I've been stuck at the Youth With Psychic Abilities facility since I was twelve. On Christmas Eve, I managed to get out.
I've been stuck at the Youth With Psychic Abilities facility since I was twelve. On Christmas Eve, I managed to get out.
I was playing cards with Ethan, a pyrokinetic and a sore loser. That asshole kept burning the cards to ashes every time I won. Ethan,...
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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Trash_Tia on 2025-01-30 03:55:17+00:00.
I was playing cards with Ethan, a pyrokinetic and a sore loser.
That asshole kept burning the cards to ashes every time I won.
Ethan, designated as category red, was the closest thing I had to a friend.
He was a big dude with a surprisingly bigger heart; an ex-high school jock who had become my roomie two years prior.
I could tell he’d been popular—probably from an affluent family—so he likely wasn’t staying long.
They brought him in one night, kicking and screaming, and strapped him to the bed opposite mine.
For the first few weeks, Ethan wasn’t allowed to use his hands.
He sat cross-legged on his bed and told me how he’d set his entire town alight.
Okay, "entire town" was an exaggeration.
He later admitted, it was just a movie theater, and his school locker.
Sitting in the cremated remnants of his letterman jacket, with his thick brown hair and freckles, he looked like the textbook boy-next-door.
I thought he’d be harder to talk to, but he was oddly talkative.
At first, I thought it was the drugs they force-fed him, but then he became obsessed with telling me his life story.
Apparently, he’d accidentally burnt his girlfriend’s eyes out at prom, which somehow led to him to going full pyro.
I know, I told him it was extra.
I admit, I was initially pretty scared of the guy.
It’s not exactly brainwashing, but the moment we’re brought into the facility and categorized as lower levels (blue, indigo, and violet), we’re taught to steer clear of kids categorized at higher levels.
Those are the ones who need to be muzzled and collared: pyros like Ethan and kids like Carlisle, the girl in the room next to mine. Emma, who could teleport.
Emma was mostly mute. She was also REALLY bad at chess.
Carlisle was a Speaker, capable of bringing her own words to life, and super powerful for all of her 17 years on earth.
She told her guard he was suffering from a brain hemorrhage, and seconds later, he was.
Carlisle wasn’t just being held at the YWPA because of her ability.
She was being protected from world leaders and other ne'er-do-wells who could easily use her for their own personal gain behind closed doors.
Kids like Carlisle and Ethan were the lost causes. Here one minute, gone the next.
I half-expected Ethan to disappear one day while I was being tested on, or forcing down mystery meat that passed as cafeteria food.
But it had been almost two years, and pyro boy was still my roommate.
I was category blue, a high-level telekinetic, so it’s not like we could relate to each other.
Ethan was more likely to be executed at eighteen due to the severity of his case.
But weirdly enough, I enjoyed his company.
Just like school, the YWPA had a social hierarchy.
Blues, who were most likely to be recruited for some shady government program, were at the top.
JJ and Alex, lower-level blues, had already invited me to join their little gang, but I wasn’t interested in their weird obsession with becoming soldiers.
I’d been brought in at twelve: those kids had been at the YWPA since birth, never seeing sunlight and being subtly conditioned to enjoy the idea of becoming mindless drones for some higher power.
Those types of kids were noticeably more feral and animal-like, baring their teeth when guards grabbed them for daily testing. JJ was already giving me cult-leader vibes. Instead of being scared of his ability, he embraced it.
Meanwhile, I had a feeling the mandatory Friday classes for low-level blues were screwing with their brains—maybe even prepping them for recruitment. Luckily, I was able to avoid it.
It wasn't easy at first. But the second I was dragged into a classroom-like setting, with an ancient analogue television at the front, I knew my fate.
It was part of being recruited, after all.
People in the real world weren’t interested in noncompliant telekinetics.
They wanted brainless shells.
There was only one way of getting out of mandatory classes, which were either life lessons for the rare occasion that you would be released, or plain fucking brainwashing. I had no choice but to play the unhinged card—which was risky and could either end with me getting executed or sent to therapy.
So in the cafeteria, I staged a breakdown, pinning several kids to the ceiling. I was taken down almost immediately, of course, and thankfully, instead of “military training” in my schedule, I had “Psychokinetic Therapy.”
