Thirteen-year-old David tried to play as loud as he could. Loud enough to block out the sounds of his parents arguing downstairs.

They had just returned from David’s Acquisition Ceremony where every 13-year-old got granted a gift by the algorithm.

This gift was meant to give every human born into the world, a purpose.

Artificial Intelligence found that one of the main reasons humans waste their lives loitering was in the search of purpose.

Finding out this flaw in the human nature, the AI invented a system that granted humans an ability. These abilities could be useless until proven useful.

Humans are a resourceful bunch.

Some gifts were harmless like, ‘can produce cool air’.

Such people were employed by big firms and companies to stay in corporate buildings and provide them with the cool air that emanated from their bodies.

Other gifts were amazing like the ‘ability to heal’. Those kinds of abilities, as you might imagine were very high in demand and were sought out as fast as possible.

But then, there was David’s gift, ‘will know the cause of death’.

His parents hated it and he knew. His gift was the only thing that could have saved his family from ruin.

They had hoped that his gift would be something grand like, ‘can produce clean energy’ like his maternal father or ‘genius’ like their neighbor’s child, Chris.

But no. He got that instead.

The ability hadn’t been activated yet and he wondered how he would know when it was, and how he would use it.

Just then, his father burst into his room disrupting his thoughts, “I will not have the devil living in my house.”

David expected this, his father had been out of sorts. Drinking more than usual, hitting Mum out of anger and him if he was nearby.

His father’s gift was, ‘can do party tricks’. It was a joke, he was mocked and called a clown. The only people who would hire him were children's party planners. It paid the bills, but he hated his powers.

He hated it almost as much as he hated himself.

“This devil will not live in my house”, he reiterated and pulled David by his hair, about to yank him out of his room. David screamed when he felt his father's fist grab him by the roots of his hair and pull.

“Carl please,” his mother begged above his cries, and his father threw him to her.

They hugged and cried into each other’s arms, as they often did.

“You two can have each other,” Carl’s voice shouted above them, “a demon child and a disappointment of a woman”.

Carl married David's mother for her father’s gift, he had hoped that the genes would rub off on their child. But no luck.

David felt his mother shake in his arms, he noticed her purple bruises and saw that she winced in pain when he tried to hug harder.

He hated this, he hated that he was the cause of her bruises and pain.

Maybe if he had a better ability.

He looked up at her to tell his mother that everything was going to be fine. That he would study hard and start working to help pay the bills. That he would grow big and strong so he could protect her.

That was when he saw it.

Words above her head, a bright, white color impossible to miss. He could read the simple three-letter words.

Dad.

His ability had been activated, and he was meant to know the causes of death, did that mean?

In shock, he turned to his father about to plead and beg for his mother’s life.

But he also saw words written above his father’s head. Similarly, in a bright, white color and easy to read.

Bile hung in his throat; his ability was to know the causes of death, and it would be written in words atop the heads of every human.

Then why did the word hovering above his father’s head read…

You.