The road stretched long, cracked and broken. Earth sticking out from various parts that were meant to be granite. The scorching heat of the sun made walking through it completely unbearable, its surface burning with heat. But as catastrophic as the plain sounded, a young man walked forward with an unshakable resolve, the unfocused look in his eyes so intense that rather than look at the road his gaze was glued to his phone.
"Watch it," a man said as the young boy bumped into him.
"Sorry, sir" the boy immediately apologized, but still his eyes didn't look up as he fiddled with the phone in his hand.
The boy had a scrawny physique, and his body was quite small, making it a miracle that he hadn't fallen over after bumping into the stranger. His looks were average at best — his skin a light tan, short dark curly hair that fell down to ear level, and dark brown eyes that focused ahead as his gaze finally left the device in his hand.
"Rivermount City," the boy soliloquized, reading out the boldly written sign at the city gates that looked to have rusted over the years.
Rivermount was one of the many cities in the current world, Nova. It was located in the eastern district of the planet. It wasn't one of the best places to live, as the city was a lowly Tier 4, but still, the people who resided in it tended to manage.
Terranova, formerly known as Earth, and now the home planet of the race known as the Gifted. These Gifted were formerly known as humans, but since the phenomenon of an entire generation being born with strange abilities — later called gifts — the world came to know them as the Gifted. Over time, the population of those who were referred to as Gifted grew, as the same occurrence happened to the next generation and those after, some inheriting the gifts of their parents or being born with different ones entirely. And so the world, which was formerly known as Earth, was later called Terranova, or simply "Nova" for short, meaning "new earth."
A person's gifts were said to manifest at a tender age, mostly between the ages of zero to five. But still, there were those who were referred to as late bloomers — their gifts manifesting later in life. And then there were also those who were referred to as the Voids, born without any gift and dying without ever manifesting one.
The scrawny-looking boy adjusted the bag he had slung over his shoulder as he walked into the city. At first glance, one could see that the living conditions were terrible, and the people who lived in the city weren't far from the claws of poverty.
The boy looked at his phone and read out the name of the place he was meant to be looking for:
"Nineswore Peak."
He tried not to stare at the passersby, as most of the Gifted in the lower-tier cities were known to look for trouble at the slightest advantage, using it as a way to vent the pent-up frustration of their living status. It wasn't that he feared a fight; it was more that, with his small stature, he couldn't take a beating. So he decided to work with his head and avoid trouble.
"Finally," he said to himself as he arrived at the desired location. The hotel looked quite old and nearly run down, its structure that of a bungalow. He took a step forward and walked into the largely built house.
On arrival, the first thing that struck him was the smell of rotting wood. It seemed the building was in worse shape than he thought, but who was he to complain? This was what his finances could get.
He saw a middle-aged woman standing in what looked like the house's living area, holding a notebook and pen in her hand. She looked up from her notebook to see the young boy standing in front of her.
"Aildris Winter," the woman called out.
The boy responded that he was the one.
She jotted something down, no longer paying attention to Aildris, before looking up again with more questions to ask.
"How long will you be renting the building?" she asked.
"Just a week, ma'am," Aildris responded.
The woman nodded her head slightly before asking another question.
"How old are you? And if you're underage, where are your guardians?"
"I'm seventeen," Aildris answered again. This was the legal age of an adult in Nova. He had carefully planned everything out before coming here. Even though it was just a week, this was a journey he had long anticipated.
"I may need to take into account your gift — or gifts, if that's the case. In case of trouble in town or damage within the house, I will need your Nova citizenship card."
The boy fumbled with the bag on his shoulder in search of the card before pulling it out and handing it to her. The card looked as though it was purely silver with blue-colored edges.
The woman collected the card and began to scan through it, checking if the information he had given her matched what he had given the government. So far, everything was correct — until her gaze fell upon his gifts. Her eyes widened in shock as she stared at the boy and at the card in her hand. The chances of what she was seeing were like one out of a hundred, but yet this young boy was that one. His last name showed that he had come from a powerful family, as the Winters were a well-known house that lived in a Tier 1 city. But the boy in front of her, despite bearing the Winter name, was still an anomaly.
[Name: Aildris Winter] [Age: 17 years] [Origins: House Winter] [Gifts: Void]
This was the information provided by the card — the boy was a "Void."