Chapter 11: The day after.

Clearing out the nearby watering hole wasn’t easy.

Not the whole, pest control aspect of it mind you. That problem barely took 10 minutes.

No, the real issue was the aftershocks. Blinding agony shot through me with every step, every minor motion. It took hours for it to dissipate and by then, I was done.

Too much walking and running and fearing for my life with little water and no food. I was tired and weak. I just wanted it to stop.

The idea had been to take a quick nap. Just a few hours to clear my head before I kept going.

Instead, I awoke to a grumbling stomach and a killer migraine. My arm had lost almost all feeling and my hand itched and stung.

Worse yet, I was still a prisoner.

In the dream, me and Henry and Vince and Luigi had all gone for the unhealthiest breakfast we could imagine. We walked up and down unfamiliar streets, with a golden summer’s sun beating down on us from above and sand caressing our feet. The four of us put a cheese covered chicken patty between two pizza slices and topped it off with four different kinds of sauces.

It tasted terrible, too greasy for human consumption. Bits of cheese sliding this way and that.

But we were all drunk as sailors and howling with laughter.

Afterwards, I called my parents and assured them that I was alive and well and safe.

Dad and Mom cried for what seemed like an eternity. Glad to see me home at last. Swearing that they’d never lose track of me again.

When all that was done, I’d gone to Doris’ dorm. To find her arms wrapped around Mason the sot.

I told her what had happened and explained how much she’d hurt me. How I wanted her back regardless.

She stared at me. Her big brown eyes locked mine. Then she yelled.

“Get out of here! Telepath! Freak! Die already!”

Her scorn jolted me awake. Brining me back to the tunnels. To the darkness and the aches.

Looking down at my watch, I noticed that more than 10 hours had passed.

‘Fantastic. Fell asleep in the middle of the murder-dungeon. Again. Top marks for Sully the hero.’

Shaking my head, I tried to get up and immediately regretted it. Every minute movement hurt. The pain made me wheeze and then the wheezing hurt. My goodness did it hurt.

“Oh, come on body, work with me. I’ve got to get out there and help people. Who knows what’s out there or how many people are left?”

In response to my query, a new window popped up.

Survivor Count: 849/1000

“Great. Thanks.”

A few more minutes of pathetic struggling ensued with little to no results.

“Come on! Get up! I can’t stay here! I need to find people! I need to help! Get up you useless sack of meat!”

“You’re not useless.” Came a voice to my side.

My head swirled in the direction of the sound. There, standing stock still, was the tall man’s outline. If my stomach held anything within it, no doubt it would have resurfaced alongside my memories. Like water behind a broken dam, they rushed at me. Cruel and unrelenting. The sounds of agony. The red, wet sheen on the community center’s tiles. The screams of all the people seeking shelter.

I was screaming too. The echoes bouncing off the cavern walls to hit me again and again.

That shape. That awful frame, moved closer into the mushroom’s light and I saw that it was someone much better.

The Bunny Man.

It was just like in the visions. The same unfeeling plastic eyes staring down at me. The same stained, chipped blade in his hand. The same white knuckles holding on to it. However, there were more spots of colour on the suit. More dark crimson gashes where wounds had been, before they closed by order of his power.

Just as before, there were no thoughts, nor emotions within that skull.

“Please don’t kill me.” I said without thinking.

A wave of shame hit me right after. This wasn’t how heroes were supposed to act. This wasn’t right.

The man walked closer. Slow steady steps brought him nearer, until he was right beside me.

‘He will kill me. I’ve already survived so many monsters, I’ve saved other people. All so he could kill me when I was weak. I need to do something. I need to defend myself.’

I knew this to be true. I wouldn’t see tomorrow if I didn’t do something. I wouldn’t see daylight again. I wouldn’t see my family again.

‘Oh dear. Why did I just realize that? Why did I go galivanting without thinking of myself?’

No. My head became clear then, banishing the panic.

‘I will not regret what I’ve done. I was in a position to help. I did the same thing I would have done before becoming a Telepath. I’ve never needed a reason to help people. Even if I die, I won’t take back anything I’ve done.’

With that, I began to call upon a bolt, feeling it swimming behind my eyes. Whatever happens, I will not go down without a fight.

Another blast of pain ruined my concentration.

