Psycher Chronicles

Chapter 47

Flickering Lights And Sights

(Alishia Stone)

Alishia didn’t know if it was her heightened senses, her lack of heightened senses or the fact that the wolf that had previously been so dominant within her was now silent.

Worse was the fact that things were odd.

Little things, things that individually meant nothing, but over time added up to great things.

The first thing that went wrong was her alarm clock on her phone, it went off constantly.

2AM- Alarm

3:03 AM - Alarm

3:47 AM – A Louder Alarm

And so on it went. Random times, random intervals.

Yet, every time she checked the alarm that she set for herself, there it was. The time she set for school, 6:15 AM.

This last time was the worst, as her alarm wouldn’t go off until she entered the passcode. This had never happened before. Worse, her screen lock cover had changed, going from a picture of her and Rodger, to a picture of some old woman.

The woman seemed oddly familiar, but only in the way everything seems familiar in a mind still half-asleep kind of way.

Then when the screen opened and she could see the alarm, the alarm was in a new image. This one too was of the same woman, but now Alishia realized why this woman seemed so familiar, as it was the woman from the van. The woman that her Rodger killed to fully awaken his talents.

Worst of all, the screen seemed to be tracking her finger. For as her finger hovered over the screen, a knife appeared where her finger would be, if she was touching the screen, like some horror writer’s version of a mouse pointer. Then when she pressed the ‘Dismiss’ button for the alarm to turn off, rather than the alarm turning off, the woman flinched and moved.

“Oww.”

“Stop.”

“You’re hurting me.”

“Please stop, I beg you.”

The woman’s voice cried out each time she stabbed her with her knife pointer. Worse, the image slowly changed, with each stab of her finger, more and more blood appeared on the image of the woman.

The worst part was, that was the woman’s voice. Alishia had heard the woman groan and cry out in pain, so she knew what the woman sounded like, at least mostly. And that was definitely the woman’s voice.

“Ahhh!” Alishia finally screamed, seeing the woman’s dead body bleed out more and more as she cried for pain. That’s when Alishia did something she never thoughts she would do, she threw her phone hoping that it would break.

Crack.

The phone flew across the room, striking the wall, snapping in half, while also leaving a phone sized dent in the wall. After that, the phone fell limply to the ground, where the glowing screen died, followed a second later by the last remnants of sound that came from the device.

Alishia watched in horror as the phone she loved lay broken in a clump on the floor. Then taking in a deep breath to calm herself, she tried to dismiss the thoughts that had been plaguing her, through her dreams.

Only now that she was fully awake, did she realize what it was. It was all a bad dream, but why now? Why her? From all the people that Alishia had been around when they died, why her? She wasn’t even the one that killed her? The others, she could possibly understand her mind coming out and protesting, but why her?

“I didn’t even kill her.” Alishia called out to no one in particular, as she tried to calm herself down so she could go back to sleep.

Click.

Then just before she could, her MP3 player turned on as if by itself and began playing a hit song that Alishia hadn’t listened to in years.

Hasty’s: You Were There.

“All this time I looked for you to find me.

You act like I was a million miles away from anyone or anywhere.

Yet, despite all your protestations you could see.

I was always right here, while you were just over there.”

“What the?” Alishia began fully getting up out of her bed, going over to her desk to get her MP3 player, before managing to turn it off. Even though she turned it off, the final bars of the chorus completed before the device would fully cut out.

Then breathing heavily, Alishia wondered what time it actually was. For a moment she reflexively thought of her phone, only to realize that it was broken in pieces on the floor.

Pausing for a moment Alishia wondered if she could call out due to cramps, but then remembered today was Friday and her last day to try to win back Rodger and to keep him from going to the away game, with her.

After sneaking downstairs and seeing the clock on the microwave, Alishia rested a little bit as it was only 013. Then blinking to herself, she re-looked at the microwave to see that it said 4:13.

Pausing for a moment, she realized that stress of high school life was getting to her and that she needed to take a moment to calm herself. She could wake up two hours early and just stay up, or she could try to go back to bed now and regain as much sleep as possible from those remaining two hours.

With a begrudging sigh, Alishia went back up to bed to try to get any form of rest from those remaining two hours, only to find her next few hours of sleep to be tough to achieve. For every time she closed her eyes, she saw the image of her knife pointer stabbing the old woman repeatedly over and over, while she tried to aim for a seemingly moving ‘Dismiss’ button.

Gasp.

With a gasp, she shot up to look out across her room only to see the black flecks of her broken phone lying in a clump on the floor.

She was asleep for only a moment, when her normal alarm of the local news went off, loudly waking her from her slumber.

“I regret to inform you that we have now had our first confirmed case of the Bakshee-1 super plague hit America. This is a plague that so far has only seemed to target the rich, wealthy, or professional and semi-professional athletes.” Tracy Uker states, as her voice seamlessly read the biggest news story of the day.

“According to researchers, an estimated one third of the world's population is vulnerable to this disease. So far there is no known cure, and…” The voice went on, but by now Alishia was awake so she did what she always did, she reached out and tried to turn off her phone.

Tap, touch, swipe.

She reached out and then grew more and more alarmed by the fact that she couldn’t find her phone. Suddenly she lurched up in the bed, looking for her precious phone, only to then realize that the sound was coming from the far end of the room.

Sitting up, Alishia looked on in horror to see that her phone was still laying in bent and broken parts on the ground, but somehow still able to keep working.

Getting up, she walked over to the pile of parts, only to see that her throw while tough had only caused the back cover to snap off, along with the battery. Seeing the three pieces, Alishia wondered how the phone was still working without a battery in it.

