I awake in a fit of terror. I try to get my breathing under control with little success. In addition, tears start rolling down my cheeks. I can see I am inside a large green tent. I am in a cot and can feel the soft sheets on me. The tent smells sterile, but there is also the faint smell of smoke. I have my senses back! How long was that? That dream was awful. What the hell happened?
I feel my arms are restricted. Looking down, I see a pair of strange bulky cuffs around my wrists. They’re what did that to me!
“Get them off! Get them off!” I cry as the tears redouble at the sight of what caused my suffering.
Reiver and Pa hurriedly push past the tent flap.
“What’s going on!?” Pa shouts.
Between my sobs, I can only repeat, “Get them off, please!”
As Pa runs up next to me, Reiver dashes back out of the tent and, within seconds, is bodily dragging the Sergeant, Stephen, in with him.
“Getting the fucking cuffs off!” Reiver commands.
“What the hell are you doing Reiver!?” Stephen shouts back.
“Your fucking cuffs did something to her, get them off right now!”
As Pa hugs and tries to comfort me, Stephen glances in my direction just to receive Pa’s best death stare.
“They shouldn’t hurt her, though. They just stop her from using external powers.”
“Well, they obviously are hurting her, moron. Get them the hell off!”
Reluctantly, Stephen walks over and brings an electronic chip up to where the two sides of the cuffs join. With a clunk, the cuffs unlock, and I frantically shake them off.
“What did you do to my daughter?” Pa demands.
“She couldn't control her powers, so I put power blocking cuffs on. That shouldn’t have hurt her!”
“They blocked my dreams,” I finally manage to say, “My powers give me dreams, and I am fully aware during the dreams. The moment you put them on, I was trapped in a void of some kind.”
“How do you know it was even the cuffs? You were unconscious when we put them on. For all you know, it could have been completely unrelated,” Stephen questions.
“She was unconscious! How did you let that happen!” Pa yells.
“She was uninjured physically, sir. She was just suffering from power exhaustion,” Reiver comments, “and probably stress too.”
“My dreams show me things that are happening or will happen, I think. I don’t know much about them, but when I was asleep, that time, I could see myself and what was happening around me. The moment you put those on, everything disappeared.”
“Alright, Stephen, now that we figured that out, I’m gonna need you to get out so I can have a chat with these two,” Reiver says.
“Fine,” Stephen huffs before walking out.
Reiver sighs as he pulls over a chair; as he falls down into it, he pulls off the bandana obscuring his face. “I’m probably gonna get a bit of a scolding for this, but I don’t care. You’ll probably be seeing a lot more of me anyway. Just don’t tell anyone about who I really am. I didn’t really get a proper introduction with you earlier, Mr Söderberg. The name’s Dusty,” he says, offering his hand to Pa.
Pa returns the handshake with a frown, “Just call me Hugo.”
“Right, Hugo. Let me give a proper explanation of what happened before we get into the details of what might happen going forward. This rift was estimated at C10. Generally, it shouldn’t have been too dangerous. Due to some complications with the shelter assigned to Vilde's class, they had to relocate to a different shelter. That was before I showed up, but according to the little I know, the relocation went mostly fine, and they made it to the shelter safely.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Pa was nodding along with a grim expression.
“We were initially delayed in getting on-site because another rift had opened up across the city right before this one. It caused a bit of a fiasco as we had to reallocate some of our assets and go into both rifts a bit undermanned and underequipped. However, we managed to establish a perimeter relatively easily; it just took us a while. After we cleaned up the majority of the rift, and it was deemed safe to do so, we were sent to evacuate the shelters before properly mopping up.”
“This is when I arrived at Vilde’s shelter and began evacuating them. All went smoothly until we were about to exit the building and rendezvous with the Rift Guard forces before returning to base camp. At that time, an errant fiend made its appearance. It was a coil beast estimated to have a power grade of around 12”
This immediately gets Pa’s full attention, “What! How did something like that get into such a low-grade rift?”
“The longer a rift is open, the higher the chances are, but still, that was incredibly unlikely,” Dusty answers. “When that happened, all hell broke loose. Fortunately, that was happening outside, and we were still inside. My power allowed me to make the evacuees aware before we exited the building, and most everyone was able to get to cover before anything serious happened. Unfortunately, there were still a few stragglers when one of the Rift Guards missed some shots that ended up going straight through the door and one of the stray rounds nicked her buddy.”
Pa was very angry now but refrained from interrupting.
“Now, this is where things get a bit fuzzy as her powers became involved, and I haven’t had a chance to brief her yet. Do you know what her powers are, Hugo?”
“No, she just woke up with her eyes like that this morning. I assumed powers were involved but knew nothing about what they were, and neither did she at the time. She said something now about dreams though.”
“This is the first I’ve heard about the dreams, so she must have at least two powers. That’s pretty awesome Vilde. Not too shabby.”
I frown back at him. I wouldn’t feel awesome right now no matter how many powers I had.
Dusty awkwardly continues, “Well, what she told me about her other power is that it has something to do with curses. If I had to guess, it’s a mystic type power, probably the dreams too, now that I think about it.”
“Just spit it out already,” I snap, “I killed someone!”
“What? Oh Vil…” Pa says, hugging me.
“No, you didn’t Vilde,” Dusty says firmly, “The fiend killed him. At worst, unbeknownst to you, you put someone else in danger. Hugo, when she saw her friend injured and got angry, she unintentionally applied her curse to the soldier who had fired the shot. According to her, this is what caused that same soldier to trip and fall while fighting the coil beast. Once he fell, the coil beast was able to kill him.”
“You hear that Vil? He could have just fallen over on his own. You didn’t do anything.”
“I have to say this because of what we need to talk about next. Unfortunately, it is almost certain that her power is what caused Rift Guard to fall. My black box records anomalous energy signatures from powers around it, and it did record Vilde using a power to form some sort of connection to the man right before he tripped and fell. The moment he fell, the connection’s energy signature spiked and again much more significantly when he was killed.”
“But it was unintentional, she didn’t have control of her powers,” Pa says.
“I know. She also cursed the coil beast afterwards, allowing me to kill it. That's why she had power exhaustion. Now, the main reason I’m here. I’m an advisor for the local chapter of the JRSTC. I’m essentially the teacher in charge of training the kids who got their powers as minors and want to pursue a career as supers in the future. Because of this, I’m gonna be helping you guys with the legal situation, at least super-wise.”
“And what does that mean?” Pa snaps.
“She has been charged with involuntary manslaughter, but I’m here to help with that. Fortunately, she’s still a minor and will be charged as one, so there will be fewer consequences, and the records will be sealed. In addition, as a super-related incident, all the legal stuff will be expedited; the government doesn’t want a super out of action for forever because of a legal battle. Lastly, there is precedent for things like this. What will most likely happen is court-mandated enrollment in the JRSTC.”
“So she’ll be forced to become a super. What if she just wants to live a normal life like plenty of powered do?”
“No, she won’t be forced to do that. The JRSTC is mostly for those who want a jumpstart as supers, but most of what we do revolves around controlling and mastering powers. That is why individuals with dangerous powers that they have proven unable to control are forced to enroll. Once she can control her powers, she can continue living as a civilian if she wants.”
Pa sighs, hanging his head, “This will be okay Vil. Thanks for your help, Dusty. I’d like some time with my daughter, though.”
“Of course,” he says, standing up, “last thing before I head out, she will be required to wear a black box 24/7 after she leaves this camp. Don’t worry, it will only be accessed if something happens, and it will have its data wiped once she is deemed to be in control. Here’s my personal number if you need anything.”