Timeline: Past

Point of View: Claudia

Location: Red Planet

Claudia ran through the trail of trees. The trail appeared intentional and neatly trimmed. It was clear she was much deeper in the forest now, as the trees were so tightly packed it seemed impossible that she could squeeze between them without being pulled up into a nearby tree. She wondered how she might use her new understanding of her abilities to beat the trees. She’d first have to find a way to kill them, and that seemed beyond her current strength.

She remembered that feeling when she’d stolen the essence of the two buzzsaws, how much stronger she’d felt. She still had some of that strength within her now, could feel it coursing through her system, hitch hiking a ride on each blood cell. It seemed she was able to store some of the energy, but it wasn’t permanent. She wanted to make it permanent.

She knew she had to do some personal exploration to understand it all further. The thing of critical importance now, however, was to find Lisa. Then she could teach Lisa what she’d learned, and see how they might unlock Lisa’s innate power as well. She had to have the power like Claudia did. If Lisa and Claudia were both magnets, it meant they both had them buried in their subconscious. All magnets, humans that end up on the red planet, must have the power.

Right?

She shook those questions from her mind. They were exciting, but she had to focus and be ready.

The path wound and curved throughout the forest, stretching for what felt endlessly long. Finally she reached a clearing, a clearing without the cover of the trees overhead. She saw the suns again for the first time in what felt like days, and she basked in the heat of them, the soft red and white glow.

Inside the clearing were what looked like mounds of red dirt. In front of her she could see a small handful of them, but she was certain there were more of them behind and to the sides, just beyond her vision. She was in a kind of village, a village that most certainly belonged to the buzzsaws.

Each mound had a dark access way that lead into blackness, a darkness that her eyes could not permeate. She approached the nearest mound, leaned near it but not against it, and listened. There was only silence, as if nothing inside were living. It seemed the entire village were utterly quiet. She looked up again at the sky, at the suns up there that indicated it was day, and wondered where all of the creatures had gone.

They’re in there, in those tunnels. The burrow deep into the ground like worms.

It was the voice inside her mind again, though she still wasn’t sure if it was her newfound powers speaking to her or simply her subconscious following the logical stream of her current observations. She stepped back away from the mound and looked out at the next nearest one, possibly twenty to twenty-five feet away. How in the world could she know which one Lisa was in? How could she know at all if Lisa was anywhere nearby? They could have taken her somewhere else, into another trail in the forest. They could have collections of magnets all over this forest. The thought made her shudder with fear. She’d felt so close to knowing the truth of things, yet the reality was that she was still so far away. On Earth, children had years of growth to learn about their surroundings. Here, on the red planet, she was thrust into the new world fresh as an adult without a background to apply new knowledge against.

Step back into the trail, just out of sight, her mind commanded, and this time she was certain it was the vocal embodiment of that newfound power. She listened, stepping away from the mound and back into the trail, careful again not to touch any trees.

You have an ability that you can learn to assist you here, but it will involve focusing your power away from your palms and into your mind.

What the fuck does that mean? She asked herself.

You’ve learned how to absorb essence from other beings and collect that raw power. However, this is only the surface of your potential. You are more than a magnet. A magnet is an inanimate object that produces a flowing field of force. You, however, can control that field in many different ways based on your genetic makeup. For example, you have enhanced fighting potential, but you also have abilities with your mind.

Okay, how do I tap into those abilities? She asked. For a moment she became cognizant of the fact that she was standing there staring off into the distance like a crazy person. How comical it may seem to an onlooker who were to stumble upon her standing there. Perhaps it wouldn’t look much different than a person does when sitting on their couch watching television. Isn’t that all people were doing as they watched, having conversations with their imagination as colors flashed on the screen?

I’m going to propose a mental construct to you that’ll help this make sense. The human mind likes organization, and if we can organize this power into a display of sorts, it might help clear up what I’m about to tell you.

Claudia thought about the battle with the dead buzzsaws back at the prison. She’d felt strong, but strength was an abstract construct. Once in battle, she had to still resort to clever tactics in order to beat the creatures. The crazy person in her head was right. She needed a way to think about these abilities in a more tangible way.

