I could see myself in the third person. I had collapsed to the floor after holding my curse on the fiend. Fortunately, Reiver had killed it before I fell unconscious, so I was most likely safe.

Despite the odd out-of-body experience, I was beginning to understand what was happening. This was another of my weird dreams. I seem to always be lucid during these but unable to interact with anything. And I could remember these dreams once I woke up. How does this work? Now I’m dreaming about myself, and before I dreamt of Abby; however, my first dream seemed to be about the future rift.

Trying to investigate this ability further, I looked around. Though, I found that I could not look very far. A few meters away from me, in every direction, was a wall of dark fog. No matter how much I stared, I could not see beyond the barrier. As soon as I stopped concentrating, my focus was drawn back toward my unconscious form.

I was pulled out of my rumination when I saw the limp blood-soaked human body on the edge of my vision. Oh fuck. I had just killed someone. I had traded his life for my own. Earlier, I almost killed Abby too. I never wanted this stupid power that I can’t control. I’m a danger to everyone around me. What if I got Robin killed?

Reiver walks over and picks my body up. Despite how easily he picks me up, it is a comical sight as I am significantly taller than him. He ushers Robin, whose crying has slowed, into the classroom, where everyone is hiding, before following behind them.

Walking into the room, we are greeted by the many scared eyes of the staff and my classmates. Quickly, everybody's expressions flood with relief and concern.

“Listen up everyone!” Reiver yells out. “The situation is dealt with, so we’re getting out now; however, plans have changed slightly. Unfortunately, the door is blocked, so we won’t be getting out that way."

Seeing people's panic, he hastily continues, "Fortunately, this school isn’t a very secure facility, and the classroom over has ordinary windows facing outside to where our reinforcements are. We’re gonna head over there, and they’ll clear out the windows so we can escape through them. Got it? Now let’s get a move on.”

He calmly walks back out of the door, all the while carrying me. Following behind him, the people gasp as they see the massive lifeless fiend wedged into the doorway, surrounded by a growing pool of orange blood. Their terrified glances flick back and forth between it and the soldier’s corpse nearby.

Unlike everyone else, Reiver does not give the dead monster a wide berth, appearing unperturbed. He does, however, grimace as he sees the human body. He continues to the classroom he referred to, from which the sound of glass breaking can now be heard. The soldiers are now cleaning up the broken glass after having smashed out the two large windows. As everyone files into the room, one of the soldiers with some extra yellow highlights on his black and grey uniform walks over to Reiver.

“Where’s Oliver?” the man says.

“Back out there, not far. His body’s in pretty rough shape,” replies Reiver grimly.

The man subtly winces before turning around and commanding, “Gates, Cannon, get over here.”

Two more soldiers immediately run over. “Oli didn’t make it. Please, could you two get him wrapped up?” he solemnly asks them.

Their faces immediately drop, but they nod anyway, saying, “Yes sir,” before heading out of the room.

He had a name. Of course, he did. I didn’t just kill somebody, I killed Oliver. I’m so so sorry.

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“I’m sorry, Stephen, we had no idea something like that fiend would be here,” Reiver says.

“Fuck, it was a real big one, wasn’t it? Oli would’ve been fine too, but he slipped up. Tripping on a damn pine cone in front of a coil beast is a shit way to go.”

Now it was Reiver’s turn to wince. Sighing, he says quietly, “Now I’m telling you this ‘cause you have a right to know since he was part of your squad, and I trust you. I probably wouldn’t even tell you if my black box hadn’t caught the whole thing, so you would’ve found out one way or another.”

“Just get to it,” Stephen says harshly.

“He didn’t just trip. This girl has powers and accidentally hit him with them.”

“What!”

“Quiet down idiot,” Reiver hisses, “It was an accident; it’s not her fault. It seems she’s just come into her powers and doesn’t know how to control them all that well or even what exactly they do.”

Why is he defending me? I don’t deserve anything.

“But why lash out at Oli? He wasn’t even visible to her.”

“When he shot through the door, he clipped her friend, and she got angry. Plus, she’s just a kid and did not take it well at all when she saw what she’d done. I think she also helped me kill the coil beast.”

The soldier's eyes widen slightly at that, and then he sighs.

“Alright, let’s table this ‘till we’re out of this mess, and I can think,” the soldier says.

The two soldiers come back into the room carrying a stretcher weighed down by a large black bag, presumably containing Oliver's remains. “Sergeant, ” one of them calls out. She passes off a small metal plate hanging on a chain to Stephen.

I can only continue to watch glumly, stuck with my own thoughts, as the soldiers help everyone through the windows. They had thrown sturdy-looking blankets over the windowsills to prevent people from getting cut, and now they were hurriedly getting people out. Inside, helping everyone is one group of four soldiers and Stephen. Outside, two more groups of four establish a perimeter keeping on the watch. Each small group has a soldier with a few of the yellow highlights commanding them, and those seem to report to Stephen, who has more highlights than them. Only two small fiends showed up during the process, and both were quickly dealt with.

Reiver put my body down on another stretcher carried by soldiers so they could pass me through the window. However, before he can leave me and walk over to the front where he can best protect everyone, the sergeant, Stephen, approaches, holding a pair of bulky cuffs.

“What the fuck are you doing Stephen?” asks Reiver firmly.

“These are just anti-power projection cuffs, nothing serious. They won’t harm her. I’m just not going to have someone who doesn’t know how to control their powers wake up and do something stupid with them. This is just for insurance until we can get out of this rift.”

The soldiers holding me are curious about the exchange but are ready to listen to their commanding officer.

After his fruitless glaring at Stephen, Reiver relents and walks away with a huff.

I’m going to be locked up. Wait, why am I worrying about that? I have no right to worry about myself; I deserve whatever happens. I killed someone. I’m dangerous.

Stephen takes Reiver's departure as permission so moves over to place the cuffs on me. As they click shut on my wrists, everything suddenly goes black.

In every direction I look, there is nothing, just the uniform infinite void. I don’t know if I am actually looking around because when I try to turn my head to the side I can’t feel anything. Not the faint brush of air on my cheek nor the feeling of my neck moving. I can not even feel myself. I can’t feel my previously parched mouth, and there is nothing for me to taste.

There are no sounds either; everything is beyond eerily quiet. There are no smells, not even the feeling of inhaling air. In fact, I can’t breathe at all. Though not in the way of having no air to breathe, though there might not have been, instead physically not able to move my lungs, or maybe I don’t have lungs to breathe with. Luckily, despite my lack of breath, I’m not suffocating.

It's so dark. What's going on? What is happening to me? Where am I? Let me out of here!

I attempt to flail around with no effect. There is nothing beneath me; I am somehow floating. I lose my sense of up and down. I feel like I am spinning out of control, but I am unable to actually tell if I'm moving.

I can't tell how much time is passing as I have absolutely no frame of reference. It could have been minutes or months. Stuck with my thoughts, I'm beset by panic and despair.

I need to get out. I can't stand this any longer. Let me out! Let me out now! Please! Why is this happening? Is this for what I did? I'm so sorry Oliver! I'm so sorry! Please, just let me out!