explained that most of them were substance users and the rest had been brainwashed by the authorities. Apparently, that was the mode of crime punishment. Cops and the guys in blue fed them after several days and they had shelter but were allowed to wander around. After five moons they regain their speech back and other basic skills they knew from their previous lives like carpentry and so on. They started their lives again and just like newborns were innocent of course.

My stomach grumbled and I turned to look Hypeiath who nodded and spoke something that sounded like he was saying it would be his treat. I only smiled and followed him down the stairs into the life we were watching from above. We both slide our hoods over our heads almost instinctively. I smiled at the strangeness of life and lost.

I am simply a teenage girl. Rephrasing, I am a girl; very complicated so simply doesn’t have a say in anything that’s used to define me. It’s cold outside and the breeze is kissing my face with the intimate feeling of Romeo to Juliet or any other stories you may have heard in your short life so far. It’s too early to be spring, too early to be Dawn and the snow under my boot is leaving – so am I; the ground soaking the moisture in.

The difference between the white flakes on the ground and I is that I’ll never be back here. The flakes will probably be back every year, the consistency is almost dependable. I let my rucksack slid from my shoulder to my back as I started making my first strides towards greener grass on the other side.

I’ve always never belonged here anyway. From the moment I was born and I had the strange yet shiny jewel in my forehead, everyone knew my life was not with my family forever.

I am a gem.

This revelation comes with a lot of responsibility and expectations. For one, I will leave my home or biological parents and join The Defined; others like me with rare stones. Together we form a tribe, but that’s a story for another life to tell.

My time hadn’t come but I couldn’t bare saying farewell to my mother who gave me her all, even with the realization that I am not hers to keep. I packed some few stuff and that’s where it all began. I boarded the Subway to Liuke.

What raised questions was the color of my gem. That stone perfectly set just above my eyes was clear or more clearly crystal clear. In this part of the world, they claimed that they have never seen such. For the longest I have been hiding it under hats and hoods. There was literally no one in my life for understandable reasons. Having only one chance in attachments and mistakes I had decided long ago that I’ll save it for later or never.

I turned around to see people staring at me. Probably wondering what I’m all about, dressed in my favorite color- black because everything else is usually blinding. I looked around not paying attention to particularly anything knowing that the hat was secured over my gem. They soon stopped wasting precious time with randomness and played their own tracks. The Subway stopped and I stepped out; walking away from a life I lived without any expenses for familiarity.

I couldn’t afford to be visible. Transparency was not going to get me anywhere. There were humans from school but wasting time hanging out and laughing out loud would leave me broken after The Defined picked me to isolation. So I only let a piece of my heart to occupy my mother’s memories. It was a risk I was willing to take. So here I am running away from everything I was supposed to know and be- just to remain undefined.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton