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<05/28/2011 - 15:30 | Six Flags Park, Austell, GA, USA>

"This is it!" I threw my arms up high above me, presenting my favorite amusement park to the both of us. I'm never this expressive, but I could no longer contain my own excitement. "Six Flags!" I once again used the idea of getting my parents to take me somewhere, while carefully planning the day and its weather to when I could bring Lumina there with me.

"Six Flags, more flags, more fun?"

"Six Fags, more fags, more gay."

"I don't... What?!"

I chucked once I knew I confused the hell out of Lumina, but she doesn't get the reference I was making. People still use the gay tag as a general insult, and I recently heard somebody blurt that out at random. I thought it was clever, but seeing as Lumina wasn't laughing, I had to rethink my level of comedy quick. "What I meant was... Oh, never mind." Maybe it's too offensive to keep going like that. I'll have to teach myself stage magic before I can make Lumina laugh, in a way that doesn't involve humiliating myself somehow.

"Well I got to hand it to you Reed. I wasn't expecting you to take me to this park. I've never really ridden a roller coaster before, let alone watch somebody else ride one."

"Well today is your lucky day!" Oh, is she in for a treat! Given the properties of telepathy, the physical sensation of momentum and inertia should closely imitate what it feels like on her body if I go ahead and ride one myself. That's the theory anyway; I can't be sure until I give it a shot. "The temperature is holding nicely at forty-eight."

"True. But it's nearing summer, and the sun is out on a clear day. It won't last."

"Don't be a pessimist. I'll do my best to split from my group and spend time with you, one on one."

"You mean from your parents? Yeah, good luck with that." Lumina was so certain that I'd never be allowed or capable of spending a single minute alone by myself in Six Flags. However, as I panned my eyes all around me in a subtle twirl of thrill, she finally noticed the obvious. "Wait! You already did?!"

"You would be amazed how much an overprotective mother will back down if I bark loud enough. Plus, I have my cell phone on me just in case." I never considered myself to be the rebellious teenager, but lately, I've had to set some boundaries for myself, such as my ability to go on night walks alone or other crazy things. Everybody is entitled to some amount of freedom.

"I'm told you can't bring those on the rides." Yeah, told by the giant painted sign near every entrance.

"Of course not. You just leave them in the cubbies until you get off."

"Won't people just go and steal them?"

Why is she pushing against me on this so much? "Stop being so nervous about this. I don't like the feeling of dropping to my death either. But this is your very first time here. Please try to enjoy it."

"Enjoy what? Falling to my death? I suppose you make it sound fun, in your own way."

"Keep it up, and all the water rides will come first." Lumina doesn't realize just how many rides in Six Flags involve getting splashed with massive waves of cold water.

"Are you threatening me? With water?!"

"Ah, I see Altiri appear to be weak against water. Good to know."

"And I see that Reeds are apparently weak to something as harmless as strings of film tape. But you know, if you want to be so pushy about it, I could just leave."

"Don't!" My spoken outburst turned heads my way, but I was luckily isolated from anybody who knew me. More importantly, I had to figure out why Lumina was so aggressive and moody all the sudden. It made no sense to me at all. It took me another second to find my words. "I'm sorry. I don't want to spoil the day. Please don't leave Lumina. I thought you and I were just doing that passive aggressive thing again... We keep doing it to each other for some reason."

I heard Lumina sigh aloud, calming down the same way I did just now. "It must be our new thing... Sorry, I didn't mean that. I should have known you weren't being serious about the water rides."

She doesn't know that I was being serious about them, but now that I know what set her off, I'll just pretend I was kidding... I've never seen such a strong negative reaction to the thought of being splashed. Either way, it's hard to joke around with her like this. I noticed months ago that Lumina and I have a strange way of talking to each other sometimes. It's usually playful, and she's usually much better at it than I am. But it should never be one-sided. "Let's just ride the rides, okay?" Even I was mildly annoyed. I don't like that she can just threaten to cut off the connection over something she doesn't like me doing. My only hope now is to lift our moods with some of these rids.

So even though it took half an hour, Lumina and I went on our first roller coaster together. My theory about physical inertia and gravimetrical changes registering as sensations through telepathy turned out to be true. Lumina started shaking when we reached the initial high point of the ride, screaming at me that it wasn't safe.

But as the ride descended downwards, the thrill of the experience kicked in once she realized neither one of us was in any real danger. Lumina managed to scream like some of the other people did, and laugh at the same time, all within a telepathic parameter. It's proof we've been using telepathy so much now, that our real life voices and reactions are projected through telepathic chains naturally, without alteration. I was too happy seeing her reaction to care about the specifics of how cool it was. Once the ride was over with, I could feel the sharp smile in her expression, and the excitement building inside her, enough to make me wonder if I awakened a sleeping thrill seeker.

