17:03. Monday, December 4th, 2023. Harmon Town Hall.

Alexis had a lot of coffee that Monday. So many cups she had long since lost count. And coffee had a way of sneaking up on her. So after clearing the HPD she couldn’t hold it in and had to go to the bathroom. Before she left she wrote a note and left it and the pen she wrote it with on her desk.

I should really consider getting my caffeine fix from chocolate, I hear it doesn’t have this issue.

When she got back she checked on the status of her note. She couldn’t help but smirk a little.

A lot could be said for thinking of one’s life as a story or a game. Alexis gave teenage psychics a lot of guff for having Comic Book Syndrome, but she could see how thinking of one as invincible chosen one’s probably helped them take risks they wouldn’t otherwise do.

It helped that most teenagers didn’t need a lot of help in thinking they were invincible anyway.

Alexis never got it, even when she first got her talent when she was fifteen. It was one of those things that kept her separated from other psychics. If anything she saw herself as lesser.

But there was one escape she had to feel like she could be confident, maybe even a little cocky, and that was when she was playing detective with Aabria.

Aabria wasn’t the only one who she played games with.

It started when her dad would lose his keys before work. This was back when her parents were still together, when she was six years old or so. Her mom had made a game of it, they never had a name for it, but her mom would play the role of Sherlock and little Lexie got to be Watson.

Lexie looked up to her mom back then. And she remembered how much her mom beamed when Lexie had once been the one to find them. Alexis can’t remember what she had said that would have been that impressive. Especially looking back, there weren’t even stakes to the situation because Alexis now knew her mom had spare keys made in case her dad was ever going to run late because of it.

But Lexie didn’t know that, all she knew was that her mom had said she had a ‘knack’ for ‘deductive reasoning’.

They had weekly game nights too, and Lexie’s favorites were always the jigsaws because she had read a book and learned the trick everyone who does those kinds of puzzles a lot learns about starting with the corners.

And even if she never did figure out how to do those three by three puzzle cubes, she had a spherical one her dad gave her that she became really good at. And she got to feel smug when the smart kid in class, Erik, couldn’t figure it out. Lexie could even make patterns out of it and had practiced making it look easy to do.

When her class had a phase where they became obsessed with lollipops with riddles written on the stem got really popular. The way it was supposed to work was the center was always filled with like, nougat, cream, chocolate, or caramel and you didn’t know what it was gonna be, but it was designed so that if you fully finished the candy you could see the answer to the riddle. The theme or gimmick or whatever was inside was supposed to be a surprise.

The thing was, they didn’t do a good job at it, and you couldn’t always read the answer to the riddle. So a lot of kids wouldn’t know the answer, so they would pester Lexie because she always knew if the answer was correct. What the other kids didn’t know is that she had begged her Grandma to buy as many of them as she could get away with and had spent multiple nights memorizing all of the answers.

Still, mysteries, puzzles, riddles, they were always the place where Lexie got to feel comfortable. Where other kids would actually want to talk to her. This was her thing.

Looking back, Alexis thought that the pride she took in always trying to be clever was actually cringy. But at least Lexie was confident about it. And if she was gonna pull off this plan, she needed that confidence, the confidence she had when she played Detective Driscoll.

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gay nerd (Alexis.Driscoll): Hey Jen change of plans, wanna come over to my place? I am doing a seance. lol

Bestie (female_himbo): omg, u? is this a prank??

gay nerd (Alexis.Driscoll): No. This is serious. It may even be dangerous? But I thought you may be down. Either way, I need to borrow your divination board.

Bestie (female_himbo): lex

Bestie (female_himbo): u literally hate ghosts!

gay nerd (Alexis.Driscoll): I never hated them. I just did not believe they existed.

Bestie (female_himbo): k *skull emoji*

Bestie (female_himbo): u once told me “If you hear scratching in the walls at night, don’t call an exorcist, call an exterminator.”

Bestie (female_himbo): thats a copy paste from my notes app btw

gay nerd (Alexis.Driscoll): Okay, but are you still down?

Bestie (female_himbo): ya sure wat time?

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As she received the text, she tried to keep her hands from shaking. It’s okay Alexis, stay cool, this could still go really bad for you, but maybe it will be fine.

She wrote another note, this one a lot longer, with a new pen because her previous one was broken. Thankfully she had an abundance of low quality pens on her desk.

“That is weird, does anyone else keep hearing that snapping sound?” Cathy, Aabria’s boss, asked. It was just her and one other person who would both be going home soon.

“Oh it is just my headphones, sorry.” Alexis lied.

If this plan was going to work, Alexis still had some errands she would need to run. So she printed out a cheat sheet on morse code, shredded the notes, threw out the two broken pens, and clocked out for the day.

