Lyra's imagination had grown vast in the month and half since the Initialization. Constant use of Synesthesiac Phantasia had honed her mind and senses to such a degree that her mind could hold and use an ocean's worth of detail. It had only grown when she had slotted both Synesthesiac Phantasia and Dreamer's Simulation into her Will and Mind slot respectively, in the past week.
She'd gotten two new powers from the selection: Icefire Control and Automated Craft.
With all of that enhanced capability, she couldn't fathom any way that Eli survived.
Lyra clenched her fists as white-blue flames wafted across her fingers as she lost control of her emotions. Ava nudged her elbow into her side with a raised eyebrow in admonishment. Peace flooded through her as she imagined she was happy. Just like that, she was.
Frosted flames vanished as she shook her head and refocused. She glanced down at the snapped in half charcoal pencil she'd been holding. It fused back together with nothing more than her phantastic belief holding it together. She scraped it across the page gently as she scratched out the lines and shapes of Mrs. Granton's face and physique without looking up.
Frustration mounted against her ironclad dream of feeling well.
All mundane mediums lacked that breath of true art to her now. Her mind could hold more details and information than life itself. Her every passing thought, daydream, and especially her sleeping dreams, put the real world and every other media to shame.
If Mrs. Granton hadn't forbidden power use to create these portraits, she could've created real art instead of this pale imitation drafted in such a drab, rote manner.
Lyra closed her eyes as she let her Mind of Dream guide her hands.
Before, the world had been too large. Every single thing held plains and valleys of detailed information that she couldn't even grasp, let alone draw. Now she not only picked up on it, she could execute it perfectly. Better than any camera ever created or even conceived of.
Lyra opened her eyes with a small smirk that drooped into a frown once she looked at the photo-realistic rendition Mrs. Granton in her flowing dress, her black and white cardigan that draped around her shoulders and the way it bunched against the back of her chair. A dusting of charcoal across her face was an exact replica of her freckles.
It was visual perfection... but it was missing something.
Something vital.
Lyra frowned, then shook her head as she set her charcoal pencil down in her artist case. A few practiced motions had all her things packed up into her backpack before she stood up.
"Where are you going?" Ava hissed in a whisper that sent goosebumps cascading down her arms.
"Bathroom. I finished." Lyra walked over to the teacher's desk in the corner of the large open spaced room and set down her picture without a second thought as she stalked out of the room in a huff. Irritation prickled at her.
She hurried down the hall to the nearest bathroom as she started panting. Spots danced across her vision even as her mind demanded she was fine and her will erased all signs of her impending panic attack. But her body was still entirely mortal.
Lyra stared at the mirror where her unblemished face stared back at her. Mascara accented her eyes as if a goddess of beauty had held the wand herself. Lustrous bands of light gleamed down her hair, where it swooped down to her shoulders in wavy curls. She wore a black dress with revolving flashing stars that dotted the fabric.
She squeezed her eyes shut as the pressure rose from the pit of her stomach to rake the innards of her chest. Darkness bloomed in her mind's eye before her imagination replayed the memory of huddling in the corner of their cabin's bathroom in Ava's arms as Lisa, Ava's mom, paced in the bathroom while she talked to the police operators.
Wind sent the wooden bones of the cabin creaking as it rattled against the windows in the main room. Thunder knocked against the building as lightning lit the main room bright white in the strip beneath the door. Gunshots cracked outside.
Lyra heard her family fighting for their lives outside. She knew they were. But she pretended it was just a freak thunderstorm.
Now Eli was missing or—
She opened her eyes and blinked at the dull scraggly mess her hair was. Rows of acne streaked across her cheeks up to the bridge of her nose. Dark circles shadowed her bloodshot eyes. Her shirt had a couple of stains on it from how many meals ago, her shorts were covered in splatters of ink from when she'd played with a pen... a whole week ago?
Illusions submerged her again until she looked exactly as she had before. Once she was satisfied, she returned back to class with a smile at everyone packing up as the clock came closer to when the bell would free them. Finally.
"Lyra? Could I talk to you?" Mrs. Granton asked as Lyra moved to stand over next to Ava.
"Yeah?"
The bell rang as everyone filed out.
"You drew this?" Mrs. Granton pointed at the picture she had drawn which was separated from the other art done by the rest of the class. Lyra nodded.
"And you didn't use your powers?"
"No. I didn't. I drew it entirely by hand." Lyra said with crossed arms.
"It's nice." Mrs. Granton turned back toward her before she flipped it back around. "But it's missing something. Don't you think so?"
"Like what?"
"It has no spark, Lyra. This isn't art, but a carbon copy image. It's impressive and you'll get a full grade, but I'm frankly a little disappointed. I was really looking forward to how you interpret my portrait."
People started bustling in.
"You'd better hurry. You don't want to be late for your next final."
Tears burned in Lyra's eyes as she spun around on her heel and marched out of the art room. Once her sanctuary, but now it was only another classroom. Her shoes clicked against the tile as she rushed down a series of hallways until she was outside by the football fields. She rushed across the green toward the abandoned gymnasium until she was hidden from sight.
