19:00. Monday, December 4th, 2023. Alexis’s Condo.

Alexis held Jen’s hand. It was supposed to be for cool flavor, like they were summoning an evil spirit. Part of the whole seance package. But it ended up feeling more like a cry for reassurance.

And she would need all the reassurance she could get, because to get through this she would probably activate, and more than a few times.

“Stay close to me, okay?” Alexis said. Again, it was supposed to be a cool thing to say, but Alexis was shaking and Jen seemed fine. Is she really okay with this if it meant she got to see a ghost? Does Jen have Comic Book Syndrome or does she really think will just protect her as long as she is nearby.

Alexis had never tested the limits of , she had no idea if it would even activate for anyone else, since it didn’t even activate for Alexis half the time.

Some people got talents that were basically an extra limb. Alexis had a talent that was basically a glorified trauma response. Mentally preparing herself to use it with some knowledge in advance made it a bit easier. Which was a trick a lot of people had. Something she learned about from the ample content warnings that people on Clogger used.

I’m not here right now. I am Detective Driscoll on the case. Detective Driscoll is a good person, she is calm, she is cool, and she is too focused on the case to care about what happened when she was fifteen.

So Alexis tried her best to focus on the case. One thing that Alexis had wanted to test was if her assailant’s talent could go through walls. If it did have a limit like that, it meant the distance could afford to be a lot longer. But more importantly, it meant that it could be trapped.

She had basically confirmed that the talent had entered from the chimney on her earlier inspection, to be sure though she had moved the fake fireplace back to see if the talent would move it again. Alexis got her answer when the fake fireplace flew straight at them.

Jen Alexis huddled together and her talent activated, the fake fireplace hitting ’s wings with a small puff before plopping down onto the tarp with a much louder ‘cling-clung’ sound. She started hyperventilating.

She is calm, she is cool, and she is too focused on the case to care about the past.

She repeated the mantra to herselves a few more times. It might have been worse if Jen got hurt, or it hadn’t activated at all. Everytime she felt a little braver and that it was a little more true.

“Lex, you’re muttering.” Jen whispered into her ear.

“Sorry. She is--sorry I am calm. Now. I am calm now.” Alexis stammered.

Jen nodded. The detective needed to focus on the case. And she had just got some important evidence. The fireplace getting moved again meant that the assailant’s talent had not actually been in the room with them the whole time. This meant she wasn’t able to test the other thing she wanted to test, but that would come soon on its own.

The planchette on the board started to move. It was the moment of truth.

[“H-E-Y-S-O-R-R-Y”]

“Are they trying to apologize? Why did the makers of the board not think of having an area to let ghosts separate out words, anyway?” Jen asked.

“Because even they don’t think ghosts are real.” Alexis said half-heartedly. She was too busy thinking of how to respond to this. The assailant was sorry? For which part? Why?

Before she could answer though, the planchette started to move again on its own.

[“C-A-N-T-H-E-A”]

The planchette hit the wall, shattering to a million pieces.

“Oh fair planchette you served me well.” Jen said, somberly. “WTF is Canthea though?”

“I am guessing it means they can’t hear?” Alexis answered. This wasn’t that huge a leap though. When she started to think of the limitations for a talent like this, it made sense they wouldn’t give them every sense. And they never seemed to react whenever she had called out to them. They only ever reacted to the note.

However, with the planchette gone, the person on the other end of the talent was clearly restless having destroyed their only source of communications. The board and candles went flying.

Most candles hit the wall, a few hit the couches that were now in the dining room. One last hit the TV. Please don’t be broken later.

Thankfully they avoided needing to test their luck with a second time. And also thankfully, Alexis had a backup plan.

She waved her arms in the air until the assailant had calmed down, then she took out the morse code cheat sheet she printed and the new lantern she bought.

And also, she brought out two white boards, one for her and one for Jen.

“Use this please.” Alexis wrote, and pointed at the lantern. She held the position for a while to make sure they could see. Then after she demonstrated how to use it.

The lantern was sturdy. The man at the hardware store said it was the one that was the hardest to break that they had. It was shaped kind of like an hourglass, with the light in the middle, and to turn it on you just had to press the button in the middle.

Alexis demonstrated it with a simple message. Four dots, then two dots.

[“HI”]

It took a while for the lantern to flash anything back.