Okay, if you’re ready, I’m going to build this for you now. A kind of character sheet. All you need to do is consciously think about it, simply want to see it, and you will. If you want it to go away, it will. This is a figment of your mind, a construct I am building to give your power a tangible appearance. Once you can see your power in a tangible way, you’ll be able to train it and grow it. Go ahead, think about it now.

Claudia remembered a time where she’d once purchased a pair of smart glasses, but had come to believe they were utter garbage. They’d cost her a couple weeks’ worth of pay. She put them on over her ears, spoke to the voice assistant, and could hear the AI voice coming from the plastic frame of the glasses. On the lens, she could see words and images as the AI spoke. She’d expected the experience to change the way she saw the world. Instead, she found it all to be tacky and annoying. The glasses were somewhere back at home now, likely in a box smashed into the back of a drawer with all the other gadgets she’d bought that were advertised as world-changers.

This is what she was thinking about when the “character sheet” appeared in her mind. It’s said that most of the people in the world think via an inner monologue, an inner person that verbalizes everything they’re seeing at each second of their day. In a way, it was as if each person were actually two: the one that interacts with the physical world, and the one inside that interprets it all. However, there was a small subset of the population that didn’t have that same inner monologue. They experienced the world in flashes of images and abstract concepts without a voice that interpreted it for them.

Claudia was of the common group that had the inner monologue (clearly, as she was apt to speak with herself these days), but when the table appeared, she wondered if this was how the other half of the population experienced life. She could still see and understand the red planet around her, yet she also saw the image of a table in her mind at the same time.

Name Claudia Beatrice Lafleur Base Ability Mental Manipulation Essence Current: 10 | Max: 20 Tiers Achieved 1: Energy Awareness Learned Abilities • Enhanced Strength, Agility, and Hand-to-hand Combat Pylons Located 0

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

"What the fuck,” Claudia said out loud before shifting back into the conversation with her own mind. Can other people see this?

Yes, those that have the ability will be able to see you in this way. However, they may see it in another way. This is how you’ve chosen to view it. Now to explain what it all means…

Okay, stop. We’ll get to that. First, can you hide my middle name? I don’t need to be known as a Beatrice.

Name Claudia B. Lafleur

That’s better.

Can we proceed now?

Yes, by all means.

Your base abilities have to do with the mind. You’re a master manipulator and a natural leader. The way the power interacts with your body will be tied back to this base ability, because this is what is built into your DNA.

Natural leader? Claudia nearly laughed at the thought. So others will have different powers and abilities, based on… who they are?

Yes, though some people may have the same abilities as you to varying strengths. Your Potential, however, is the essence you’ve absorbed from the vines and the buzzsaws. You have a max potential based on your currently achieved tier. If you exceed this maximum, your body will need to release the essence quickly or it will evaporate off of you. The remaining essence will stay with you until used. When you absorb essence, I will equate the amount you take in as a number, and if you visualize this number, you can equate that to your current strength. This will help you understand how capable you are before a battle.

And I take it my maximum increases as I achieve new tiers within my understanding of the power?

Correct. I have calculated these numbers for you to make them easy to understand. The natural order of things works a bit more… organically, as you’ve learned in your last fight. However, it helps to see a number or a label applied to things. It helps you train in the same way that a body builder measures their weights and counts reps while training.

Understood. And so a normal human, what’s their potential?

Typically at one with a max of five for the strongest humans on Earth. Now that you’re aware of your potential, you can increase your strength to four times that of a normal human being. However, to use this strength requires essence, so you will need to manage a balance between absorption and consumption.

And my learned abilities… I guess this is from my wrestling background, that’s why I have enhanced hand-to-hand combat?

No. It seems people in life gravitate toward their natural abilities. Your power doesn’t enhance your strength and agility because you were a wrestler. You were a wrestler because this was always your natural inclination and you were pulled to it because your body and mind asked it of you.

And here I believed in free will.

It’s best that you don’t.