Her gaze lingered on the spot where Tom had beaten Eli down after she'd tattled on Lana to Eli. Warmth coated her hands as molten ice frosted over her skin as her breath hitched. Darkness swamped out all the light around her as Mind of Dreams replayed the memory of the Initialization to her.
Script blared across her vision again, asking what her favorite memories and worst fears were. Her voice echoed in her ears as she described her immense joy and satisfaction whenever she'd drawn a picture and her parents hung it up on the fridge.
The feeling of creating something worthy to be displayed.
A refrain of her fear of being mediocre. Second-rate. Nothing more than the youngest child of three. She remembered the constant celebrations her parents threw for Eli's accomplishments in swimming, and then the parade of trophies Lana earned through her games in volleyball, soccer, and then track up until freshman year when she gave up after she didn't get in varsity. No matter what anyone said about how she never had a chance. Then Eli dropped out of swimming with no other explanation than that he was done.
Every little award she won through art contests or the hollow signs of digital approval on social media for whatever art she posted. Sure, her achievements were celebrated, but it wasn't the same. Not until her siblings fell out of the spotlight entirely. Then she was the sole focus of her family's delight, but she didn't want or deserve it. What was the point if the other two were out of the running? How could her drawings and paintings, both digital and on paper or the occasional canvas, compare to actual trophies and medals? It was a false victory.
So she got the power to create art just as fragile as her art and her achievements. Every success was only the beginning of the next step up the path to the next big thing. Her illusions had grown since then, but still. Her art was only temporary.
Reality returned around her as she blinked her eyes to the sight of sheets of smoldering ice that clung across the sidewalk and climbed up the walls. Red light glowed as heat radiated from within the ice. Burning mist fogged from her mouth with each ragged exhale as she regained her composure. Ice melted into flickering flames that dispersed, leaving nothing but a hot sidewalk and brick wall.
"Lyra! What are you doing out here?" Lana called out as she rounded the corner with Theo at her heels.
"What?" Lyra blinked as she turned toward them. Theo's face was pale, but otherwise, he looked no different than normal. Physically, anyway. Lana's jaw was a rigid line of fierce determination that reminded her of whenever she'd tried to convince their parents that something was unfair or to let them stay up longer than they should. An ache stabbed through her heart at the thought of her parents and what they'd turned into.
"School is over. I'm surprised you'd stick around instead of running off with your girlfriend, Ava." Lana's tone was harsh and cold.
"Lana—" Theo interrupted, then stopped as both sisters glared at him.
"Ava and I aren't dating." Lyra said matter-of-factly as she narrowed her eyes at her twin. "But I don't see how that's any of your business, considering your dating history is the same as a bathroom stall wall."
"Excuse me?" Lana growled as silvery mist splotched across her skin as it condensed into patches of metal. She lumbered forward. "At least I'm not the one running away from our family when I'm needed most. Dad is still in the hospital and Mom has been beside herself! But you don't care about anything but your art and your girlfriend. Maybe if you were there instead of hiding away wherever you were, Eli wouldn't be gone!"
"And Roman," Theo whispered.
"You were there and they still died."
"They aren't dead!" Lana snarled.
Lyra's mind caught the dilation of her pupils, the twitch of her mouth, the lift of her shoulder before her silver shrouded fist jabbed out. Illusive armor wrapped around Lyra as she sidestepped out of the way. Thick walls of force plopped into existence while it stopped her gauntleted hand with a sharp crack.
Lyra's will snapped out as she imagined a ten-foot drop beneath Lana. Immediately, she dipped as her senses believed she was falling, then Lyra pushed harder and the asphalt of the parking lot and concrete sidewalk turned ephemeral. Reality warped as her illusions sharpened from solid concepts to truth.
Concrete crunched as Lana sprang out of the hole to barrel straight toward Lyra.
Domed translucent shields appeared out of nowhere around Lyra and Lana. Caging both of them. Lana rebounded off of it with a fracturing smack before it sealed. Lyra willed the shield to vanish, but it only fizzed around her, then dissipated with a hiss. Icefiretrailed up her arm in a phantom white-blue flame that sapped the heat of the air. Her other hand pointed at Lana as bolts of ice formed in the air with a core of molten yellow heat in its center.
"Stop! Both of you!" Theo shouted at both of them as tears spilled down his cheeks. "What the fuck are you doing? They're gone and you're fighting? Jesus fucking Christ, what is wrong with your family?"
He left.
Silver armor puffed into mist around Lana as she stepped over to the brick wall before she slid down it with her hands held against her face. Lyra blinked at her as grief and guilt churned inside of her as she let her stranglehold on her mental and illusive powers fade. She stumbled over to the fragmented divot that had been the ten-foot hole she'd made. A push with Automated Craft bled into the ground where she felt each of the shattered remains.
Lyra drew them together as she de-crafted them back to wet concrete that she shaped with her will until the hole leveled out. Another flash of Automated Craft turned it solid again.
