The Gifted Divide

"How the little piggies will grunt when they hear how the old boar suffered." ― Ragnar Lothbrok

* * * *

The wind blew through the shattered remains of Raverin like a phantom clinging to memories. The town had once been alive. If not vibrant, then at least stubbornly breathing, with its narrow alleys winding with chatter and the scent of spices from the night markets, and even flower petals drifting down from the old florist on Greyhill Lane.

But now?

Now, Raverin was a husk. A scarred, crumbling relic of a world that no longer had room for hope.

Lucas Alescio moved slowly through the ghost town, his footsteps quiet but unwavering on the cracked pavement. His boots crunched against broken glass and paper that flittered across the road like ghosts. News clippings, torn advertisements, and even forgotten letters half-consumed by water damage.

Graffiti scarred the walls like angry wounds: phrases like "The Gifted Bleed First", "No Peace While They Breathe", and "Burn the Cursed" sprayed in aggressive reds and blacks. But there were other markings, too. Messages written in chalk, some nearly washed away: "They took my son", "Forgive me, I ran", "Gifted are not demons".

Lucas paused at a half-toppled lamppost. A stuffed bear was zip-tied to it, rotting under years of exposure. A memorial? A warning?

He adjusted the weight of the small black backpack on his shoulder and continued on, turning down Greyhill Lane.

The florist was still there. Or what was left of it.

Shutters hung off twisted hinges like broken wings, and glass crunched beneath his boots as he stepped toward the entrance. Dead flowers lay in bunches along the entryway—petals dried and browned like brittle parchment. The sign, once a sweet hand-painted plank reading "Marielle's Florals", now had a dark X scrawled through it, paint streaked like blood.

He exhaled slowly. This had been home once.

The stairwell groaned beneath his weight as he climbed to the second floor, every step creaking with memory. The same chipped green paint on the walls, the water stain in the corner of the hallway ceiling shaped vaguely like a wing, and the door at the end of the hall—apartment 2B.

Lucas's fingers hesitated at the knob.

This place had been theirs. His and Misha's.

He pressed his hand to the wood, eyes fluttering closed for a moment. He remembered Misha's laughter echoing from inside, tiny feet pitter-pattering on old floorboards. Lucas's desperate attempts to stretch thin pay-checks into something resembling meals.

Cold nights warmed only by shared blankets and the small fire he'd learned to conjure and hold close, careful never to let it show.

Now, he pushed the door open slowly. The hinges creaked like they remembered him.

Inside, dust blanketed everything like snow. The cot still sat in the corner, the sheets thin and crumpled. The old moth-eaten sofa remained beside the low coffee table—scarred, chipped, and stubbornly intact. The place was exactly as he remembered it.

No, not exactly.

It felt…smaller. Hollow.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

Like even the walls had stopped trying.

Lucas closed the door behind him, sliding the rusted lock into place and then stacking a broken crate and a rickety old chair in front of it, the way he always had when Misha had nightmares and they needed to feel safe.

He dropped the backpack to the floor, kneeling down and pulling out a sleek, black unmarked portable computer—a model Allen had given him weeks ago. Quiet, offline-capable, and untraceable.

He placed it gently on the coffee table. The dust swirled as he exhaled, the apartment holding its breath with him.

Then, he reached into his jacket and pulled out the data card Elijah had handed him two days ago. "You might want to get yourself prepared," Elijah had said. "It might not be the answer you're hoping for."

The card clicked into place, and the screen flickered.

A loading bar appeared. Slowly crawling toward completion.

[LOADING… 12%]

Lucas swallowed.

He didn't know what he expected. Maybe to find more corruption in the ESA. Maybe to learn that everything that Aegis and Sera as well as Zest have been telling him about the hunters and the ESA aren't true.

Or maybe something worse.

He wasn't sure what he was afraid of. But he was afraid.

[LOADING… 36%]

His heart was pounding. His pulse thudding in his throat.

Lucas remembered Gene Alescio as a warm man. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a rumbling laugh and a strong hand that always gently rested on Lucas's head. He remembered late nights where Gene helped him with his homework. He remembered Misha asleep on Gene's shoulder during late-night movies.

He remembered…love.

