“Find it?” Jared repeated as he looked up quickly at Ian’s statement.

“Well, why else would the world, or whatever, show you this now, if that wasn’t the reason?” Ian repeated.

Jared shook his head as he looked down again. “It very well could be, but…” he swallowed the rest of his words.

“But what?” Ian pressed.

“But Ian, I have no clue where we could even begin to do that,” he admitted.

“You said you saw it crashed, so you know that that’s what happened. You saw it,” Ian continued pointedly.

“Yes I saw the crash site, so to speak, but it’s a place I’ve never been or even seen, on a planet that I’ve only seen maybe five square miles of, total,” Jared tried to explain his wariness of the idea. “I have no clue what direction to even go or if it is honestly on this planet at all. I mean, where it crashed, it doesn’t look anything at all like any of the places we’ve seen so far.”

“Yes, and did Antarctica look anything like the Mojave?” Ian retorted.

“Well let’s think,” Lili attempted to rationalize despite all of her own feelings at the moment. “You said it probably happened in the three days we were unconscious. So Kyle, what’s the farthest the ship could travel in three days’ time?”

“A jet could go the whole way across earth in eighteen hours,” Kyle admitted sadly. “And I’m pretty sure the ship had a bit more power to it than that,” he forced himself to answer as honestly as he could.

“Exactly,” Jared agreed with his own sadness. “The ship could have circled this whole planet more than once in the three days we lost.”

Ian just shook his head. “Again I say, if it weren’t possible for us to find it, why would you be seeing it at all?”

Another heavy sigh from Jared. “Are you asking me to try and make sense out of these visions, again?” he asked dejectedly, still feeling quite a bit of unease about any of his abilities, which was why he rarely if ever had willingly let himself use any of them.

Ian let out his own annoyed sigh. “I still say we need to find the ship. Even though, after this long it’s doubtful there are any survivors,” he allowed himself to admit, though quietly, “the stuff on that ship; the food, medical supplies, what’s left of the computer still…these are all things we need to try and get our hands on again,” he then glanced up at Lili. “Especially now,” he stated more softly, eyes moving downwards once more.

Jared allowed his own heavy breath again before forcing himself to speak up. “Let’s think about that.”

“About what?” Ian asked with a furrowed brow.

“Especially now,” Jared simply repeated Ian’s own statement

“Yes?” Ian prodded.

“Ignoring the fact that we have no clue where to even begin to look for the ship, we can’t just go wandering aimlessly across this planet, just hoping we stumble upon it. That’s beyond dangerous, especially now,” he repeated the words again, pointedly looking back up at Lili as he finished the sentence.

Ian scoffed. “Well, then maybe you need to get your shit together, and fast,” was his cool response as he centered those haunting eyes on Jared.

“Excuse me?” Jared choked a bit on his own reaction as he forced his eyes back up to Ian’s face.

“Well, according to all the little theories and such, and according to your own damn vision, some bitch only a year older than you managed to take over a sixty thousand passenger ship, and it’s super-computer, with only her fucking brain?” Ian bit back. “Not to mention that, also according to your own visions, the little brats who were mostly all younger than both of you,” he cast only a sideways glance at Kyle, “they somehow managed to take her down. So like I said, maybe you, Jared, and even you, Kyle, maybe you both need to get your shit together and find a way to fucking save us, and this baby. Cause I sure as fuck can’t do it all by myself,” he finished with a near growl as he painfully stood, heading back inside while leaving a nearly deafening silence in his wake.

Kyle simply cast his eyes downwards in deep thought as Jared couldn’t help moving his eyes up to Lili, though she simply looked down as well, before also heading off to help Ian inside.

After another silent moment between the two remaining teens, Jared finally allowed a glance back at Kyle. “Guess we know that they don’t blame you for all of this, after all,” he stated, his voice breaking a bit as he did.

“At least you’re getting visions,” Kyle managed as he also took a seat down the log from where Jared had already been sitting. “I’ve become basically obsolete without my computers,” Kyle added even more quietly, glancing down at the slight bloodstains that just barely could be seen through the light colored t-shirt.

“Yeah and these visions have helped us so much, haven’t they?” Jared sniffled. “Lili’s practically suicidal. Ian’s livid. And all of us now know we really have lost everyone, and our days may all be numbered as well,” another breath. “Yeah I’m real thankful for these, let me tell you,” he added with a weak sarcasm.

Kyle then took a breath of his own before responding. “I think that’s what Ian meant.”

“What’s what he meant?” Jared glanced back at the younger teen with a raised eyebrow.

“That’s the difference, well one difference,” he had to add, “between you and Serena.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“That I’m not a psychopath?” Jared scoffed.

“No, that’s the reason she wanted to get rid of you; us,” Kyle offered, and then continued. “I mean the other difference: When she found out about her powers, she embraced them, completely,” Kyle sniffed a bit himself. “As soon as you started doing or seeing weird shit, you tried to force it down and hide from it and keep it a secret, and you never even attempted to see what you could honestly do, if you actually let yourself.”

“Yeah, cause when Serena saw what she could do and let her powers take root, that turned out really well, huh?” Jared scoffed again.

“Difference here: See psychopath statement,” Kyle returned pointedly.

Jared just shook his head. “See philosophy 101: Absolute power corrupts, absolutely,” he returned with a defeated tone.

“And if you keep being afraid of that then we really won’t survive this, Jared,” Kyle stated, though his tone was gentle, despite the weight of the words.

“Guess you’ve stopped blaming yourself too then? Great, at least I cured you, right?” Jared scoffed as he turned away to hide the tears that were threatening to be released from his dark eyes.

“Listen, if you think we all have a reason to blame you, then prove us wrong. How about that?”

