You have lost organ; Left Eye.
(3) Flesh of the Beyond have been consumed to create replacement. Eye lost is part of a set, counterpart pieces will need to be replaced to maintain function. Would you like to add any essences?
[Yes] [No]
Grant looked at the window. It was the same one from before about his eye. He had ignored it before. It was all he could see now. He was in that strange dreaming, not dreaming, state again. While the window was all that he could see, he could hear something else.
The Other remained behind him. He could hear it making furtive little noises. It was rifling through something with its tentacles. It sounded like papers in banker's boxes being pulled out. As Grant's vision was taken up by the window he heard what sounded like a stack of boxes falling over and papers sliding out.
Grant reacted without thinking, trying to turn around and look. He found he could once again not look around to see the Other. The vise like sensation was there, as was a mild but insistent dull pain. It reminded Grant of the aftermath of a brain freeze. A new window had taken up his field of vision.
DO NOT TURN AROUND
The warning appeared large in his vision. it faded away after a few moments. The sounds of the Other had stopped for a moment but began again as soon as the window disappeared fully.
Ok, no looking, Grant thought.
The Window regarding his eye returned to the forefront. It asked if he wanted to add essences.
Grant considered the question before him. He wasn’t really happy about huis teeth being different. Despite the fact that they had saved his life he was worried what this meant for him. He hadn’t seen them yet but he was worried what they might look like.
Despite that it wasn;t in his nature to just casually decline things without looking into them. He weighed the options available to him in his head. He knew from the other windows he had seen that he had four types of essences: Floating, Consuming, Writhing, and Propagation.
All of those options seemed bad for eyes. Again he found himself quickly throwing out all options besides consuming. He considered it for a moment. Would consuming eyes mean he could eat with his eyes?
That might be useful. Of course, what if it wasn’t optional? His teeth worked when he ‘made attacks’ . Was any bite an attack? What if he bit his own cheek by accident?
The same line of thought regarding his eyes was worrying indeed. Hge could end up like cyclops from x-men, unable to look at the world except through some protective visor. What if they burned through his eyelids.
He would probably grow some new eyelids, but still…
No, he was just being silly. He didn’t want any new eyes. He just wanted to keep his old eyes. Or get them back rather. He selected no.
—
Grant snapped awake. He was out of the dream state, he couldn’t see anything though. A burning sensation had begun in his eye sockets. His intact eye was subject to an immense amount of pressure. While uncomfortable it was not all that painful.
In a short amount of time that eye was pressed out of his eye socket. The old eye, his original eye, fell out. He heard it fall gently to his side. He was on a bed, that was for sure, not in a police car. He no longer had handcuffs on.
He heard a phone ring. Not his cell phone but a landline phone. It was near him, on a nightstand he guessed. He reached out and felt for it. His hand landed on a lamp for a moment then on his second try he found the phone.
As he picked up the receiver, dim gray vision began to swim back into focus.
“Hello” He said.
He blinked as his new eyes began to return his vision.
“Mr.Walsh, I see that your eye fell out, are you in need of assistance.” A woman’s voice was speaking to him. She had an Indian accent.
“Uh… no I think I’m ok.” He said, still blinking as his new eyes watered.
He could see now that he was in a hotel room. Looking back the smell, combined with the feel of the comforter should have been a dead give away. The room had two queen beds and a large tv opposite them. The window at one side of the room had been covered with a magenta film, casting the room in a dull rosy glow.
He had heard about this on the news. Hotels had lost virtually all business in the wake of the shelter in place orders. As part of a deal to bail out the major hotel chains, the federal government had contracted a good number of them to be used to quarantine people in a controlled environment.
Grant looked around taking it in. Aside from the normal amenities of a hotel room there was also a webcam set up above the tv. A red LED was on. Grant looked at it, suspecting that whoever he was talking to was watching him through it.
Grant realized he must have fallen asleep in the cop car. He had no recollection of coming here or of being brought here. This brought back uncomfortable memories of his teenage years, before he had gotten sober. Blackouts had been a regular occurrence.