"You good?"

"Yeah! I wasn't expecting it to feel so real like that at all. That was awesome!"

It's the first time in forever since I've seen Lumina come completely alive. All that energy she's expressing is perking me up too, not from the effects of telepathy, but from the thought of letting her have this experience. As a result, I was nearing my own peak excitement too, even though I'm not the type to express it being the introvert. Trust me, it's there!

"Really gets your adrenaline going, doesn't it?"

"I want to do that again!"

I held back laughter, since in this moment, she reminds me of a kid having fun for the first time. "Whoa, easy there Lumina. There are plenty of other roller coasters like this one, only bigger, and scarier."

"Then let's ride them all!"

Of course, this is what I was hoping for all along. For reasons I still don't care to understand, I get so happy when I make other people I care about happy, myself included most of the time. But seeing this much excitement from Lumina sent me into a new mood of bliss I've only ever dreamed of.

So, in honor of her request, I went on a mission to ride all of the unique rides one by one, including some of the water rides. I only got to talk her into it on the condition that she shut off her sensation sharing during the big splash, but she enjoyed it through my eyes and ears all the same, getting a scenery like no other. It was quite literally all fun and games. However, after two hours and the fourth ride, things started to get difficult. As it turned out, it really was close to summer, on a clear-sky day with the sun fully out and ready to roast. By that time, I was already in the central plaza area walking around aimlessly in cool down from the last excitement.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"So you really want this funnel cake?"

"What?" I know I heard Lumina speak just now, but somehow I totally missed what she said.

"You heard me."

"Yeah, that time I did..." I seems we can hear each other a little better using our voices, but something is wrong even with that in use. "How come you sound so far away? It's like somebody turned down the volume on a pair of headphones. Speak up a bit."

"It's almost the same for me, but I can hear slightly better speaking with the tongue... I was afraid this would happen. The connection is slowly failing."

"What?!" Failing? It can't be! It's too soon for our connection to falter to summer heat. Still in denial, I waved my left arm all around me, trying to get a feel for the air while there was no wind to help me. But it wasn't exactly too warm according to what I could tell. "It's still fifty-five Nixus!" I don't care if anybody around sees me talking to myself, though I'm not exactly in range of most park goers right now.

"Reed, that's only five degrees below the official limit. With this temperature, the connection we have is going to quickly get weaker. It affected my vision minutes ago, but now it's affecting our hearing as well."

It affected her vision? Does she mean, Lumina can't see through my eyes right now? "Wait, so this dampens the intensity of our shared senses? I mean, all of them?"

"I thought you knew that by now."

The only logical answer is that I forgot all about it, or tried to stop caring by ignoring the problem before me, though I'm sure it's happened before. Still, the senses that are first to go are physical sensations and emotion sharing. I didn't expect her vision and hearing to go out too.

Lumina continued what she said earlier. "Right now, even though you can't tell, everything I'm seeing through your eyes is like seeing through grainy filter of random black noise. It's grainy and a bit blurry. On top of that, your voice sounds further away, and dampened, even now."

So talking out loud just isn't going to help. "I guess since I'm the weaker node in this situation, it's the reason why I can't see through your eyes no matter how hard I try." Even with average connections, it's nearly impossible for me to do onto Lumina what she does to me for the connection.

"I can't do anything about it right now. When it's this bad, telepathic amplification will only screw it up."

"Wait! But what about experiencing the roller coasters?!" It was fine before, but with the state the connection is in, won't she have trouble enjoying the sensation of the rides when there is no sensations being shared?

"Those shared senses have already stopped, and they won't start up again with the connection as weak as it is. At around fifty Nixus, that's the first sensation to go."

"Oh, this sucks Lumina! No matter what ride I go on now, you can't enjoy a single one of them. On top of that, you can't enjoy the scenery either with your vision messed up." It was the sole reason I came to this park, to give her an enjoyable experience she would never forget. We got two hours in, but I planned to be here all night!

"I'm sorry about this Reed, but this weather is going to cut this connection short. My time riding the rides with you is already over."

I didn't want to admit it, but she was certainly right. Despite my temperature check a minute ago, I could already feel that ball of gas far in space baking this place to a new crisp. Days in Georgia around this time of year always hang low for a bit and then spike really fast, especially when that air is as dry as it is now. It's not going to get any colder, only warmer.

"You've got about three more degrees of heat to go before we're both kicked off this connection by the force of nature."

"Three more? I thought the cap was at sixty. We should have four more."

"It's all circumstantial. There is variance involved with post-initial connectivity stagnation, for a limited time. In this situation, even if the temperature doesn't rise anymore from where it is now, we'll both be tired and drained in less than an hour, which will also kick us off."