Another scoff as Jared glanced back. “And how exactly do I do that?”

“Let yourself become whatever it is that you’re supposed to become. Let yourself do what you were apparently born to do. Let yourself find out what that even is instead of still continuing to be afraid of it,” Kyle offered, though still spoke in the same gentle tone.

Jared just shook his head as he looked up at the slowly darkening sky above them. “And what if I’m right to be afraid? What if I turn into her?” he barely managed to whisper that fear out loud.

“Serena was always a bitch. You were always you,” Kyle offered. “Don’t you think that counts for anything?” he then took a breath before adding. “I’m pretty sure Lili believes it does. After all, you’re the one she’s in love with,” Kyle managed to force himself to utter those words aloud as well.

Jared looked back quickly at those words. “She told you that?” he finally managed after a long moment.

“I’m not even sure she knows it yet. And I adore Lili, but I do tend to catch onto things a little quicker than she does,” Kyle attempted a small smile, sad though it was.

Jared looked down again as he tried to allow some clear thought right then. “Maybe, she still can be my anchor?” he asked the question to no one, really, as he tried to let in the idea of giving into any of his true power at all, when all he had done was run from it. But as Lili said, that was a different world and a different life than the one they were all facing now.

“I’m depending on it,” Kyle returned as he allowed a gentle squeeze to Jared’s shoulder.

“Maybe that’s the other difference: Serena never had any anchor, at all.”

Kyle nodded in agreement before adding another statement. “Serena did do her best to push everyone away though, and did it well.”

Jared allowed another sigh as he tried to come to terms with the idea before them. “So, even though I’ve already started to be able to do things, I still think I may need your help here. You know a lot more about all of this than I ever did.”

“Well, being the narcissist I am,” Kyle began wryly, “I was counting the days ’til I got my superpowers,” he allowed the slightest smirk.

Jared just allowed the tiniest smile before looking back at Kyle. “But, I got scraps of visions even before I turned eighteen. Nothing remotely like what I can see now. And sometimes, if I got really upset, other things happened, with me having no control over them, even before,” he admitted. “You can’t tell me that nothing like that has happened to you yet. I mean, you are less than a year from eighteen, yourself,” Jared reminded.

Kyle took a breath. “I mean, little things, but nothing that I could honestly say was something paranormal, at least not for sure.”

Jared quickly piped up. “But that’s how it started with me. I thought they were just weird dreams, with no real meaning, or like turbulence that made glasses fall off of shelves. never mind me standing near them or being all upset about something. I always wrote it off as coincidence, cause the truth, it was harder to believe,” he admitted. “What little things?” he finally pressed Kyle for more clarification.

Kyle sighed as he glanced back toward the shack where Lili and Ian had remained after Ian’s last outburst. He paused another moment as he realized that, like Jared he had seemed to have hidden from a lot of the truth about himself as well. As Jared said, some truths were just too hard to believe, that is until forced to.

“It’s just, sometimes…” Kyle began, now finding himself in Jared’s usual position of trying to make sense out of profoundly nonsensical things. “Sometimes, like with the rest of the tech team, it was difficult.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, all these people in their twenties, or older, and they were expected to take their cues from me?” Kyle attempted. “Needless to say, there was resistance, a lot of resistance.”

“Not sure I follow,” Jared said quietly.

Kyle sighed again. “Why do you think I had no time for anyone up there? Not any friends, barely even my own family,” he added more quietly before continuing. “Every day I was expected to somehow make people older than me and not as intelligent as me, understand ideas they’d never grasp on their own. It did result in me developing just a bit of animosity toward other people.”

“Still not following,” Jared stated, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice now that he was on the other side of the conversation for once.

“I had to find ways around the fact that none of them really wanted me to be their boss, or wanted to do what I told them to.”

“Ways?” Jared asked more quietly.

“I mean, I didn’t want to admit that I was actually doing it, cause if I did, then I’d have to admit that I could do it. Maybe that’s why I pushed people away. So I wouldn’t let myself use it on anyone but my team for any other reason but to keep the computer as advanced as I could. That way I could tell myself that if I was doing something I honestly shouldn’t be, that I at least had good intentions, right?”

“Doing what, exactly?” Jared asked a little warily.

Kyle let out another deep sigh, his eyes downwards still. “When I first got the position, I tried to tell them what to do and get my ideas across to them the way any ‘boss’ would. Like I said, I met more than a bit of resistance, so I changed my method of delivering the message…and it worked,” he finished breathily.

“What worked?” Jared asked again, his brow furrowed. Instead of answering, Kyle just looked over at him silently, purposefully. It was then that Jared stood and spoke. “You didn’t eat did you? You want me to make you something, or get you a drink or….” That was when Kyle released him from his gaze and simply looked down again. Jared then stopped his movement toward their food stores and looked at Kyle with even more confusion on his face right then. “What was that?”

“A different method?” was Kyle’s only answer, with a slight, guilty shrug as he responded.

Jared’s breath caught a bit as he looked Kyle up and down, trying to find words right then. “You just put that thought in my head? And I did it, just like that?” he whispered.

“Believe me, it was harder with you. I had to make eye contact. Probably because of your psychic stuff. But with them, I just had to think it, and they did it,” he swallowed hard, finally admitting to his own even bigger secret than the one that had already been exposed earlier that day.

“You can put thoughts in people’s heads?” Jared whispered again, though more loudly this time.

“Like I said, there was a reason I pushed everyone away. You’re not the only one who’s afraid of becoming some kind of….” he just shook his head again. “Becoming like her,” he changed his statement. “And at least you found your anchor, right? That’s something I don’t even have, and I was never the kind of person that you are. So out of the two of us, who do you think is really more scared here?”