So, instead of being subjected to what I could only guess was some seriously messed up shit (judging by the rapid decline in the blue’s humanity), I sat in a room with my personal therapist, who taught me how to manage my power and not abuse it.
Speaking of the other blues, they started being more annoying than usual, sitting at their usual table embedded in a game of silent chess.
Which was chess, but nobody talked, and each member used their ability instead of their hands.
This kind of information has been nailed into my brain since my imprisonment inside the YWPA, so I know the nitty gritty of the category blue.
When you're categorised as blue, you can either be a low level or a high level.
Low levels can do simple telekinesis, which is moving or controlling an object or organic matter with their mind.
High levels, however, can extend their ability to the brain.
That's one of the reasons why blues are so popular in recruitment.
Whereas low levels are wanted for their simple ability to move objects, high levels are in demand for their ability to control minds, like influencing or erasing memories, and in some cases, managing a complete take-over of the original organic personality.
As a high level, I knew my day was coming sooner or later.
I couldn't fully master what we called Influence yet, but I did successfully manage to push my instructor to punch me in the face, and then erase his memory of performing that action.
Which meant I was extremely close to being recategorized at a higher level. Which meant re-evaluation.
It was Tuesday, which was a free day.
Nepo babies were allowed monitored time with their parents, while the rest of us had to keep up appearances in front of the elites, pretending we were having the best time ever and definitely weren’t being prodded and tested on.
I mean, if these people were as perceptive as they thought, they’d notice the blood stains. Right?
The velcro straps on every bed. The execution room, which was just one big industrial furnace.
Every time someone was burned alive, the YWPA played Taylor Swift at full volume.
When I was thirteen, I was being dragged back to my room in cuffs after standardized testing. I remember the right side of my body was numb and my nose was bleeding, beads of warm red dripping down my chin. It itched as it dried, but I couldn't do much about it.
The drugs were already destabilizing my limbs, making it impossible to run, my vision swimming in and out of focus. All I could see were clinical white walls crashing into me like ocean waves.
I wasn’t expecting to hear Taylor Swift.
I can’t remember what song it was, just the same lyrics repeating as I was dragged down the hallway toward a bright orange blur.
“Move,” my guard ordered, shoving me forward.
That song followed me all the way back to my room.
When I was freed from my cuffs and shoved inside, I layed down and pretended I couldn't hear the agonizing screams from adjacent cells slicing through those lyrics.
I had pretty much accepted my fate as either ending up in there, being fucking barbecued to an upbeat pop song, or joining my fellow blues as a military drone.
I didn't even fucking dream of walking out of the YWPA on my own two feet.
With my mind intact, at least.
Christmas in the YWPA was about as fun as you would expect.
There was a single Christmas tree themed sticker on the wall for a “decoration.”
But I wasn't even sure if some kids even knew what Christmas was.
Jessa, who was executed three days after her arrival, asked JJ if he wanted to do a secret Santa, and the boy looked at her like she'd grown a second head. Jessa was another scary one, a category grey.
Her ability was similar to a Speaker, but on a mass scale. So, you can imagine how fucking terrifying she was.
But she didn't look scary, she looked harmless! Jessa was tiny with orange pigtails and a gentle smile.
As cute and innocent as she looked though, Jessa could obliterate our universe if she wanted to.
She could also prevent war if she wanted to.
The rumor mill churned, and I heard from an Indigo, that Jessa had snapped her own family out of existence.
But Jessa used her power for small things. She wanted a puppy, and bam, there was one in her lap.
She wanted a swimming pool, and suddenly, a whole new indoor pool hall just appeared at the end of the first floor.
She was both a miracle and a curse, and I don't think the YWPA trusted her– and others were out there hunting her down.
Jessa was only there for three days, but had left an impression.
The swimming pool, for example. It's not like we could use it, but it was still there.
The white plastic seat where she'd sat cross-legged, eagerly asking people's names, sat sadly empty.
Back to the card game.
I was losing patience with Ethan, who thought burning my cards would make him a winner.
The worst part is, he was actually making me laugh, shooting me a grin every time my Queen burst into flames.
It was funny the first few times, but ...
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