There was an awkward silence here. In a normal conversation, this might mean one person looking off into the distance while the other looked at their shoes, waiting for the change of topic to come quickly and wrest them from the horrible silence. In Claudia’s case, it was only her standing there staring at her torn shoes, wondering if her mind was making fun of her. Was it her mind, or the power? She still wasn’t sure.

I’m the mental manifestation of your own power inside…

“Jesus, fuck. Don’t speak unless spoken to,” Claudia said.

Sorry.

Claudia looked around, listening to the silence. There were still no buzzsaws to be seen, only the dreadful silence and the mounds surrounding her.

And a pylon is what exactly?

This is an area of the red planet where the essence is strongly focused into a pillar of power that flows up and out of the core. All power comes from and flows from these pillars and surrounds the planet, and each pillar has a unique flow of energy. You can tap into these pylons of power in order to achieve further tiers of power and enhance the maximum essence you can withhold at any point in time. These pylons are how you will become stronger.

Claudia became deeply interested at the sound of that, eager to experiment and strengthen this new aspect of her being. However, there was a time and place for everything, and right now she couldn’t afford going out on an egg hunt for more power. She’d do that with Lisa once they were together.

Okay, you said I had an ability I can use to locate my friend. Acquaintance?

Yes. You will have to learn it first. Focus the remaining power from your hands into your mind. You have a natural inclination to focus your power into your fists, but now you need to focus it with your mind instead.

How the fuck do I do that.

Calm your anger. Anger forces the essence into your palms. Calm your mind, close your eyes, to focus it back into your mind.

Claudia did as she was told, adding in deep breaths because that’s what one did when they needed to calm down. With her eyes closed she took many deep breaths, feeling herself relax to the point of nearly becoming sleepy.

Perfect, now open your eyes.

Claudia again did as she’d commanded herself. She gasped and nearly fell backward as she did. The world around her had become abuzz with essence. To her left she looked at the trees, the essence climbing up from its roots high into the sky. She saw little puffs of essence in the grass below her feet. She stepped on one of the red worms and twisted her foot and watched as the essence leaked out from the dying organic material. She took it into herself as it floated up from the ground, then looked at her sheet. Her potential remained unchanged.

Not all creatures will give enough essence…

I get it, I’m not a god damn idiot. You don’t have to explain everything. The vision faltered a bit as she spoke, but she calmed herself again and the vision returned.

Learned Abilities • Enhanced Strength, Agility, and Hand-to-hand Combat

• Minor Astral Vision

Minor? What the fuck is that shit? The vision completely faded away.

As mentioned before, you will not have access to all abilities. Some people with the power will have abilities you cannot have, and their abilities may be stronger or weaker than yours. In this case, your vision will only be strong enough to see the essence from weaker creatures and from creatures of your own race. You can use this to…

“Yes, I get it,” she said. She calmed her mind and the flowing essence returned. She approached the first mound and peered into it, but saw and heard nothing. She sprinted to the next, and it was the same. She was bouncing across the homes now as she waited to see something inside, something deep within the tunnels of the structure, but after the sixth mound, she still saw nothing. She wished desperately that she was worthy of the power to see the essence of the higher creatures as well, because at least that would be something to guide her, something to indicate that she was looking in the right places.

Finally on the seventh house she saw something within the tunnels. A small speck, deep under the ground. She stared at the speck for a long time, wondering if it was nothing more than a bug, or if it could be a human being down there. She wondered if it was Lisa. The speck wasn’t moving, but she knew that whatever it was, it wasn’t dead. If it were dead, the essence would have evaporated. She stared into the blackness of the tunnel.

I don’t suppose I have an untapped flashlight ability. She asked her mind.

You do not.

Even still, Claudia raised her finger up into the air and focused her essence into it. The vision of the speck faded, and she waited for the tip of her finger to glow.

It did not.

“It was worth a try,” she said.

Don’t you trust me?

“What did I say about not speaking unless spoken to.”

Her mind fell silent.

She stared into the darkness for a long time, thought about the fire the buzzsaws had used to burn down the tree in her first days on the planet. She considered going back out and searching the mounds for tools, but knew it would be in vain.

She touched the walls of the mound with her hand, and the dirt was hard and dry to the touch.

She began her descent.