"Damn!" I kicked the ground with my shoe, accomplishing nothing but infuriating myself to frustration. "I wanted more time."

"I did too Reed... But I did get to experience a good part of it."

"..." I don't know if she's sincere, or just trying to cheer me up. I really was trying to make sure she had the most fun, but I just as well want to spend the whole day with her like I was earlier. Is this really okay?

"Are you okay?"

"I don't know." I turned aside with my arms crossed, slightly panicked and worried that this would end too soon. How could I really be okay with this Lumina? I knew the weather would get warmer, but it's still too soon. Having this thrown in my face sliced off a sizeable chunk of the mental thrill I built up earlier. There isn't a ghost of a chance I can hide how depressed this is making me.

"It will be alright," she assured.

"How? How can it be alright when I have to spend the next six hours without the one person I want to be with today?"

"I don't know..." Lumina was dragged down into a falling despair with me, one that we both shared without the need of telepathy to do so.

But I calmed myself down, trying not to lose myself. This is all meaningless if I make Lumina depressed. She's supposed to remember today as a happy day we spent together, not something worse. "You know what? It's no big deal. I'll go buy that funnel cake, and then we can just hang out until it gets too hot."

"You sure?"

"Yes. And afterwards, I'll plan to have some way to hang out with you again later, once it cools down again."

"I guess that's all we can do then."

My legs dragged me towards the shop selling those cakes. It's one of the few sweet things I do still enjoy, even if Lumina no longer can... "Still, a few more minutes with you is better than zero. I know what I said before, but I feel like I need to say it again. You really are the best friend I could ever have. I'm not going to look forward to watching Georgia grow warmer." We really have done so much together, all the kinds of things two best friends would do for each other. Still, in all the scenarios I imaged with other people, it never felt like anything this special. Maybe it's somehow even more than that.

"Huh? More than what?"

"Uh, never mind. Let's not sweat the semantics." I can't get all crazy. Of course it can't be something more than what we have now. Now is already good enough. "You'll have to use your imagination on this cake."

"I'll just pretend it's some of that yummy asparagus you can't stand."

"A gross asparagus cake baked into the shape of a pretzel, just like grandma used to make."

I did my best not to let the back of my mind keep a countdown on the time, but my body acted as its own sensor for the temperature growing ever so slightly warmer, minute by minute. Lumina and I just kept trying to fill the silence with whatever we could think of, as if it would be the last time we would see each other again for a prolonged period of time. After the twelfth minute, I used my hand to check again, after noticing that the buzzing sensation in my head was mysterious absent.

It's fifty-nine degrees... Lumina is gone now... My projected thoughts didn't echo anymore, and I didn't hear or feel any evidence that Lumina was sill connected to me... It was total silence, of a variety I was now most afraid of, and I could do nothing about it.

I dropped the last two bites of cake I had on the plate, giving up on my destroyed apatite. Given all that's happened, I went for my phone and texted my mother to meet me here. That took an excruciating ten minutes for the wait.

"So, what time do you want to leave?" My mother found me, assuming I wanted to join her for the rest of this trip.

"I think now might be an okay time." I can't stay motivated anymore. The way I felt this morning was the polar opposite of what I was feeling now. There's no point of me being here anymore. None of these rides or places have any value with this silence around me. I knew I must look and sound really depressed, even in front of my own mother, but I just can't hide that anymore. It's how I really feel.

"Now?! You just got here!" She was not having it, but a second later, she managed to spot the defeated empty expression in my eyes. She strangely did not question me on why I was so down, but her answer was influenced by my new slump. "Fine. You got one more hour. Me and Peterson aren't that quick to want to leave."

Just do what you want then. I'll sit right here and rot for the next hour. There isn't any point in going around, pretending to have any fun. "One hour, and we'll meet back here... Naagh!" My hand reacted on its own, flying to my forehead even though holding it did nothing to stop the surge of pain blasting through it.

"What is it?"

"Head— Headache!" Oh god it hurts! It hurts so much! I didn't even do anything to cause one! Was it from the roller coaster excitement earlier? It wasn't from Lumina. The patterns are too inconsistent to be caused by telepathy or its after effects. I growled and groaned, sinking my upper body down to the grated table in front of me. Unfortunately, my headaches don't always start at a level one. They can just happen at random, and start from as high as a level seven, though this one is still a level five for the moment. I managed to recover some functionality, but was equally amazed by how the day went from perfect to disaster in such a short time. Even if the temperature would have stayed cold, even if the weather would have snowed over, my day with Lumina was destined to be cut short anyway, by this blasted out-of-control illness! Great! First the day gets ruined, and now I have to put up with this too?