Jeremy scratched his head, confused.

There wasn’t any way he did have psychic powers, right?

He kicked around the nearby snow, bored. He was standing in the middle of a snow-covered field, enveloped in the afternoon sunlight.

Yesterday, Psychi had sent him a text that she wouldn’t be able to fly him back home, much to his aggravation, but he managed to ask one of his friends for a ride home, which took almost forty minutes. As usual, he had gone to bed. However, today, he was woken by a dream.

In that dream, he had seen his sister flying to this spot as she was chased by green light, which eventually caught and enveloped her.

He could recognize this place because of the trio of silos not far away, which served as landmarks.

Psychi had prophetic dreams on occasion, but they rarely were of any importance and predicted what she would ordinarily have seen without their influence. So, that didn’t explain what he had seen; the dreadfully surreal bird’s eye view of his sister being chased down by light, no matter how fast she flew, which enveloped her, then disappeared without a trace.

Maybe it was just a dream, but...

A faraway, familiar, resounding sound caught Jeremy’s attention, knocking him out of his thoughts.

He looked towards the sound and saw far away as someone got hurled nearly a mile through the air by a massive icicle, flipping around as they slowed down, eventually stopping in midair. Then, another person flew towards them.

Jeremy couldn’t tell what exactly happened from where he was, but the fight ended in a massive explosion of raw psychic energy. He found it safe to assume Psychi was one of the combatants, though it wasn’t exactly easy to tell what was happening or who was in the fight from three or so miles away.

Curious now that the engagement seemed over, he looked up to where he had watched Psychi’s fight in his dream. Obviously, nothing would be there, but he was sure what he had witnessed really would happen.

He quickly looked back down to his phone, ready to call Psychi and give her a heads up. Then, he looked up again, mesmerized.

Floating midair was someone looking down on the scene from above.

For a few seconds, his mouth gaped, but he quickly took his mind off the enigma and began to call Psychi.

By the time he was about to call, she had already begun soaring across the landscape, desperately attempting to escape an ominous, ravenous green light.

She weaved between houses, flew high into the sky, threw ice, snow, and water at the light, and seemed to try just about everything in her attempt to escape.

Calling was pointless, now. Maybe, if he had called Psychi earlier, he could have helped avert the crisis likley about to happen...He shook his head; that didn’t matter, now.

Jeremy could only watch as, just according to his dream, she was cornered and tumbled into the field before him, sending snow hundreds of feet into the air in a beautifully shimmering storm as she did.

The light slowed as it approached her for seemingly no reason, but it didn’t stop.

Jeremy ran towards her, not sure what he planned to do as he waded through the snow as fast as he could. He tripped and tried to get back up, but had no chance of catching up, and never had one.

Holding himself above the snow in a plank position, he yelled to Psychi.

“I...I love you, sis!”

God, what a stupid line. The same thing everyone says. It was even stupider because it was drowned out by the unspeakably haunting sound the light made when it contacted Psychi’s barrier. Searingly bright, blue sparks flew off the collision, dying the white snow blue, even under the midafternoon sun, like firecrackers

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Then, her barrier shattered, and Psychi was enveloped by green light.

All that was left was falling snow.

Jeremy didn’t move for a while, not sure what to do or think. Had Psychi been beaten by some super-psychic? Was it magic? Just what happened?

He turned in the snow to face to see the person he’d seen earlier. They were now on the ground, walking through the snow.

They left no footprints.

“What...what did you do to her? What did you do to my sister?” He asked with a lost, worried expression.

They calmly held out a hand. “Relax, this isn’t my doing,” they said. The person was wearing blue, ornate robes laced with shimmering silver and a sapphire and silver crown. He couldn’t tell whether they were a girl or boy, and they looked at him with a cold, impersonal gaze.

“Really? How could I trust you on something like that? Who else could...”

“I will tell you one more time, please relax and take my word for it.”

Jeremy sighed, then stood from the snow and swept it off his jeans. “Fine, explain this, since you seem so knowledgeable. How come I saw this happen, from your eyes, before it happened?”

“Let’s just say it’s my psychic powers and call it a day.”

He pointed behind the person. “And why don’t you leave footprints?”

The being shrugged. “Astral Projection, basically.”

Jeremy clicked his tongue. “Nobody in the world can do that, but I’ll buy it. What was that green light?”

“A meddler, I guess.”

He looked at them with a tiresome expression. “Frick, dude. You’re being a big jerk with all this vague nonsense.”

“Sorry, I’m rather lacking on the ‘emotions’ part of humanity. Mainly because...never mind. Back to the subject, I presume you want to know if your sister is alright. I will say she probably is in some danger. Psychi is more than capable of handling herself, though, so I wouldn’t worry too much.”

Jeremy squinted in a conflicted expression. “C-cool. At least I know that.”

“She’s also in another universe.”

Jeremy placed a hand on his forehead and limply held out his other hand palm-up as if to ask why. “You could’ve just led with that, and we wouldn’tve’ needed most of this conversation in the first place.”

“Sorry, I’m not a social person,” the person said a little meekly.

“Ya think? So what’s next, bucko? Do you send me with her?”

“Even if I could do that, I wouldn’t do it. Instead, I was thinking you could, perhaps, create a portal to that dimension yourself?”

Jeremy began to search through his pockets mockingly. “Cool, let me get my pocket flux capacitor and black hole, then use some hawking radiation to power a fourth-dimensional fissure to travel through.”

The person absently fiddled with their robe as they looked at Jeremy like he was being silly. When he was finished, they said, “I assume that’s sarcasm. I can help you get your sister back, but it won’t be the easiest thing.”

Jeremy shrugged. “I think I can handle anything that’s easier than moving my eye. Anything else’s a stretch.”

“You’re quite the snarky kid, aren’t you?”

He mockingly bowed. “I like to call myself ‘reasonable’.”

“Sure, that’s a word for it. Your first step should be to help the psychic your sister just fought. She’s in critical condition, so she will need medical attention. Get her friendship, and you have a key tool towards saving your sister.”

He rubbed his chin critically. “I suspect objectifying my friends as tools is the quickest way for me to lose them.” Not that he wasn’t the type to do just that.

“They’d get used to inappropriate adjectives after a while. My friends did.”

“Damn, they’ve got real low standards.”

“Perhaps so. Anyway, I’ll be seeing you later.”

“Bye?”

The person faded away, leaving no trace.

Jeremy fell butt-first into the snow, holding himself up on his two hands with a pained, almost scared expression, and spoke to himself.

“Why me?”