“Now!” Lizzie voice struck me and I grabbed the shuttle passing by with the hands, holding with all my might against the straining beast.

“Hurry!” I scream out at her. I can’t hold this beast long, not without eating memories around me and stealing the power from them.

I focus on holding this hunk of metal. I have to hold until she says I can release. I have to be strong. I reach out, toward one of the people trudging by; a woman in a faded black dress.

One hand detaches from the shuttle, and I can feel it inching forward against my power. Once hand. I reach out and touch the woman.

She walks out of a building, her only goal to survive. Women that service the rich know their role in life. Her role is not to live, but to exist for the rich. She is simply a pawn in a game. She trudges through, knowing this, wanting to end her life, but being unable to step off the ledge. Her will is simply gone. Her mother served the same family, and well, she would be surprised if she was the master’s daughter. The very same master she worked for now.

She grew up, barely eating enough, her mother bringing home the scraps from the master’s table. Her friends standing on the streets, waiting to earn money by selling themselves for a night. Her mother forcing her to swear to never sell herself for a bite to eat. Serve the master well she’d said. Just keep serving.

A day, a month a year, fifteen years of life. I stole all the memories. Ate them like candy, and yet I could still feel my power slipping like powder out of a belt pouch.

Why did I think of that? Ahh, memories of a man who was a rock climber, a guy named Alex who used to be a rich kid and was caught stealing. He used a pouch at his side filled with chalk to better climb the rock walls. Yes, that image fit. I was running out of chalk in my belt pouch.

I reached to the next person, a man with a cigarette in his mouth. My mind felt like I was slipping on oil as I touched him. Him, hitting his son with a belt for leaving the house without permission. A wife he loved, but mad him so angry sometimes…

Beating up a kid in school, lying to his mother, stealing and killing to survive. A professional hitman. I tried to take them without reading them. I would erase the memories from my memory later. Right now I just needed the power from them. I’d seen worse. The prison fed me the mind of all sorts of nasty people. I can still remember the slimy feel of a serial killer, but luckily those memories are gone

I finish eating his memories, but I am not eating memories fast enough. The chalk is draining faster than I can fill the pouch.

I just have to hold on a little longer. One more. I reach for a woman. The smell of honey reaches my nose, and I can see two kids clutching at her legs…

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No! I can’t take anymore of her memory. Its wrong. Its simplywrong to take her memory. The first two weren’t as bad, I am giving them a fresh start in life, but her, no.

I reach out toward another, a boy this time. He’s looking for his mother, she’ll be worried sick…! I can’t do this. I can’t hold the shuttle much longer, and I can’t take from these people, this is wrong.

“You were given your power for a reason.”

I have to hold this shuttle. I know what I have to do, but it makes me shutter. I don’t have time to reach out and find another human who would be better with a fresh start.

There is a girl, sitting a chair next to a gray box, staring out onto a world completely new to her. She smiles at a man standing next to her. “Where is this place?” she asks.

She can suddenly see an image, a girl struggling against this very man. No, no. Is this man bad? What does it mean to be bad? She doesn’t want to remember! She doesn’t want to know.

Pain flares through her ankle, he’s stepping on her ankles! Someone’s screaming, it the girl, lying on the ground. She doesn’t want to feel pain. Not this pain. No, not anymore. This world is too harsh. She cannot live in the world.

The pain drains away, gone, to, to somewhere. She stares up at the guard quietly. “Hello,” she says to the shocked guard. He steps on her other legs, and it gives with an audible snap, but she sits there staring at him with innocent eyes this time.

“Throw her in a cell!” He screams.

“Umm Sir, she’s injured…” A guard whispers.

”I don’t care! Get her out of here!”

A guard run forward and picks her up of the ground.

“HOPE! Release the shuttle!” Lizzie calls breaking my eating.

I let go, and all the strength drains out of me. What have I done. I ate… that girl’s memories. Was that me? Or was it just this body. Did that mean that I changed again by eating my memories, or I am I still the same because I know what happened? I can’t really remember it anyway. It was just her, me, waking up for the first time.

The woman in the black dress was standing there staring straight ahead. Her expression is even blanker than yours, if you can believe that.

Everything she was carrying is now lying on the sidewalk next to her feat. I did this to her. She was living a miserable life, but I took even the knowledge of that. I left her with nothing. She will be like a child in years to come.

And the man… The oiliness is gone from his mind, but so is everything else. His cigarette lies smoking on the ground next to him. I did this.

“Are you ok? We need to get out of here quick, we got what we came for.” Lizzie is standing next to me, here green eyes staring at me very intently.

“I took their memories…” I shouldn’t have. I should just rely on what the prison feeds me, and eventually I should destroy myself sitting in that box in the room back in the prison. This was wrong, absolutely wrong.

“Come on Hope, that power of yours helped a lot of people. Alice, give me a hand with her will you?” Two arms lifted me to my feet. Alice hand one of my arms over her next, and Lizzie the other.

“Come on Hope, walk with us.” And I did, step by step.

Next to where I held the shuttle, there are boxes of food. People are crowded around them, bright smiles and animated talking. A ray of sun shines through the clouds. They gave the people the extra supplies they got out of the shuttle.

“You made this possible Hope. You are the reason that these people can eat tonight.” Lizzie is smiling at me, but I only have eyes for the swarms of people going to grab a bite to eat from the rich people’s supplies.

I lift my arms off of Alice and Lizzie. I will walk for myself. I did this. With the sacrifice of those two people, I made it possible that many people will eat tonight.