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18:30. Monday, December 4th, 2023. Alexis’s condo.

Alexis had to floor it to get back home and if she wanted to have everything ready before the agreed upon time. But the trip to the hardware store went longer than she expected. When she got there she immediately set to work.

Though she thought of it as hers, it wasn’t technically Alexis’s condo, it actually belonged to her and her mom’s. It was just that her mom stayed with her gram so Alexis had the run of the place. But that meant she still had a lot of her mom’s stuff here and there was a good chance some of it might break. All probably need Jen’s help moving a lot of this.

Instead, the first thing Alexis did was check the lock on the door. Alexis didn’t know the first thing about lockpicking, but she figured there would be some signs of tampering if it was forcibly opened. But there weren’t any that she could see. She suspected that if someone spent a lot of time picking the lock on the front door that her neighbors might have said something.

Next she checked all of the windows and sure enough, none of them were opened. It was chilly out, so of course that made sense.

Last was the chimney. Alexis had an older brick chimney, it was actually one of the main draws when they were picking places to live. Alexis never used it though, so she had a fake fireplace in front of it that was electric.

Sure enough however, when she walked outside to see it the cap was gone. She would probably find it in the backyard somewhere. And when flashed the shiny new lantern she bought inside the chimney, of course she didn’t see any signs of entry. There weren’t even signs of soot around the fireplace. But hey, what do you know the fake fireplace was still clearly moved.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

She took pictures of all of it. At least with this, she had enough evidence to go to the cops if she really needed to and not sound crazy.

But that wasn’t her plan.

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Knocking on the door, a little late, was Jen.

“Hey girlie, I got the game you asked for!” Jen said.

“Great, I meant what I said earlier though, this really might be dangerous.” Alexis warned.

“And miss out on a real live ghost sighting!? High school Jen would go ballistic!” Jen insisted.

Jen had apparently really gone through a huge ghost phase in high school. But when Alexis found out, she was a lot meaner about it than she was with Aabria.

“It probably isn’t actually a ghost, but I thought you might appreciate the framing.” Alexis said.

“See that sounds like the Lex I know!” Jen said. “But if it’s not a ghost, why’d you need me to bring the board?”

“I’ll explain it, but first can you help me tie things down? Also, the planchette might break during this. I hope that is cool.” Alexis said.

“I can think of no more fitting an end for the centerpiece of so many sleepovers. But seriously, I am getting antsy so start spilling deets.” Jen said.

“Okay okay. Jeez don’t rush. There is supposed to be a process for this.” Alexis said.

As they started to put things in Alexis’s combined dining room and living room away, she started to explain everything. First with the basic events, but then the juicier part, her speculation.

“At first I thought it was trying to kill me. Like weird stuff just kept getting broken. But then when I was talking to Aabria, she pointed out that I didn’t really have a lot of evidence that it was specifically a threat.”

They folded up the dining room table, and instead of trying to tie it down, they both carried it to the basement.

“You remember her right? Older lady who I play that detective game with?”

“Yeah…” Jen was pretty out of breath. Alexis probably would be too if she wasn’t so excited to get through all this.

“She actually said I have as much evidence of it being a ghost. And that actually had me start thinking like could this be a ghost? Obviously it was silly. Because ghosts aren’t real.”

“Lex you are literally a psychic!” Jen yelled.

“I actually had a co-worker say something similar to me the other day. I was kind of upset with him, because it isn’t like I chose to be a psychic. And it is kind of silly we even use that word since it isn’t like we can read minds or see the future.” Alexis said.

They started moving the couches and tv into the now empty dining room. They were too heavy to move down the stairs. The dining room part of the shared room was actually next to the kitchen, so this way they could perform the ‘ritual’ as far away from where Alexis kept her knives as possible.

“Lex, baby, I love you but you are getting off track.” Jen said.

“Oh right, sorry. So anyway, wait where was I?” Alexis said.

“Idk… That it couldn’t be a ghost?” Jen said.

“Yeah, that. So I had already figured out that it wasn’t someone invisible, and that it was probably someone with some sort of long range talent. But I couldn’t think of anyone who would be after me. I even had evidence it couldn’t be any one of the local cops.”

“Wait,” Jen paused to catch her breath. Alexis went to the kitchen and came back with a water bottle. She opened it and drank a sip. “Why would it be a cop?”

“Because they may have figured out I don’t like them. And I wanted to be one hundred percent sure it wasn’t one of them in case this turns sour and I need to go 9-1-1.” Alexis explained.

“That tracks as much as anything else you have said so far.” Jen said.

