Swirling motes of light drifted into the dying woman, flowing across the link I’d formed between our souls. Slowly increasing the current, I- the stream was suddenly cut off.

“Jesse? Are you even listening to me?” the disturbance asked. “Are you telling me that you can cure even stage IV cancer with mana?”

I gritted my teeth. “Shawn. You’ve seen me bring people back to life… I can use energy to heal pretty much anything,” I said. “ Just shut up. I need to focus.”

My attention returned to the older woman lying in the hospital bed in front of me. Light seeped out of her body. The color of each geyser was muddled; indecipherable. I reached for her soul to reestablish our connection.

With the bridge reformed, I drew upon the well of pure energy within me, clear and colorless, untainted by emotion.

I scooped up some of my mana like water from a pool and carried it across our connection. There were no issues when it crossed the threshold of her soul, so I willed a stream of light to form from my soul to hers. I held the accumulating energy firmly, careful not to let it mix with hers. When I gauged that there was enough for me to heal her, I- was torn away from her again.

“Why aren’t you using the lady’s family like you usually do?” Shawn asked. I closed my eyes and squeezed the bridge of my nose.

“Because they were busy and I have an appointment in the morning.”

“You could have just—"

“Would you rather I draw from you instead?” I asked, whirling on him. He recoiled, his eyes widening with fear. “That’s what I thought.”

I turned around to step back into the woman’s soul and… for the sake of death. My energy was gone. Absorbed across the barrier.

“When do I get to heal people? Or better yet, when do I get to res—"

“Shawn. Stop. Talking.”

He scoffed while running a hand through his short blonde hair. He had frustratingly good looks and a build that supported his modeling career.

I first met him when his parents hired me to heal him as a desperate last effort. He was in some kind of accident and the doctors said he wouldn’t make it, which, by the time I got there, he hadn’t. I brought him back and collected my fee. The job was simple and that should have been the end of it, but a couple weeks later, he called me up, begging me to save him.

He claimed he was “bleeding light”. Everyone probably thought he was insane, but he wasn’t. For him, like me, death was the catalyst for awakening his powers, and without being able to control his energy, it was possible for him to accidentally kill himself – or others. I figured if the kid died a couple weeks after I brought him back to life, I’d get a bad review or something, so I acquiesced. I took him on as an apprentice of sorts. It was one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

At the time, I didn’t know that he was fuller of himself than I was, but unlike my endearing kind of narcissism, he was just plain annoying. He had the sort of haughtiness that made me wonder if he thought jars of his farts would sell at auction for thousands.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“What are you two doing in here?” A man’s voice asked from the door, then he pointed at me. “Hey, it’s you!”

“Satan’s beard, look what you did,” I said to Shawn, gesturing at the male nurse.

“Well, maybe if you didn’t fuck arou—"

“Language!” I shouted. He rolled his eyes.

“Jen! Call security!” the man called out as he rushed from the room.

“Quick, distract him while I heal her,” I said, then I turned and put a hand on the alarmed woman as she woke.

I grabbed a metaphorical handful of energy from my soul and sent my mental avatar back toward the lady. Plunging through the undefended barrier of her soul, much like running through a gust of wind, I paused at the sight of the woman comforting a sobbing red-headed child. She turned to me with a confused expression.

“Whoops! Too far,” I said as I took a couple steps backward.

Back at the edge of woman’s soul, my mind roamed her body to identify the cancer riddled throughout her organs. I threw my mana at the damage, diluting the disgusting energy oozing out of her until no trace of the ailment remained. Her body and soul would have to do the rest and make up for the messy job.

I removed my hand from the woman’s shoulder and smiled. Her complexion improved and her mouth fell open in shock. She took a deep breath for the first time in who knows how long. Tears began welling in her eyes when she looked up at me.

“Welcome to your second chance,” I said, using my trademark- soon to be trademarked – phrase. Before being able to receive the praise I deserved, Shawn’s voice ruined the moment.

“Are you done? Can we go now?” he asked with his arms crossed. I was about to tear the soul from his body when I heard a voice from outside the room.

“They’re this way.”

I rushed to the door and peered down the hallway. The nurse escorted two security guards carrying a sheet of paper with my face on it. It kind of reminded me of a wanted poster, which made me a gunslinging outlaw. A grin spread on my face but fell a moment later when one of the guards pointed at me.

I ran out of the room, away from the law, without alerting Shawn, but his footsteps followed a few seconds later. I pumped my legs as hard as I could, but he gained on and passed me with his longer strides, laughing as he went. My five foot, four and three quarters frame just couldn’t keep up with his six foot something body, but I had a trick up my sleeve that he’d never seen before.

I channeled energy throughout my body with the clear goal of increasing my speed and agility. My steps quickened and I caught up to him as the hall turned a corner. He slowed to make the turn, but I didn’t need to. I twisted into the air, planted my feet on his chest, and rebounded off him. I landed in a roll and continued my escape. Peering over my shoulder, Shawn had landed on his butt. When the guards grabbed him, I cackled, which didn’t sound at all unhinged.

“Do you have any idea who my father is?” Shawn shouted at their touch. It was the last thing I heard before I burst into a staircase. I practically flew down two flights through a door and into the parking garage.

Suddenly feeling a rush of hunger, I dropped my speed enhancement. I was a bit rusty with that kind of magic, so I hadn’t been very efficient with my use of mana. I was a healer, not a sprinter.

I let out a long exhale and looked up at a large ‘1’ on a cement column. I couldn’t remember where I parked. After a few minutes of searching for my periwinkle grandma mobile, I noticed a poster plastered on a wall. It was a hand-drawn picture of a multicolored dog with three legs. At the bottom, it read, “Missing dog. Responds to Bark Kent.”

My stomach growled with a tinge of guilt. Maybe I should have put up lost person posters. What had it been… Five years since I’d last seen my sister? My shoulders drooped. I doubt I’d even recognize her now.

Forcing myself to continue my present search, I found my car a couple vehicles down, but I couldn’t shake the gloomy feeling, so I left to grab a half dozen pizzas from Pietro’s Pizza Palace to cheer myself up and replenish my energy.

Unfortunately, my mood only worsened when I got there and realized that I hadn’t gotten paid for the job. I only had enough money to buy a couple slices. If I hoped to have any energy for the following day, I’d need to get a ton of sleep.

It had been a while since I brought someone back to life.