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<03/29/2013 - 12:58 | Cage High School (Library), Austell, GA, USA>

Every now and then, I would duck out of certain classes I was ahead in, spending more time in the school's media center even if I didn't have a lot going on. For one, it was quiet in the library; nice, quiet, and relaxing. After how I've been feeling for the past week, being in this quiet space was a godsend for me.

"Just take it easy then. It's not like you to keep getting so wound up like this." Lumina was talking about me, referring to the strangeness of my most recent days.

I was feeling anxious, nervous about something I didn't understand, though Lumina mistook this behavior of mine for the onset of UAD. At first, I thought it was UAD too, but by now, I knew it was something else. "I don't know what's going on Lumina. I can't really explain it, but these sensations keep popping into my head at random, not that I can make sense of them. It's not UAD."

Complementing my own warning, I jerked up from my seat and gasped, my mind immediately overwhelmed with confusing emotions and visual imagined flashes of a stranger. It pertained to the same student sitting right next to me. Though she noticed my odd twitchy behavior, I didn't speak to her or try looking her way. The moment I experienced just now, even though it left as soon as it came, I felt as if I somehow learned something about this student that I shouldn't normally know, mainly some of her own personality, and all without ever speaking to her. It wasn't the normal chain of observative thoughts I have of others; this time it was intrusive and forceful, far outside of my own control. Normally, I would just assume it was my imagination going wild, but this has already happened before this week, dozens of times just like this.

"You're really jumpy, that much I can see."

"Just give me a moment Lumina." I had to give myself some time to figure this out on my own, since none of it made sense to me. Maybe it was because of all the caffeine I've been drinking lately, but something outside the ordinary persisted in my own sensory input today, and I needed to find out why... This girl next to me, my mind seemed responsive to her a moment ago. I wonder what would happen if I tried to let it happen again, whatever it is.

Lumina gave me the time I wanted, so I decided to put a theory to the test. I've already been experiencing these weird moments of delusions for a while now, but I'm becoming suspicious about whether these spurts of information are real or fictional. There's only one way to find out. The random information I keep getting out of the blue, the way it keeps flooding my mind at random, there's only one phenomena I can think of that would cause this.

I shut my eyes, calming my mind and sorting my thoughts for full mental concentration. I carefully compared the difference between the different types of psionic projection, like the two modes responsible for calling or hanging up on Lumina. There was still another type of psionic projection, one that relied on echo return data and less energy. I tried the technique I learned before, expecting to learn nothing of it. However, when I waited long enough in the middle of my own concentration, it happened again.

Scattered, fragmented visual moments about this mysterious student next to me flooded into my mind, though these visual moments were more detailed and lasted long enough for me to understand them better. In the time span of about eight seconds, I saw the random school moments of this student throughout the rest of their day, broken down, but enough to learn something of it.

"Are you okay?"

"Just give me a minute Lumina... And don't interrupt." After already invoking the ability successfully, assuming I wasn't just losing my mind, I knew I wouldn't need to do it again for the same target. However, I had to be sure if this had any merit or not. So, I spoke up to the stranger. "Excuse me?"

"Yes? What is it?" The girl didn't appear to be in any particular mood aside from neutral, indicating that she was either tired or didn't care why I would suddenly start talking to her.

"This question might sound like it's coming out of thin air, but by chance, do you have band or a music class later today?" Of the flashes I saw, the most notable ones involved this girl messing around with instruments in the only music class we have in school. I asked her a specific question for this very reason.

"Y— yes? Why do you ask?" She was obviously confused about how or why I knew something as random as this, but I couldn't give her the full version.

"Don't worry about it... Just, have a good day, I guess."

"Oh... Okay then." The awkwardness could be felt from across the room, but my mind was as far away from the social situation as it could be, given what I just confirmed.

"What the heck was that all about?"

"Lumina? I need you to know something, and when you do, I need you not to freak out or get overexcited about it."

"Just spit it out."

It's harder to spit out than she realizes. After all, once I make this declarative statement, it won't be easy to take it back. Still, I'm now more sure than ever what's really going on, the reason I've been on edge all week. "Remember that weird moment a while back when I was having clairvoyant visions of the future? Well, guess what just came back to me."

Naturally, she was shocked. Anyone would panic a little to learn that a human being suddenly develops a new psychic power. "You're having clairvoyant visions? Oh my god! I didn't know!"

"Neither did I, until just now."

"You just invoked it a second ago, when you shut your eyes?"

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

"Yes." Her phrasing reminded me that Lumina can't actually see any aspect of my clairvoyant vision when I invoke it, despite the two of us being telepathically linked. I don't know if it's by design, or if it's because the Altiri don't have the power to use future-sight clairvoyance.

"That's incredible! Unless you don't want the ability, in which case, maybe not..." Yeah, she can't hide her own excitement either, just as I thought.

"I just want to know more about this thing. I mean, why did it suddenly come back? Why now? And why do I suddenly have more control over it than before?"

"Maybe the ability of clairvoyance for you was never developed in the first place, not completely, until just now. I mean, you never invoked it manually on your own in the past, did you?"

"You have a point there." Lumina planned to teach me manual control of clairvoyance, so that it would stop happening automatically. It was a good plan at the time, but after that day when they first started, it went away on its own, so we never had to worry about it. "I don't know. Something about this is strange. It isn't like before Lumina. I feel three times as alert as I normally do, like there's this constant buzz in my head. I keep feeling strange things coming off other people at random that don't make a lot of sense."

