Elevate | ONC 2021

1. Tales of the Sky

"I'm telling you, Sintra. The government is out to get you!"

"Stop it, Lee." Sintra scolded, evenly applying her red lipstick as she gazed at herself in the bathroom mirror.

"Listen, they do this every year. Hundreds, if not thousands of people, all with genius IQs get yeeted off the earth then placed in some sort of competition to join a secret society. It's a whole organization. The articles are all over the web." Lee continued.

Rolling her eyes, Sintra walked past her friend as she headed into the kitchen for her thermos. It was bad enough that today was going to be stressful at work but now her bestfriend was on her case, rambling on and on about her possible abduction by the US government.

See, Lee had fell down a rabbit hole. A very deep, dark and annoying one. In doing so, her skin had began to absorb the abundance of minerals that were conspiracy theories from the muddy earth of the dark web. Now it was enriched with ideas of all things unearthly.

She claimed that every year about 100 people across the world, each with genius IQs gets abducted by the government and put through gruesome trials in order to gain a place in some complex and sophisticated, extraterrestrial society. Though she did not know for sure, Lee and every other space obsessed weirdo on the net suspected it was the work of aliens.

Their reasoning was that the government aids them in this occasion in exchange for peace among worlds and to keep the general population dumber.

In other words, the less smart people there were, the less people to question their corrupt society, gain wealth or overthrow them. It's a win a win for both.

Since Lee was an astronomy major, she had taken an interest in all things otherworldly, and all things irritating.

"Have you been reading that stupid book again?" Sintra asked her, taking a sip of coffee from her thermos as she leaned against the granite countertop of the kitchen. She sucked the warm liquid in her mouth, clicking her tongue to her palate as she tried to decipher the ingredients of the coffee; a habit she had picked up when she discovered that she had an immaculate palate.

"The Tales of the Sky is not stupid. It's real!" Lee tried to convince Sintra but her friend had long stopped listening.

"Almond milk; four constituents are: almonds, cane juice, sea salt, calcium carbonate and potassium citrate. Coffee beans; grounded, burnt from overbrewing and infused with vanilla, cocoa beans, cinnamon and blackberr—" Sintra stopped, that wasn't quite right. She took another sip before Lee spoke again.

"Are you seriously analyzing your food right now?" she asked, her voice laced with annoyance.

"Blueberries!" Sintra cheered, completely ignoring her friend.

"How the hell do you that?" Lee asked, this time she was intrigued.

To say Sintra was a master food connoisseur would be an understatement. The talent she possessed was far beyond human comprehension as she could tell the exact ingredients of any dish or drink down to the chemicals used to preserve or color it and all she had to do was taste it.

The Japanese would describe it as "Kami no Shita", this translated to the term "God's tongue". It was described as a superhuman ability that gifted the wielder with an ultra-acute sense of taste which perfectly characterized Sintra's bizarre talent.

She could tell the exact date food would go bad just by sifting out the ingredients inside it, determining the date of produce and calculating the potential perishing date.

Whether it was slightly battered fruit, a week old egg, expired food coloring or untreated water. Nothing could slip past her palate; she tasted it all.