[LOADING… 72%]

The world had been brighter then. Lucas was eleven when it all went dark. The car crash. The funeral. The silence afterward. And then came the stares and the glares whenever Lucas mentioned his last name.

He'd wondered why for years.

[LOADING… COMPLETE]

The screen changed. Lucas tapped a key. And everything shattered.

Dozens—no, hundreds of files lined the screen. Some dated as far back as thirty years. Many bore the crest of the hunter organisation. Others had code names and black bars over redacted names. But most…were signed.

G. Alescio.

Lucas opened the first one.

OPERATION: EMBERWIND

Subject: Target — Child, female, estimated age 8. Gifted (classified: heat manipulation)

Outcome: Subject neutralised. Parents terminated as collateral. Fire contained. Report attached.

"Neutralised," Lucas mouthed. He opened another.

OPERATION: MOTHWALKER

Subject: Underground sympathiser group in Raverin. Gifted and Normal both suspected. Premises raided. Seventeen casualties. Target secured: None. Resistance noted. Casualties include minors.

Photos. Photos. Bodies.

Lucas flinched, the bile rising in his throat.

He kept clicking. Kept reading.

Dozens of reports. All signed by his father. All detailed. Cold. Efficient. And clean.

Gene Alescio had been a hunter.

And not just any hunter. He'd been their best.

Each mission was a stain, each name a memory lost in fire and ash. Children, rebels, and families. Innocents. Rebels. People with Gifts. People who had none but dared speak for those who did. Every one reduced to "terminated" or "neutralised."

There were letters, too. Personal ones.

Albert, one began, addressed to Nicolosi himself, the underground stirs. These rats breed beneath the stones of Eldario, and our job is to crush them before they crawl into the daylight. I'm close to completing Ember Protocol. Do not worry.

Lucas's hands trembled as he read on.

Photos of his father, smiling, standing over scorched ground. Footage, grainy but unmistakable. A hunter dragging a sobbing boy from a building before the screen cut out in a burst of static.

And then…

A letter. To Nicolosi. Dated months before Gene's death.

I'm leaving the hunters. I have my reasons. Thank you for everything.

And then, another report—from a hunter sent by Nicolosi to track down Gene Alescio and find out just why he'd suddenly decided to leave.

He's married. In secret. Children. Two of them. Both boys. And they're Gifted. Fire users. What would you like me to do?

And then…

A confidential report marked with an unknown symbol, most likely from one of the factions within the underground. It was dated two months after the deaths of Gene Alescio and his wife. From someone sent to investigate Gene's death.

Subject: G. Alescio

No evidence of foul play. But timing is too perfect. The incident is too perfect. Would continue investigating.

Then a letter dated just seven years ago. From Klein, leader of the Whirlwind street gang, addressed to someone called the Premier.

Gene Alescio's death is a blessing to us all. How many of us did he burn before the Goddess decides to call for him? I heard that he has family members left behind. He's married. In secret. Will continue looking to see if he has children. Might want to consider taking them out before they can become a threat.

Lucas stopped. He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.

He stared at the screen. The last message flickering back at him. His hands were shaking. His chest felt like it was splitting open. He barely realised that his hands were shaking.

His father is a murderer. A butcher. A hunter.

A hunter…that targeted even children, or even Gifted who had never done anything but existed. Even targeting Normals—people of the underground, just because they happened to be in the hunters' way.

He thought of Misha. How he used to always sit in Gene's lap and begged him to read him a story before bed. Or even the way that Gene had taught Misha his letters and numbers, with those same hands that had killed hundreds teaching Misha to tie his shoelaces—the same way that he had taught Lucas.

Had that same man written reports condemning children just like Misha? Would Gene have burned Misha if he had been someone else's child?

Would he have burned Lucas?

Lucas leaned back slowly, letting his head fall against the wall behind him. The shadows of the apartment fell over him like mourning veils. He couldn't tell if the chill was from outside, or from something hollowing out inside his chest.

He had come here seeking the truth. And the truth had ruined him.

He didn't notice the tears falling.

He didn't hear the wind rattling the broken window panes. Didn't even move when the computer screen dimmed.

He just sat there. Alone.

If we hadn't been Gifted, would we have followed him into Hell?

And worse…

Would we have liked it?