Seen from above, the capital's districts spiral around one another like sections of a snail's shell ; District 1 at the center, and gradually moving outwards from there, all the way up to D18. The more centric the districts, the higher the living standard ; Districts such as D6 housed the very top of the middle class - about as high up the social ladder as most people could hope to reach, and even then it was a remarkable endeavor. Kim and Rook Gabby had managed it through 'study and hard work', in their own words, building their lives on principles of reason and restraint, and they intended the same for their three children. Loners in their own youth, with no friend but each other, they obsessed over homework, textbooks, diagrams, cool headed reflection, and risk-reward calculus to give themselves some sense of superiority in their inability to socialize. Somehow - and possibly due to enabling one another, hanging out together so long they couldn’t remember when they met, or when they went from friends to loverd - they never grew out of it, and landed themselves in high-paying jobs - in the stock trade and high-tech industry respectively. They were the sort to make the most of what they got, but never reach for something too out of the way ; make lemonade from lemons life gave them, even replant the seeds and setup a profitable stand - but never expand beyond lemonade, on the account life hadn't provided the oranges.

They discouraged their own children from unwise ambitions and risky passion projects ; they tolerated hobbies and interests, but made their point clear : those hobbies would remain hobbies, and nothing more.

The older two siblings seemed to adapt to their parents' way of educating them well enough ; Gabrielle was a different breed. Born in 12510 as Rook and Kim's youngest daughter, she had, from the earliest age, developed a feverish obsession with heroïsm. Her parents didn't make much of it, at first ; every kid had their childhood idols and favourite stories, they figured. And yet, even as years passed and Gabrielle grew up, her passion never dried up or wavered. Before she was even old enough to attend one, she already whined and begged to be enrolled into a GHH school. Whenever she spoke about her love of heroes, her cheeks flushed, she balled up her fists, brought her hands to her chest and ranted with adorable intensity, her expression a permanent gaping-mouth gasp matched with wide, sparkling eyes as she attempted to follow her parents’ tips on building convincing arguments while improvising odes in a 5-year old’s words. Her starstruck excitement was so endearing, it even spread to her siblings.

Kim and Rook’s three children shared the same room - 14 meters squared’s worth of space that Gabrielle had filled with her many doodles and posters of heroes old and new. Before she learnt to read herself, she would often ask one of her siblings to read her hero-related news and stories before bed. The other two couldn’t have cared less about power rankings or secret abilities or battles between unlikely characters ; but something about Gabrielle made them care. Even knowing it wasn’t wise, their drive to support their sister pushed them far enough that they tried their best to convince their parents to let her attend the school she wanted. They even used their parents’ own logic against them ; success rates, scholarship opportunities, school sponsors, proportions of graduates within prestigious job fields - any number bright and big enough would do.

Thankfully for Kim and Rook, nature had provided them with the perfect excuse to keep their youngest on a leash without crushing her heart.

All throughout her childhood and even the start of puberty, Gabrielle never showed the slightest sign of developing an ability. Kim’s bones could bend to a degree ; Rook’s skin and muscles were unnaturally thick and harder to cut than the norm ; Mitch, the oldest, could camouflage amongst and ‘solidify’ water for a short time ; Tyler, his cadet, hardly ever worked up a sweat and ran faster than his class’ top athlete without being one himself. None of them made substantial use of it. Gabrielle, whose every waking moment was spent drooling over heroic prospects, was abilitiless. Reasonable as they liked to see themselves, her parents strongly believed in the irony of life ; Whenever she asked about the GHH or related topics, their response was always “Once you develop an ability.”, all the while they remained convinced she never would. Gabrielle sadly shared the same fear - though she desperately tried to pretend the opposite, her confidence decayed visibly by the day ; her hopes of getting an ability slowly dwindled down to null.

