Children's Choir
Not every child at Madam Mumsy's Nursery is destined for the same future. A small percentage demonstrate something the staff watches for: latent capacity for psionic achievement. These children are pulled from the general population and placed into the Children's Choir, an elite training program that makes the Nursery's standard cruelties look gentle by comparison.
The Choir's method is calculated deprivation. All physical luxuries are stripped away. The children are treated as outsiders by their peers, isolated from the comforts of companionship and pushed to their absolute limits under exacting standards. The extreme stress is not incidental. It is the mechanism. A mind forced to adapt under unbearable pressure develops psionic capabilities at a rate that calmer conditions never produce.
After a year of this treatment, the final trial begins. Each child is given a single toy, often a pre-fall treasure of genuine value, and told to protect it at all costs. Every other student in the program targets the toy. If a child loses it, they are expelled from the Nursery immediately. Those who protect their toy and survive the year are sold to the highest-standing Vegasian families. Upon sale, a member of the Children's Choir offers their toy to their new owner as a sign of dedication: the one thing they fought to keep, given away without hesitation. It is the last lesson the Nursery teaches, and perhaps the most honest. In Vegasia, nothing you have is truly yours.
The Choir's method is calculated deprivation. All physical luxuries are stripped away. The children are treated as outsiders by their peers, isolated from the comforts of companionship and pushed to their absolute limits under exacting standards. The extreme stress is not incidental. It is the mechanism. A mind forced to adapt under unbearable pressure develops psionic capabilities at a rate that calmer conditions never produce.
After a year of this treatment, the final trial begins. Each child is given a single toy, often a pre-fall treasure of genuine value, and told to protect it at all costs. Every other student in the program targets the toy. If a child loses it, they are expelled from the Nursery immediately. Those who protect their toy and survive the year are sold to the highest-standing Vegasian families. Upon sale, a member of the Children's Choir offers their toy to their new owner as a sign of dedication: the one thing they fought to keep, given away without hesitation. It is the last lesson the Nursery teaches, and perhaps the most honest. In Vegasia, nothing you have is truly yours.