[“IIEY”]

They had messed up the timing and put a space in the middle of the ‘H’. So instead of ‘H’, it was ‘I’ twice in a row. They needed to be able to see what they were saying if they were gonna be able to communicate.

Reluctantly, Alexis pulled out her phone and opened the right app she needed. She just hoped the case she had was as strong as it claimed because there was a good chance it would go flying.

The app she opened was MorseMore, which was an app for morse code enthusiasts. It had two main functions. One was more of a game, in which you solved morse code related puzzles with new ones coming out daily which Alexis was obviously drawn to. And a translator which worked with either of your phone’s cameras, which before now Alexis never had cause to use.

That part was mostly targeted at larpers, you could flash a light at it and it would spell what you were saying.

Morse code wasn’t actually all that hard to learn for Alexis though, she was already good at memorizing patterns if she practiced enough.

“Try it again. This will let you see what you are saying. Just so you know eight dots means you need to start over.” Alexis wrote on her board.

[“MTTA”]

“What are they saying?” Jen asked.

“Right now? Not much.” Alexis responded. She guessed they were trying to say “ok”, but their timing was even worse than before.

“Start with individual letters.” Alexis wrote on her board. “Let’s have ‘C’ mean 'correct’ or ‘yes’ and ‘N’ mean ‘no’, okay?”

Using ‘C’ instead of ‘Y’ also made it less confusing if they were saying the word ‘why’. Alexis explained the system so she could follow along.

[“C”]

“Okay, then first question. Are you a psychic?” Alexis wrote. She was gonna still believe the answer was ‘yes’ no matter what, but this helped establish a baseline for what they believed.

[“C”]

“Great, next question. Are you a man?” Alexis wrote.

[“N”]

“Are you a woman?” Alexis wrote.

[“C”]

“Can you tell us your name? Feel free to try spelling it out.” Alexis wrote.

.--. .- --

“What’d she say?” Jen asked.

“She said it's Pam.” Alexis responded.

----------------------------------------

They had a little bit of back and forth after that. Mostly serving to confirm that it was the same Pam that Alexis had met, and that Pam had also been the one who tore up the car on Friday and broke the mirror and keyboard this morning.

Currently Pam was practicing her letters so she could try to make longer sentences. She was making pretty good progress, with only the occasional break to smash the lantern at a wall.

Man getting those holes in my wall fixed is gonna cost a fortune, but glad I am getting my money’s worth on the lantern. I hope the man who sold it to me wins the lottery or something.

For now they had a moment to talk.

“So you know this dead girl, Lex?” Jen asked.

“She isn’t dead, and yeah I met her like once.” Alexis replied. “I think she did mention having a really hard to control talent, so I guess a lot of this may have been a misunderstanding.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“What’d you think she wants?” Jen asked.

“I don’t know, I still don’t understand why she chose to reach out this way.” Alexis responded.

“Cause dummy, she is a ghost. Can’t exactly text when you're dead.” Jen said.

“You know my co-workers never deliberately pick fights about the ghost thing, right?” Alexis asked.

“Yeah, cause they don’t understand how judgy you are about it.” Jen said.

“I am not judgy, I made fun of you for your ghost phase once and you just won’t let it go.” Alexis said.

“First, wasn’t a phase, liking sexy ghost hunting shows is forever baby! Second, you told me, and I quote, ‘wow jen, I had no idea you used to have only two brain cells.’ And when I said that it was mean you went on a whole tirade about it and never apologized. Third, there is literally a ghost smashing a lantern in your living room and you still refuse to believe what is right in front of you.” Jen ranted at her.

“Okay okay. I am sorry for what I said. I didn’t realize I came across that way. And I am even sorry for some of the things I said afterward like the thing about scratching in the walls.” Alexis said.

“Apology accepted.” Jen replied.

“Great, thank you. But with all that said, I still don’t believe Pam is a ghost.” Alexis said.

“K wiseass, then just ask her then.” Jen said.

“Maybe I will then.” Alexis said. She signaled for Pam to come back to the tarp.

“Did you make any good progress?” Alexis wrote on her board.

[“YES A LIL”]

She was a bit slow, but she was typing out full sentences now, which was good. Alexis started to read out her answers so Jen could follow along. As she was about to write down another question though, Jen held up her board with a question of her own.

“pam r u ded???” Jen wrote.