"If that's true, then... Yes, I understand now!"

"You do?" Enlighten me, master of psionics.

"The way you've been feeling for the past week must actually be residual psionic data your brain is picking up, a precursor to activating one of any Clair-sensing ability. This isn't like before. Maybe what I said then only applies now, about you reaching your peaking period."

"Peaking period?" I remember hearing that phrase before, but does it mean what I think it does?

"If you're reaching your peaking period right now, then it means all of your psionic potential will be at its absolute highest! You actually can learn how to use clairvoyance if that is the case, perhaps even more than clairvoyance."

"Right, that peaking period." I remember now. It's like puberty in a psionic sense. Active Scions only reach a peaking period once in their life... "Does this mean I'll have better control over our own connections?"

"I don't know how it will affect telepathy, but you should at this point be capable of more than you were before."

"Okay, then tell me this Lumina. If I do decide to suddenly use and start invoking future-sight clairvoyance, what then?"

"You can do whatever you want with it. I mean, I can teach you how to control your psionic concentration better than you already do, and in a sense, learn clairvoyance perfectly. But I've never personally used that ability in a future-tense before."

"That means I'll be able to see into the future with clairvoyance, the future of any person I target... It's not the same as a premonition though, is it?"

"It's not the same. Even future-sight clairvoyance has some expected rules it would follow, like the fact that you would only see up to eighteen hours into the future max, and only if that target is in the physical location you focus on when invoking the ability. Plus, it won't work on everyone, such as the ten percent."

Many memories of our past conversations were called up at once, which nearly confused me, so I had to slow down a bit. I wasn't too sure before why I was so against the idea of clairvoyance; maybe I was just scared. If these aren't like premonitions, then I can't accidentally wreck the entire future so easily with this ability; the eighteen hour rule makes it a little safer. Plus, it might be nice to be able to learn things about people I shouldn't possibly know. Maybe I can use the opportunity to prove to others that Lumina exists... Or maybe it will make me look like a creep. "Either way, if I try to ignore it, I'm sure the ability will start going off on its own, and I don't want that anymore." If I'm going to learn random aspects of people's lives from a remote distance, I'd rather be in the control seat of that.

"Very well. I'll teach you all you need to know. You may have just used it a moment ago, but there are some rules to follow for mental and psionic concentration."

"Alright. I'll let you teach me. Just don't get carried away." I might as well give it a shot. Days ago, I wondered if I could use the information I learned about the History of the English Language as a means of proving Lumina's existence to everybody around me, but it turns out that won't work. It worked for me because I'm the one who matched the data up perfectly. However, for anybody else who wasn't there in the moment, the matter would simply be my word against theirs. I found my concrete evidence, but it only applies to myself, not anyone else. I guess that's better than no evidence at all, but maybe I can expand on it if I learn to master clairvoyance and demonstrate the ability to other humans successfully. Heck, maybe I can become like a super hero or something, with a real crystal ball, running around stopping disasters before they could start.

"The first element you need to practice is patience. Don't get carried away. Your peaking period can last for months or even a year; there's time to learn everything and master it."

"Okay, what's the second element?"

"Hydration. I know you already drink lots of water, but prior to each attempted invocation of clairvoyance, you should take bigger chugs to avoid damage from the ability use."

"Jesus! How much water does psionic power drain anyway?" It's true; this is one symptom of being with Lumina all the time. I now drink nearly a gallon of water a day just to feel healthy from the effects of constant telepathy, and I got to that point without realizing it. I'm also so used to it now that I drink this much water on days Lumina and I are not connected. But now I have to drink even more just because of clairvoyance?

"Any psionic power will drain you, mentally, physically, and it can even stress your psionic core out a bit."

"Psionic core?"

"The psionic core of the brain. It handles stress known as psionic load whenever we use psionic abilities, such as telepathy. When you get used to these abilities, it can handle more. However, you have to keep these abilities in constant practice after they've been learned. Fall out of practice for too long, and the ability atrophies, like a muscle."

There was already one annoying aspect to this I didn't want to deal with, the need to constantly invoke clairvoyance after learning it. However, I'll deal with that later. "Well I'm not really going to learn anything just sitting here. I figure learning clairvoyance will stop making me feel so on edge all the time."

"Like I said, it's probably your mind picking up residual psionic passive projections from potential targets of Clair-sensing abilities. Once you start using clairvoyance more, those background sensations causing you distress should disappear entirely."

"Then what are we waiting for? No better time than now."

"The third element you need to master is total mental concentration. Luckily, you already have pretty good control over this. Despite how many chaotic thoughts you have every moment, you seem to be capable of incredible moments of concentration."

"That's because I practice controlling these thoughts all the time, especially in my writing. It's useful when I can turn all of those side thoughts to focus on the same item at once. I can use it on books or anything else."

"Clairvoyance works based on sight, so you will have to concentrate on the desire to see the future of whoever you target. Since we are still practicing, you should use yourself as a target to determine success and validity. You may not hear any sound like Altiri can, but that's a physical limitation to the human body and simple clairvoyance, so I wouldn't worry about it."

"Let's do it then Lumina. Let's prove once and for all if these psionic powers are real or not, beyond a shadow of a doubt."