The schedule updated in animated columns of turning tiles. Estimated times of arrival written in white on green backgrounds spun, the numbers increasing. The buses of New Langshir were not supposed to sleep, but tonight they were slothlike. Lyssa consigned herself to walking. Almost no one knew the city well enough to make it from any place to the other, save for the most seasoned taxi drivers. She had not brought fare, and the roads were occupied sparingly by those unaware of what had been transpiring. New Langshir was constantly pocked with entrance and egress.

There was fear in the air, always fear. It was the default response to almost everything that happened suddenly. Was this how the Director saw the world? Lyssa had no doubt he cared about the people. But even from her limited vantage point, the city felt like a mass of sentiment—a tidal milieu of thought.

She had been so focused on becoming an individual. Now she wondered if no one was really alone. How does one differentiate between an inspiration and a unique thought? Everyone was a collection of influences. Recent words continued to ring in her head, and she wondered how long it would be before she inevitably accrued grievances. She would then meet others who shared similar views, influenced by similar events, and then a clique would form, one that was utterly convinced there was something wrong with the way things were.

There was a defense to this kind of thinking: the big city. In such a diverse marketplace of ideas, good, bad, and every kind of thought in between mingled. Extremity was softened by numbers. But sameness attracted, and thus ambitious villain teams formed. Still, it just didn’t make sense that so many people found each other so easily. If she didn’t know any better, she would think someone was drawing people together on purpose, giving them room for their ideas to resonate and echo. Until that was all they heard. How else would otherwise normal people justify inflicting distress and destruction upon their neighbors like this?

She also knew this kind of thinking was akin to believing in a conspiracy theory. There was clearly more to reality than her late night internal ramblings. And Lyssa was so very tired.

She had never worked so hard in one sitting. She yawned. The city’s lights opposed her mood. She passed by storefronts made of glass. Suits and dresses on manikins stood underneath perpetual spotlights behind them. So few beheld the designs, but the lights remained on. Neon signage continued to animate across the massive screens hung about the buildings. The city had a life of its own.

Then it grew dark. It was gradual, but she did not notice the change until it was complete. A barricade made of cars had been erected along the streets. She recognized the area; the school was close. She did not run, but she did increase her pace.

Welcoming city lights were replaced by red and blue. The streets crawled with law enforcement and paramedics, all bathed in that spinning red-blue glow. They were at work clearing the streets. Lyssa’s eyes had to adjust momentarily before she saw that it was people they were picking up off the ground. They were piled on top of each other. It almost looked intimate.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

An officer approached.

“Sorry Miz, you can’t…” He trailed off, noticing her suit. For good measure, Lyssa showed him her ID card. He let her pass through these troubled waters.

It was a sea of men. The situation was almost funny. They were all alive, of course; Lyssa could feel them breathing. They dreamed, but in random thoughts and rapid blips of events; as if they had been tranquilized all at once. She extended her own psychic sense over them and felt the residual effects of psychic energy, a uniform presence across the entire area. It was a single spell, amplified many times over. At a glance, it seemed so difficult to do right. If one made a mistake, pushed too hard perhaps, that error would be increased exponentially. People could have died, their minds destroyed.

She stepped over arms and legs, then over roots and vines. There was plant matter in the area, forming broken walls cutting across the intersections. Lyssa broke into a run. She found two familiar faces sitting on the curb at the center of the vegetation.

“Lyssa?” Penny said as she looked up. She ran and took Lyssa in her embrace. Carrie was not far behind.

“Where have you been?” Carrie asked.

Lyssa let herself sink in their warmth for a second. They smelled of panic and exertion. It was too early for any of them to operate on heroic matters.

“Elective stuff,” Lyssa said. She left their arms. “But it should be over. For now.”

“Is that so?” Carrie asked. “What were you doing?”

Lyssa gave a brief account of what she had been charged to do. She was too tired to go into the details. Somehow it was enough to rouse anger out of Penny.

“There’s got to be laws against having a student do your dirty work,” she said. “You could have been killed!”

Lyssa smiled. “It would have been unlikely,” she said.

Penny didn’t seem to hear her.

“We need to- to go to someone with this. Like an ombudsman or something. A CEOR official…”

“How are you feeling?” Carrie asked while Penny continued to rant.

“Ready to go to bed, to be honest,” Lyssa said.

“And the…” Carrie gestured at her temple with a twirling finger.

“I’m fine,” Lyssa said reassuringly.

“You seem different. You sound…”

“Yeah it feels like we’re meeting for the first time,” Penny interrupted herself to say.

“I don’t really get it myself,” Lyssa said. “But I think things will get better from here on out. Let’s go back to the dorms.”

“Fine by us,” Carrie said. “We’ve been holding this part of their horde off for hours.”

“I want to ask you girls something,” Lyssa said. Penny raised her brow, exchanging a glance with Carrie. “Why weren’t you afraid of me when we met?”

“Why would we?” Penny asked.

“You must know I’m multi-gifted.”

“Okay?”

“But you know the history of people like me.”

“I suppose. But were you there for that history?”

“No.”

“I don’t know. You hear about things from books. But the real world is out there. Real people aren’t on the page. And laws aren’t what saves people, otherwise we’d be here for nothing. I guess I just didn’t see you that way.”

“You know sometimes you can sure talk,” Lyssa said jocularly.

“You are different. This elective of yours has been transformative.”

They shared a laugh and walked towards the school gates. She had called that place her home for the past few months. For the first time since she had matriculated, it began to feel like one. Exhausted, she withdrew her psychic senses, comfortable with the confines of her own skull.