"That's new." Lana remarked hoarsely while Lyra stood back up and hesitated. If classes were over, Ava would probably wait for her... "So. You did it then? Put your powers into stats?"
"Yeah. I did." Lyra sat down next to her sister with a heavy sigh. She rested the back of her head against the wall as she stared out past the fence around the school to the surrounding residential houses. She turned to study Lana and noticed her shattered vacant stare and the determined set of her jaw in a different light.
They were silent for a few minutes as they stared at nothing together.
Lyra fiddled with one of her shoelaces while she tried to muster up anything to say. Lana beat her to it first. Her shoulders shook as she leaned against Lyra's side.
"I was so horrible to him... I... I took out everything on him after I couldn't get into any teams in varsity. I was so jealous of how easy Eli had it. He had friends, he was doing well on the swim team, and he was going to get out of here once he graduated. I... I was having such a hard time with everything. No one really liked me and I failed. Tom was one of the only people that was nice to me. It felt so nice to be seen by someone for something more than my failures or past successes. I'm not going to lie, I also enjoyed how much harder his life was compared to mine. It made me feel… better about myself."
Lana took a deep, shaky breath in as she slumped against Lyra in defeat.
"I don't remember how it started or anything else, but one time when I was hanging out with Tom and his friends smoking, I mentioned how heartbroken Eli had been in middle school after we went to Florida on vacation and he met that one girl? He moped and pined for weeks afterward. They... no, we all thought it'd be funny if something like that were about to happen again. He had just won one of his last medals from a meet and I was so upset by it, you know?"
Lyra nodded even as her mind and emotions numbed from her heart's freefall plunge into ice with every word.
"So... we made a fake account of someone in New Faram and catfished him with it. I only helped out for a bit, but Tom and his friends... they became obsessed with it. Eventually, they leaked all the text logs and everything else they sent to everyone in senior year, but especially the swim team. I thought that would be the end, but Tom dug in. He started bullying Eli every chance he got and then his friends, or at least the ones that stuck by him, until he stopped hanging out with them. I tried to convince them to stop, but that was around when Eli realized I was friends with them and smoked with them, so he withdrew from everyone. He said nothing to Mom and Dad, and neither did I because I was ashamed and... well, I didn't want to get in trouble."
"Lana..."
"I know. I know!" Lana shouted as she pushed herself up and started pacing. Sobs wracked against her chest even as tears dripped down her face. "I just... I gave up. Figured it would blow over or stop once he left for New Faram or another college and Tom would stay here or do whatever. But then it escalated more! Eli made it his personal mission to fight against Tom every chance he could. He tried to protect me!"
"When you're the reason it happened at all," Lyra said flatly as the gears spun in her mind. She and Eli had talked so much about how worried he was about Lana while he hid everything he had been going through. All she knew was that he and Tom butted heads, but that was it.
He had told no one, and apparently neither had Lana.
She rested her head back against the wall as mind spun with all the damned secrets in their family. Mom and Dad kept hidden about their involvement with Dave and Sandra and the fact they even had literal enemies locked up in prison. Lana had sabotaged Eli just so she could feel better and then said nothing. While Eli treated his own life like he was nothing more than a tool to help them.
Ice grated against ice as Lyra's fingers ground into a fist by her side.
How could she trust her family when they did nothing but lie and keep secrets over the course of her fifteen years of life?
Lyra gritted her teeth at the thought of how the appearance of powers hadn't shattered her worldview and life because of some untold disaster unfounded in reason. No. It was because of her family and their secrets that everything went to hell. The mall and everything afterward were directly because of her parents. Was the home invasion their fault too?
"Lana! Lyra!" Theo shouted as he came barreling around the corner with his phone in his hand. He skidded to a stop beside them. "Have you guys checked your phone? My mom called and said that President Ryan Turner proclaimed federal martial law!"
"What?" Lana pushed herself up with a quickly summoned pole of silverlight. She craned around to gape at the screen as Theo started playing a clip. Lyra rose slower. Every step felt heavy.
"We as a nation, as a people on this planet, are undergoing a time of grave significance and change. The arrival of these System-granted powers has overthrown everything we have ever known. It is my great burden as President of the United States of America to declare that it is time for us to go into federal-wide martial law as a country to stave off the growing unrest and to better adapt to our new future. Thank you, each and every one of you. God bless America." President Ryan Turner rested his hands on his desk in the oval office as he spoke every word in his crisp baritone. His balding head gleamed from the overhead lights.
"Well, fuck. That's that then." Lyra rubbed her brow with a wince as a chill sank into her bones despite the blazing overhead May sun. She wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or cry right now. Despite everything that had happened since the first moment the System appeared a month and a half ago, the despair hadn't settled until now.
It was the end, and the changes weren't done. It had just begun.
***
Lyra’s Status
[Stats:
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Body: None
Mind: Dream (Dreamer's Simulation)
Will: Phantasia (Synesthesiac Phantasia)
]
[Equipped Power List:
Slot One -- Icefire Control Ev. 0/Lv. 4
Slot Two -- Automated Crafting Ev. 0/Lv. 4
Slot Three -- None
]