“Did your eyes grow back?” The woman asked, after a few moments of silence.
“Uhh… yeah. I guess all my stuff will grow back now, pretty quickly too.” he said.
Silence again.
“That is very interesting and I would like to explore that further at a later date. For now though, could we have your old eye?” She asked.
Grant looked at it, it had fallen onto the pillow.
“For analysis.” She added after he didn’t answer right away. “In any case it will have to be removed from your room for sanitary purposes.”
“Oh, umm… sure.” He said. “Wait, sorry, where am I?”
Another long pause. “You’re in quarantine, at a hotel near the Oakland airport. Perhaps Olivia could come explain it to you? When she collects the sample. She seems to have some personal connection to you, perhaps you would like to hear from someone familiar?”
“Olivia’s here?” He asked.
More of the shock came through in his voice than he intended. He had almost shouted.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Yeah, yeah, that would be great. Well, I mean, as long as she wants to…” He trailed off.
“She is quite eager. She’ll be up in a few minutes.”
Grant waited for what felt like hours. It was in fact less than five minutes. His mind was racing the whole time. First Eric, then Olivia. He had not seen her in person since the memorial either. He still remembered her shocked expression as Eric and Mr.Lee had taken him by the arms and rushed him out.
They had spoken, occasionally. Grant did not have any social media, but he had called her a few times just to check in. She had called him with a similar irregularity.
They had once been close friends, her being less than a year younger than Ryan. Since his death they had become something less. Like relatives who, while they kept in touch, felt no real need to visit one another.
He heard a keycard being slid into the door’s digital lock. The first attempt was a failure met with a single long chiming tone. It was followed up with a success, two quick blips. She opened the door.
As that was going on Grant realized that the interior door knob had been removed. It had been replaced by a smooth metal plate.
Olivia stepped into the room. She was wearing a hazmat suit, the face plate was tinted magenta. The moment he saw her face, he felt his new appendage reach out. It reached out of its own accord as it always did. He formed a Resonant Mind link with her.
Resonant Mind
Increased Focus and Perception.
Skill: Create, stabilize, or destroy resonant links with other minds.
Harken ye to the deeper song!
He felt her body inside of her suit, as she felt it. She was hot in there, her skin chafed at the heavy thing. It was humid and it stank, not her body odor but a chemical sort of smell; plastic and bleach.
That was mere background noise compared to the tumult of emotions he felt though. He felt her fear, not of him, but for him. He felt relief, that he was here, in front of her. There was something else, something like grief.
Everything changed in a moment though. She could feel the connection as well. Her awareness of it seemed to do something to the connection. It began to wobble, ripping itself apart a few moments later. It didn’t just break but it tore itself apart.
“What…” she said, her eyes wide.
“Hey Olivia.” He said.
He hoped she would ignore what had just happened. Perhaps pass it off as some sort of weird mental glitch. He was happy to tell Olivia, and the woman he assumed was her boss that he had new magic powers. He just didn’t want them to think he was willing to invade their mental privacy.
“Grant what was that? What… What’s happening?” She asked.
“Magic powers.” he blurted out.
The words sat there between them like a dead fish. He shrugged. He reached over and picked up his eyeball. He held it out to her.
As he waited for her to react he felt Resonant Mind try to reach out again. He held it back, tamping it down. She walked forward and took the eye from him. She produced a sample bag from a belt at her waist and plopped the eye inside of it.
“Magic powers…” She repeated what he had said.
She looked him in the eyes, looking at his new eyes.
He nodded slowly, sighing.
“Was that telepathy?” She asked.
“Its called a resonant mind link.” he said. “Well… that’s what the window is calling it. I didn’t mean to, it just sort of happens.”
She just nodded, becoming thoughtful for a moment. “Is it like coughing or more like an erection?”
He laughed, more at her complete lack of awkwardness discussing erections with him than the actual act of doing so. She had always been extremely fascinated by everything. She was routinely not shocked or disgusted by things but instead, just fascinated.