Some 14524 Monday morning, Gabrielle drags herself out of bed, tiptoeing to avoid waking up her siblings. As always, she’s up before everyone else. She walks over to the window to open the blinds - while keeping the curtains closed, of course. To access the blinds, she only pushes the thick, draping cloth aside for a second, letting but a sliver of light trough. She blinks ; her sleep-ridden eyes play tricks on her, hallucinating nonsensical shadows and reflections upon the glass. Thin, shapeless ribbons dancing, waving slowly like seaweed - like... flames. Turning around to face the room again, Gabrielle sees the carpet - the carpet that has caught on fire - caught on fire at the tips, in the corners furthest from her and closest to the beds. Oh no, okay, don’t panic. It’s only a start, little more than the likes of a match or a candle. Don’t wake up everyone over something like this. You can deal with this yourself. Several other similar thoughts cross her mind as she stomps the carpet ; But the more she attempts to put out the flames, the harder they burn - the bigger they grow. They spread from every inch of the room, spiralling all around like hell itself seeping into her childhood home - their childhood home. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, every newspaper page and notebook paper drawing and instant camera shot and vanity poster combust and melt away in the chiaroscuro of her little world. Yet, she herself remains untouched. The flames circle around her diligently, paying her their respects as they chew mercilessly though everything else.

It’s no normal fire. This firestorm is unnatural ; so fantastical and horrific a fire, it has to be the byproduct of an ability. Her ability. A death trap cast by her own hands, and only further fueled by her desperation. Abilities that have just developed tend to be unstable ; emotional distress only worsens that. Stop it. She has to stop it. She has to stop it. Stop it, all of it, everything - The flames. The fire alarm that’s finally caught on, much too late. Her siblings waking up from the heat, much, much too late.

Finally, it stops : but much too late.

She passes out from the fumes, and the flames stop. Rook and Kim arrive, and finally put out what’s left of the hellfire.

Once Gabrielle came to, the room had long been cleaned up - But she didn’t care. She needed to get away ; she couldn’t control it. She needed to get away, or the flames would start again - swirl out from and all around her again. She could swear they’d already started again. The girl rushed to the bathroom, flicked the tap open, and jumped into the tub. She sighed, damp and relieved, as the flames died upon birth, drowned by the bathwater and her frantic sobs.

Her memories of that week would forever remain compromised - vague - fragmented. Too painful to recall. She couldn’t even remembered what had hurt the most - the day the flames took everything away, the following day when her siblings’ corpses were unearthed, or the medical AR she was forced through so hurriedly that the procedure had to be repeated several times over. Ultimately, the only pain that lingered clear as day was grief - not only of the two people closest to her, but of all of the dreams she’d held onto since youth.

Neither Kim nor Rook ever blamed her for what had happened ; they consoled and reassured her to the best of their ability. Even then, their relations were never again what they used to be. Gabrielle closed herself off from the world. From everyone. From everything. At first, for the sake of others ; she was scared of hurting them again, of causing another incident. The pain and nature of ability removal - especially the unrefined AR available to hospitals and emergency containment at the time - left patients scarred, and unable to accept their ability’s termination ; it was akin to phantom limb syndrome, in a way. Gabrielle could still see fire swirl from the corner of her - feel heat all around her, so viscerally she’d work up a sweat - even with her Firestorm Generation being long gone. She shut herself in, convinced to be a non-existent threat.

But over time, her paranoid self-isolation turned to misanthropy. Disillusion and jealousy swelled up inside her, and she came to see people through a harsh, pessimistic lens. She scoffed at hope, ambition, dreams, belief, love - not in the “all work and no play” self-important way her parents did ; she simply resented everything, and anything.

She left her home and district, seeing no point in pursuing higher education, and moved to District 17 - ‘the bassinet of human misery’, as she called it. Gabrielle found a dead-end job, a small apartment, and lived there without aiming for anything else - complacently bathing herself in loneliness, willingly turning her life into a walking death to avoid facing it head on.

Fortunately, a flaw in her strategy soon became clear. A café waitress’ monthly pay was insufficient to afford rent and bills long-term, even in this ‘shithole’. With a heavy heart, she wringed the knife into her voluntary isolation ; a simple newspaper ad.

Seeking roommate. District 17 apartment, 5th floor. 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1 living room (counts as the kitchen). Monthly half is circa 334, electricity bill included. I work a lot, we won’t see each other much. Contact me : [email protected]

She never expected to like whoever she’d end up having to stay with, but Catherine was about as bad as it possibly could possibly have been. She was a GHH hero ; hardworking, polite. And she refused to accept her C rank as an immovable glass ceiling. She endlessly reached higher than her lot in life, with terrifying determination.

Gabrielle nearly came to hate her more than herself.