It was hard to read the facial cues of a floating lantern, but if Alexis guessed she was probably a little taken aback, since the lantern did float back a bit. The response came back a little slower than before.

[“MAY BE”]

It took a long while, but with a lot of back and forth they were able to get something resembling the full story.

----------------------------------------

22:52. Wednesday, November 29, 2023. Hoplite Parking Lot.

Pam and a coworker were outside talking. It had been a long shift, so Pam was enjoying a cigarette, Raven Wilds which was her favorite brand. She was talking to a coworker Mikey, who was vaping.

Mikey was a bit younger than Pam, but like her he was a general telekinetic.

“I’m telling you Mikey, I talked to a bitch who works for the town and shit, they aren’t supposed to make you use your powers unless they fill out a bunch of forms.” Pam said.

“I don’t know Pam, they aren’t a huge company but it feels weird they would be doing something illegal. How do you know the person wasn’t mistaken?” Mikey asked.

“Either way we can’t get in trouble, so it’s all good.” Pam answered.

“But in school they said we were supposed to register if we wanted to use our talents at work, and I haven’t done that yet. Why wouldn’t we get in trouble?” Mikey asked.

“Mikey, if we both come forward it will make it easier to prove that they really were forcing us.” Pam assured him.

Mikey was still new to his powers, and he had only awakened talent two months ago, at work of all places.

“Can I just take the night to think about it?” Mikey offered.

“Fine, fine. You’ve probably left your ride waiting long enough anyway.” Pam said. He has had to ‘just think about it’ twice now. But at least this conversation had gone better than the last one.

Last time he had insisted it was his fault when a box he had been carrying with his talent broke, even though he was still getting used to his talent. Kid has drunk way too much of the company kool-aid.

Her other plan had been to try to record her manager explicitly saying to use her talent, but the dude was always way too coy about it. And if she wasn’t careful he would probably catch on. I hate this cloak and dagger bullshit, I wish I could just sick on him.

She finished her cigarette outside and started to walk back to her car. She didn’t like smoking too much in it because she thought it made the car smell too much.

Before she could do that something covered her face while something else wrapped around her neck, lifting her in the air.

She couldn’t see, she was in the air, and whatever was around her neck was choking her.

only ever had one defensive trick, and it was Ghost Shield. She set her talent to target the space around her and attack wildly, then when something like a bullet flew at her it was ripped apart. It was powerful, but she had to set it up deliberately. That weakness hadn’t come up before though because once people thought you were bulletproof, they tended to stop trying to shoot you after a while. Not like they could see it.

For some reason though, this asshole had decided to call her bluff, and now had they had her balls in a vice.

But Pam was still Poltergeist, the Nightmare on Cemetery Lane, the Terror of Fair Hollow, the God Damn Bitch Queen of Graveyard Bash. And you don't get nicknames that badass unless you had more than one trick up your sleeve.

Poltergeist was the strongest psychic in Midport because of what her talent was.

, which she sometimes called her in casual conversation because it wasn’t like it had a registered government name anyway, had always felt like a ghost trailing behind her. Never that far though because it had an effective range of a few feet. Smaller range meant more power, classic psychic math.

Controlling her though, was less like having a spare limb, and more like having a spare body that you had to force to do stuff on your behalf. Thanks to Anchor Theory she had realized that her talent was tied to how pissed she was. The angrier she was, the more her would listen.

It was kinda like how Pam’s mom used to berate her into doing her chores. But just like Pam doing chores as a kid, sometimes liked to fuck things up on purpose.

All this meant was that her power sucked shit at doing anything but throwing or breaking things, but in a fight, that didn’t matter. So it didn’t matter if someone had figured out the trick behind Ghost Shield, because there was nothing Pam hated more than being caught off guard.

Think you can beat me with bitch tactics? Just wait till I smash your face into the dirt!

She commanded her to rip off the thing around her neck. It rapped two of its limbs and began to pull. But for some reason it didn’t come off right away.

rip it off already!

Her had responded, she could feel it trying. She was mad enough at this point she even tried to rip it off with her hands.

When two psychic talents targeted the same object, there were a lot of factors which decided who would win the tug of war. None of which Pam gave a shit about because if she couldn’t grab something she would just destroy it.

Mentally she screamed at her to just claw at the fucking thing already.