“I guess it’s more like coughing in that I can control it consciously, if i try, but sometimes I do it without thinking. Well, it's been involuntary everytime so far, but I think I can do it on purpose.” He said.
She just nodded, once again becoming lost in thought, looking at nothing in particular.
She looked up at him. “Could you do it again?”
“Yeah… I think so.”
She indicated for him to do so with her hand. The phone rang as she did so. Grant looked at the camera, the light was red.
“Hold on.” She sighed and pushed a button on the phone base.
“Do not engage in telepathic communications with the subject!” The woman with the Indian accent said.
“Meera I was thinking-” Olivia began.
Meera cut her off, “No Olivia! For goodness sake, we know nothing about this process! It would be rather foolish to go playing around with it. Mr.Walsh can you refrain from using this telepathy, for Olivia’s sake?”
“I will, good safety tip Meera.” Grant said.
Olivia looked crestfallen. Grant shrugged.
“Good, now read him the prepared statement, answer any of his questions then return here after.” Meera said, hanging up not waiting for a reply.
Olivia sighed and rolled her eyes in a way that was very memorable to Grant. It was exactly as she had done to him and Ryan hundreds of times in the past. She pulled a tablet out of a pouch like pocket at the small of her back.
Without further preamble she began reading in a clipped and practiced cadence. “Grant Walsh you have been placed into protective quarantine, this is for your safety and for the safety of others. Your exposure to an anomaly or anomalies affected you in ways that may be communicable or cause harm. You will be released at the sole discretion of the local AROG director, Dr.Meera Shaan.”
“AROG caseworkers can be dispatched to your home to retrieve personal belongings not exceeding 100 lbs and that fit into a standard tote bin. At this time spoilable items can be cleared from your refrigerator or pantry. You may grant access to your home to an individual of your choice. No one will enter your home without your permission. Please indicate to your caseworker, Dr.Olivia Lee, if you would like to pursue either of these options.”
She looked up at him at this point.
“Shit, how long am I going to be here.” He said.
“Until we figure out if you’re going to spread what you have. Your fan club is telling us you can, so, if they’re right we’re going to keep you here until we know how to stop what you have from spreading.” She said, giving him a weak sympathetic smile.
“Fan club?” he said.
“The people from the church.” She said.
“They’re fans?” he asked. “They tried to kidnap me because i was part of Satan’s army or some bullshit like that.”
“Really? They literally won’t shut up about how you’re the savior; the Harbinger they keep saying.” Olivia said, rolling her eyes again.
Grant thought back to the feverish moments between waking up and the fight. The cultists had said a bunch of crazy stuff about a weapon of god and the harbinger. He hadn’t realized they were talking about him though.
It made sense though, when had linked minds with the woman, she had regarded him with reverence. She had seen him as a person made of light.
He remembered something else. They had absorbed the downed anomaly 4s. The ones he hadn’t gotten. They had also helped him to break the links on the one that had been eating his face.
He realized they had some measure of his power. He concentrated on Harbinger of the Beyond, hoping to bring up the window. It worked.
Harbinger of the Beyond
Increased Focus
Passive: Convert the emanations of the beyond into fruitful gifts.
Skill: Create, stabilize, or destroy pathways into the beyond.
The seed is planted…
It wasn’t just for breaking links, or rather pathways he corrected himself. It could open them too. Could they be creating new anomalies. He reached out, trying to feel for anything forming in the space between here and the beyond.
He didn’t feel anything happening.
He noticed Olivia watching him with wide eyes behind her face plate. She had noticed him having a minor freakout.
“Olivia, where are they now?” He asked.
“We spaced you out, every other room.” She said.
The phone rang again. Grant looked to the camera and saw the red light was still on. Olivia pressed the button to put it on speaker phone.
“Mr. Walsh, I hope you won’t mind I've been listening in. I thought it would be wise at this point to mention that they all went to sleep after you woke up. Quite soon after.”
Grant realized what must be happening. They were receiving prompts to get new eyes.