‘Get yourself together man! This isn’t the end. This can’t be the end. Not like this.’

A shiver ran through my spine and I started to feel…

To feel…

Better.

The pain receded, little by little. Feeling returned to my arm and the bruises and soreness seemed less prominent. Less important. A wave of relief washed over me and I felt calm and collected once more.

‘Was I really that hurt? Should my body feel this good?’

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I didn’t know, but I wasn’t about to argue with results.

“Wait a second. What results? Why am I feeling this way?”

“Because I’m healing you.” Said the Bunny man, in a tone that suggested this was the most normal thing in the world.

He had one of his hands on my shoulder, his bone-thin fingers steadying me with surprising vigour.

“You should not be ashamed of yourself young man. I saw what you did. Not everyone would have run into danger for someone they didn’t know. You’re a good person. You should be proud.”

His hand left my shoulder and went into his pocket.

“Here, the robot bulls have these inside of them. I know its not much, but its all I have.”

Just like that, he pulled out three wrapped sticks. Once he unwrapped one of them, I realized they were protein bars.

“Eat son. You’ll need it.”

My mouth had been hanging open for a while and this guy took it as an invitation. In went half a bar and I found myself chewing before I knew what was happening.

Then this guy. This terrifying idiot, left. He left without saying another word.

I dimly recalled that, while Shifters could heal themselves and others, they could also be extremely anti-social and anger prone. More than one high ranker had found themselves in prison after mauling the people who’d paid for their services.

Yet here was this guy.

Tracking me down so he could heal me. He was so skinny, but he gave me food.

The shame I felt that moment was almost as bad as the pain from the visions.

“I… I’m sorry for judging you for your weird outfit Bunny man. Though the cleaver is still really scary. I promise I’ll do you proud. I’ll keep helping people and I’ll keep believing in them. No matter what.”

Okay, so maybe the adrenaline rush of surviving a sudden ambush had me a tad emotional. So what? It didn’t change what needed to be done. I couldn’t let some punks in literal dark age clothing scare me away from doing the right thing. All that mattered was that I was alive, healthy and ready for action.

Figuratively of course. I’m still not going anywhere near the monsters.

Sighing, I brought up my status and admired the changes.

Name:

Solomon Carter

Psy:

130/130

Type:

Telepath Level 16

Abilities:

[Sense Thoughts] 3 / [Message] 2 / [Mental Bolt] 4 / [Fever] 2 / [Fear] 1 / [Static Illusion] 2 / [Hide] 3 / [Faint Presence] 2 / [Mental Map] 2 / [Precognition] 4

Ability Points:

0

My eyes locked onto the latest addition to my arsenal. Memories began flooding back. Of the spider hiding from the hunters. Of the beautiful maiden smiling near me. Of the sarcophagus, making its way forward on metal spikes.

To my dismay, I found the golden threads waking up as if prodded by a subconscious instinct. Rage and fear pushed the power right back down again, not stopping the metaphorical beating until I felt sure it wouldn’t get out of hand again.

I moved out after a while, choosing to try and replicate my training success with [Fever]. My logic being that what worked for my bolt could very well apply to the area-of-effect flower that was the plague. As a bonus, it would keep my mind from dwelling on the visions. At least, I hoped it would.

Alas, the suffering they’d brought still came back to stun me on occasion. I would be taking down a group of centipedes and setting them against a group of eels when an unnatural cold crept up my spine. For a moment, I was nothing but a brain and the attached spine. The tubes kept me from dying, forcing me into an unnatural fugue state where obedience was air and to even consider rebelling was suffocating.

The silver-haired maiden smiled and caressed the sarcophagus on occasion, gloating. Her smiles were sharp and dipped in poison and her eyes were those of a tiger, ruthless and calculating.

Each time, I would emerge from my visions a little weaker and lower on Psy. Each time, whatever task I had undertaken was completed to perfection, as if my body had known the exact requirements for an optimal outcome and acted accordingly.

It was horror movie creepy and there was nothing I could do to stop it from happening.

On a lighter note, the flashes sometimes gave me a sort of, inspiration. I would see another me superimposed on my position and I would see him split into two copies and into four afterwards. I knew what each copy was going to try and could assess the success and failure of each attempt as if all of them happened at the same time. Trippy, but undeniably useful in planning ambushes.