Another of ’s limitations was it couldn’t target humans, which most talents had, but hers had the extra limitation of not working on anything living, including plants. Went with the whole dead vibe she guessed. But this limitation didn’t just mean her talent was stronger, it meant she was free to use its ability to slash shit without her having to worry about hurting herself or other people, at least when it came to the slashing part.

But when her used its claws to try to cut Pam free, it didn’t work. Fuck, they must have some kind of shield on whatever their talent targets.

It meant they would be back to the tug of war again unless she could think of something. She was losing consciousness fast, and whatever she did next would probably be her last if it didn’t work.

Thankfully there was a surefire way to win if you were losing a tug of war and couldn't cut the rope, and that was to just throw a car on your opponent.

Her had an effective range of only a few feet, but its hard cap was a lot longer. This was something she had worked on to give her an option if she ever had to fight someone who had a range that was a lot longer. It wouldn’t be as strong as when it was in her effective range, but that would be enough. After all, she had felt a rampage coming on.

Pam had never had an official danger level because she was never registered. But she knew hers would be high, around 5 or 6. This wasn’t a brag, iit mostly came down to the fact that her power was already hard to control as is, and less to do with its raw destructive power.

During a rampage a talent would act completely on its own. But that was fine, because she didn’t care how much she destroyed as long as it meant her enemy was gone. She sent her down as far as it could go and felt the rampage take hold.

Maybe her last gambit may have worked if she had tried it earlier, but for whatever reason it didn’t. Her enemy had completely out classed her.

She wished she had a cool final thought, maybe thinking about her friends. But instead, just as she passed out, she wished she could see the fucker who finally beat her. And with thought, something deep within her changed.

----------------------------------------

It was a few hours later, Alexis wasn’t sure about the time, but it was definitely starting to become morning. At one point, Alexis had gone to her kitchen to pour her and Jen some coffee. Alexis’s voice was starting to hurt from translating. They were both sitting on couch cushions on the tarp because Alexis still didn’t feel comfortable letting Pan near her kitchen.

“Wait. So you are a super villain?” Alexis wrote.

[“C”]

“cool!” Jen wrote.

“No! It isn’t! And you are a part of that Graveyard Bash gang then?” Alexis wrote.

[“LEADER”]

“yas! lean in girlboss!” Jen wrote.

[“LIKE U”]

“same here girlie!” Jen wrote.

“I thought girlie was our thing?” Alexis wrote. They had gotten into the habit of writing down stuff even when they were just talking to each other so that Pam could still follow the conversation.

“girlie is for anybody I like. don’t get jelly!” Jen wrote.

“Fine. Anyway Pam, so that is when you think you died?” Alexis wrote.

[“C”]

“But why did you come to me?” Alexis wrote.

[“CANT GO HOME AND CANT HURT”]

“Like you physically can’t go home and don’t want to hurt people?” Alexis wrote.

[“N”]

“she probs meant she cant hurt u cuz of ur talent” Jen wrote.

[“C”]

This was weird. Why wouldn’t she be able to go home? And when did she learn about my talent, wasn't she in the middle of destroying a car when it had activated?

“Okay, I know it is pretty late, but I still have a lot of questions if you are okay with that Pam” Alexis wrote.

[“GETTING TIRED”]

“ghosts get tired?” Jen wrote.

[“C”]

“What happens when you sleep?” Alexis wrote. Talents never worked when the user was asleep, it was one of the only hard rules.

[“GONE”]

“Like you disappear?” Alexis wrote.

[“C”]

“do u dream?” Jen wrote. Why would she dream if she disappears?

[“C”]

I stand corrected.

“Okay, do you want to stay here tonight? I have work tomorrow but I can just clock in from home, does that work for you?” Alexis wrote. If she really did disappear it wasn’t much for her to stay the night.

[“C”]

Alexis wondered where her body was, but if Pam really thought she was dead it made sense that she probably wasn’t worried about that. Alexis could speculate on the mechanics later though.

“Jen, what are you doing tomorrow?” Alexis wrote. Jen currently worked at a nonprofit in Midport, but for whatever reason her hours were pretty weird. She also had a craft business on the side.

“Im gud. I wanna c this thru till the end” Jen wrote.

Alexis was really happy that Jen was always so, as she would put it: ride or die.

But still, with many questions still unanswered, Alexis and Jen went upstairs to sleep. One question though, burned at Alexis more than any of the others. And even having Jen next to her, the question couldn’t help but keep her up all night.

Who was it that attacked Pam?