“Really? Good because I was wondering if I was losing you. Anyway, once I ruled out that it was the cops for sure, I started to think about how I just needed more data. Like why break my keyboard? What if maybe they’re talent was long range but also hard to control, so they were breaking stuff by accident?” Alexis said.

“Oh, like maybe it was trying to do other stuff?” Jen asked.

“Yeah, like what if the keyboard was actually them trying to send me a message? So before I ran to the bathroom I wrote down a piece of paper to not follow me into the bathroom (because that would be creepy) and break the pen I used to write the note if you are friendly.” Alexis said.

“And what was your plan if it did more than break your pen?” Jen asked.

“To hide in the bathroom and hope my talent would be enough to save me.” Alexis answered honestly.

“Lex, that's awful!” Jen chastised.

“Yeah, I know, but they hadn’t bothered me all day, so I figured for whatever reason they didn’t want to be caught.” Alexis said, defending herself. Plus most people had already gone home at that point.

She thought that, but even she had to admit that was pretty callous. So she was happy she hadn’t said it outloud.

“There really wasn’t much of an option, I don’t think that whoever this could be beaten up by anyone except, like, some of the psychics in the FBI. Being able to tear apart a car is no joke.” Alexis said.

They started to take down the paintings on the walls and were bringing them downstairs. One was a really nice painting her dad had done of all three of them when they were together that Alexis insisted to her mom she be allowed to keep up.

“Anway, what makes you think that they weren’t just lying about being friendly? Seems like a classical horror movie ghost move!” Jen said.

“That is where the second note came in, it was a lot more involved.” Alexis answered.

“What’d it say?” Jen asked.

“It said in no uncertain terms that I am a coward beyond measure. That if this was about money I would happily transfer all of my earthly possessions. That I would do or say whatever they wanted except hurt someone else. That if they wanted me dead with no witness I could be at the nearest cliff whenever they wanted. And that if this wasn’t a trick to just break the pen and meet me back at my house at 7 so we could talk.” Alexis said.

“Or something like that, I don’t remember all the words.” Alexis added.

Jen had stopped dead in her tracks and was just staring at Alexis.

“What?” Alexis asked.

“I just… Wow Lex.” Jen said.

“Too much?” Alexis asked.

“Just like… Wow… I don’t think I have the words to describe it.” Jen said.

“I know. But what was I supposed to do? They have all the leverage anyway. And if I knew they just wanted to kill me, I could beg them to let me say goodbye to my loved ones, help sell that it was a suicide or something. Maybe go out with a shred of dignity.” Alexis said.

“Lex none what you have said in the last, idk, two minutes? However long it has been none of it was the least bit dignified.” Jen said.

“Well I am not a superhero and I can’t fight. The only thing I could think of so that I could be sure would be to just lay on my back and show them I was nothing but a worm they could step on.” Alexis said. Not gonna tell her I named it the coward’s final gambit.

“Yeah, but like. Would you have gone through with it?” Jen asked. She seemed really worried.

“I probably would have tried my best at avoiding it? But like, when a powerful psychic is at play, not like you can do much.” Alexis said, a tad bitterly. It was hard for her not to go back to the day she awakened her talent, so to keep her mind off it, she started to lock the kitchen drawers up with zip ties. I hope the damage doesn’t get that far but it is better to be safe than sorry.

“Anyway I haven’t put the pieces all together yet, there are some theories I am still working on though. Anything you wanted to know about before we get started?” Alexis said.

“No, I think I am good. Honestly, besides the note, surprised you aren’t freaking out more about all this.” Jen said.

“I started to think of this less of my life that is happening, and more like a puzzle I am solving, which weirdly helps.”

“Sounds more like you’ve been dissociating, the way you've been talking about all this sounds like it's a tv show you watch than your actual life.” Jen said. “Maybe you have that Anime Syndrome thing you told me about.”

“Comic Book Syndrome. And yeah, more than likely at this point.” Alexis said.

She set down the tarp in the living room. She and Jen then started to lay out the fake candles in a circle. They were probably just gonna fall over anyway but Alexis bought them because if you are doing a seance you should at least commit to the bit.

“Okay before you put the board down, mind if I take the lead on asking questions?” Alexis requested.

“Kk.” Jen agreed.

“Oh, and one more thing.” Alexis said. She pulled out safety goggles and the bicycle helmet she bought, and offered it to her.

“What! No. Not happening!” Jen protests.

“It’s for safety! I don’t want you getting hurt. And literally every interaction I have had so far with this person has indicated they either have trouble controlling their powers or just like breaking things.” Alexis pleaded.

“Fine, but this totally ruins the mood.” Jen said. Putting on the safety gear.

“Trust me, when stuff starts flying, you will be happy you have them.” Alexis said. And in solidarity, put on a pair of goggles of her own.