For example, I had seen one possible me using visual illusions to herd search parties away from himself as I had been. While this was happening and that version of me left unharmed, another me was using illusions of sounds to lure search parties into triggered traps.

Staggering back to the real world, I immediately set out to duplicate the experiment.

First, I tracked down another three groups of centipedes, as well as a cluster of eels swimming in a large oval chamber off to the side. Then I consulted my map and went to each of the intersections connecting the adjacent passages together. On each, I made an illusion. Not of a sound, but of a smell. The smell of dead eels to be precise.

Then I prodded each of the gathered insects. Not with a fever or a bolt, but with a message.

‘Food here!’

‘Lots of yummy food!’

‘Food for days!’

It wasn’t long before the cries were met with an avalanche of enthusiasm, followed by weighty stampede towards the group of eels.

My scented trails worked like a charm, bringing in all the squirming antennae I could ever want right into the glowing jaws of the eels.

‘Scales!’

‘Bloody scales!’

‘Yummy! Yummy!’

‘Eat them! Together!’

When a considerable number of them had bunched up, I brought out [Fever] and made it spin around me. It did nothing. The bunched-up energy vibrated and almost broke in mid air, forcing me to fire it early.

About 50 monsters felt the sting, but continued fighting regardless. Contrary to my expectations, the brawl was only growing in intensity. Whatever method the bugs used to call for re-enforcements was working wonders and streams of chitin were flowing into the meatgrinder.

In contrast, the eels were struggling to hold on, despite being individually stronger. Whenever one of their number fell, the others would have to bear the strain of more attacks, which would then divide their attention and slow them further.

On my end, I held back from using any bolts and was giving [Fever] my full attention. The blasted thing refused to work properly, threatening to explode in my face whenever I tried to send it into the orbit.

When it looked like the battle might be ending, I gave up and threw it without any extra power. It proved to be too much for the remaining three eels to bear and whatever centipedes had survived relished in their victory in spite of the pain.

“Okay, don’t stress about it just yet. There has to be some aspect of it you aren’t thinking about. Some clue you’ve missed.”

Looking back at all the feasting monsters, I wondered when was the next time I’d have this kind of golden opportunity. That was when another group of eels entered my fog from a different direction. A smile crept onto my face.

“Well, I guess I might just have to make my own luck.”

The next few times were enlightening. Each eel would bring down half a dozen bugs in a frightening amount of time, but the horde was without end and without fear. The sheer weight of numbers was a far more potent aspect to their hunting strategy than I’d originally thought and its effectiveness was without question.

On the other hand, the centipedes were literally too stupid for their own good.

There were a few close calls when a tactical retreat might have saved a squad or when two hunting parties might have gotten off a spectacular ambush if one had waited for the other. This did not seem to phase them in any way.

For centipedes, the might of the swarm was all-encompassing and it was admittedly difficult to miss the point of this exercise.

No matter how great the hurdle, weaklings could overcome it by banding together. Don’t underestimate weak foes and don’t underestimate the power of a team of Espers.

“Hopefully we don’t have to result to human wave tactics when our turn comes.”

After all was said and done, I’d managed another upgraded ability. To my own surprise, it wasn’t [Fever].

System Notice:

Student has made a breakthrough with an ability.

Level Gained: +5 Maximum Psy. +3 Ability Points.

Ability Evolving: [Static Illusion] 2 has grown to [Static Illusion] 3

I mean, it made sense. While jostling my toxic flower around had done little and less aside from pest control, I’d placed far more illusions than ever before. Furthermore, each new addition was more detailed than the last, making me delve deep into memories and place half-recalled noises and smells into the tunnels surrounding my kill room. It wasn’t stimulating work, but it had clearly done something.

From that point forward, I set out to litter the labyrinth with illusions, making it so that monster against monster violence erupted even while I was away.

Beyond that, did I mention I was a genius?

Because I am undoubtedly a genius.

Everywhere I went, illusory signs appeared in mid-air, followed by a detailed 3-d map and labelled caches of water and monster nests. Not to toot my own horn, but the more I put these up, the better I felt about people’s chances.

I was actively making things easier for all that followed me without having to risk my own neck.

It was nothing short of brilliant.