Sector

Chapter One - Caught

Stay ordinary, unnoticed, and unseen, that's what my mother told me. Keep my head down and they won't send the Collectors after me. That is the name for the people tasked with bringing in the ones with abilities. My mother warned me that if I ever showed that I had an ability they would take me away to the Sector. My ability didn't develop when I was younger like most. In fact, it took me until two years ago before it surfaced. We weren't sure why this was true, but now I was just like all the others.

The risks to my life are the same as theirs now. I was never one to go near those who were accused of having such because even association with one of them brought dangers to the surface level for me and trouble was sure to follow. This is why I had been taught to keep to myself and I was good at it, blending in and all. But these powers were new and because I had been forcing them down to hide them, whether I could get caught or not became unpredictable. For the longest time, I wasn't like them so I didn't need to worry, though now I can't say the same anymore. And now something I had done so easily as I had been taught to do so all these years, staying in the shadows and just following the lead of those who'd gone unnoticed, wasn't so easy for me to do anymore.

I looked at myself in the mirror, an action that had grown quite familiar to me. I could see the scar on my eyebrow my mother said I received when I was young. Knowing me, I'd probably done something stupid as I imagined I fell while playing or something. I don't really remember receiving it but I don't care to recall it either. Drifting from that thought, my eyes caught something in the mirror.

An old piece of ripped tape stuck to the corner of it where something probably used to hang. Something felt off about it but I elected to ignore it. Good things never came from asking too many questions. Something weighed down upon my neck as well reminding me of the necklace I refused to part with. This pulled me from my current train of thought as I grabbed it from underneath my shirt and looked at it. It was an old chain, worn from constant use with a small compass on the bottom. I let my eyes fall on the words engraved upon it.

Follow your heart...

This is what it said though the message was laughable. Follow my heart? What good could that ever do for me if I was taught to do everything but such? Follow my heart it had said but it felt as if it was mocking me. Yet the ellipse at the end always got to me. It let me know there was more to that statement. Follow my heart, but then what? It'll lead me to great places. It'll make me happier in life? What was the rest and why did it matter so much?

Maybe it had been the mystery that surrounded the necklace. I never remember receiving it from anyone though my mother insisted it was a gift that I should keep close and cherish. I'd always assumed it was from my dad before he passed but that felt off. I was missing something though I had no clue what that could be. Yet none of that was important as my mind was brought back to the present and what mattered at this moment.

The Sector is a place where kids found to have inhuman powers are sent to be trained, and forced to follow orders from the government. They did it to seek order over them, to teach kids to use their abilities for the better rather than using them for the worse. The founder of the Sector, known by the name Belos, wanted to take in these kids with gifts and use them to help society. It is his intention to use us as he deems fit.

So, having an ability gives you two options, go to the Sector or be sentenced to prison. An unlawfully unfair choice that isn't much of one in the end. Some kids, like me now, hide that they have a gift so they aren't sent away from their families. My mother had done everything in her power to keep me from using my gift ever since it was discovered so that this wouldn't happen to me. Though it is very dangerous and illegal to keep someone who is gifted from The Sector.