Then picking up the Alishia felt her chest tighten as she saw the image of the locked screen. Once again it was a picture of the old woman, this time the same woman spoke.

“Now you know better than to be mean to others.” The woman said somewhat scornfully, as if scolding a little kid who had done something wrong. Something along the lines of getting into a fight or an argument with another child. Yet, hearing her speak, Alishia couldn’t help but feel that the words were directed towards her.

Tap.

Alishia tapped the screen, trying to get it to stop showing the old woman, but again she saw it. The knife mouse pointer seemed to perfectly follow the movement of her finger, even if she wasn’t touching the screen.

Unlocking her phone, she then saw the same bloody image of the woman, just as she left her. Six stab wounds all around her neck and body, from each of Alishia’s attempts to hit the moving ‘Dismiss’ button earlier.

Looking at the screen and the blood that seemed to be pouring out of the image, Alishia couldn’t help but feel a bit of fear rise up in her, as she knew blood. She knew what it looked like when someone was stabbed, or in her case, when claws were used to swipe open strips of flesh in an opponent.

She saw this and realized that it looked almost like a very graphic video game, but there was something unnervingly real about the image and actions.

This time, with a slightly trembling finger she reached out, watching as the dagger pointer noticing her hesitation also trembled, darting about from side to side, only to settle back down in the center of the screen a second later.

Pausing, Alishia focused, not wanting to inadvertently stab the poor woman again with her shifting knife pointer. Then as a tear rolled down her eye, she reached out, and managed to actually hit the dismiss button.

The news lady who had still been going on about the ‘Bakshee-1’ virus finally stopped, as the alarm feature had been disabled.

After that, the screen went black, and Alishia let out a long sigh of relief. Then staring at the phone, she paused wondering, “what just happened?”

Unfortunately for Alishia, her bad day was only just beginning.

***

(ReaperTwo)

The moment Hasty’s plane landed back on her home soil she felt it, a strange form of connection to the earth that she missed in other countries. While she would never consider herself to be truly spiritual, or a nature nut, she did feel much more connection to the world and elements around her. Especially after she purchased all of the primary elemental affinities, followed by the twice as expensive joint elemental affinities like Lightning, Ice, Metal, and of course her newest additional power Light.

Hasty had even learned to incorporate certain aspects of her powers into her shows. The more she adds, the more supernatural beings are of course attracted to her performances.

There was of course one alarming problem with her growth, namely that she had never learn to reap from anyone higher than a Tier I. In fact, she had been at this for so long that many of her fans that began as Tier 0 and Tier Is were now past her in terms of what she could gain from them.

Fortunately, those fans were now having kids who grew up with the same sets of powers, but they were so weak in comparison to what Hasty wanted.

Worst of all, she was nearing the end of her seemingly endless catalog of powers available to her. Her once endless stream of power seemed to be coming to a standstill.

Yet, that was okay, she was finally back home. In her home city of Pittsburgh, where she felt the greatest connection to the world as a whole.

“Hasty,” Ms. Delaney, Hasty’s personal assistant said, pulling Hasty from her mental thoughts.

“Yes?”

“Just so you know, there is going to be a quarantine on us, as we are scanned for any signs or traces of ‘Bakshee-1’ before we are allowed off the plane.” Ms. Delaney noted.

“Is it already here?” Hasty found herself asking.

“No, not here, but there was one noted case in New York, which is where you just performed. Out of an abundance of caution they are stopping the plane and putting us under observation for an hour, while they run some scans on us.”

Hearing that Hasty could only nod, as once again her Danger Sense paid off, alerting her to impending danger if she stayed on her old European tour. Instead, she decided to leave early and begin a new leg of her tour in states, before heading back after the European countries were done with their imposed lock down.

Still the longer she waited, the more she felt a slight surge of fear growing within her, as she could almost feel the source of danger growing closer with each passing moment.

Realizing she had nothing else to do with her time than meditate, she decided to focus her mind inward, as she focused on using one of her harder to direct powers, Oracular Sense.

If she closed her eyes tightly enough she could almost make out the form of a male. This her Oracular Sense told her was the source of the plague that she would need to face at some point.

Then using the same Oracular Sense, Hasty could almost see the outline of a tall youthful female that her instincts told her was the one she was directed at meeting. The one who had assumed her role as lead Reaper, something Hasty originally disliked, but now that she has had time to reflect, it was clear that Hasty was stuck. That she for whatever reason had not found a way to evolve and was now lock out of any form of advancement.

One thing Hasty hoped was that by meeting this new Reaper, she might be able to get new perspectives on how to increase her Tier rating. There must be a way for her to evolve, but for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out how.

For now, it was all she could do to take time looking for this other Reaper, and trying to reach out.

Then as Hasty focused her mind, she saw the faintest twinges of bright red hair that was long. She noticed strong muscles, abnormally strong muscles for a female that was not a werewolf. Then she thought she saw the faintest traces of a porcelain soft face.

Just as her mind started to form a clearer picture of the person she was going to make contact with, her meditation was interrupted.

“Ms. Hasty, we are able to leave now.” Ms. Delaney stated, shattering the image of the tall slender woman that was filling Hasty’s mind.

Gasp.

As she was pulled out from her meditative state, Hasty found herself breathing in deeply as she had been so close.

The fact that she felt the closest to this target while here was a good sign, as it meant that she was finally close to finding out who exactly this person was.

Now more than ever she felt she had something to go from, tall, athletic build with red hair, likely a teenager or maybe early twenties. But young face. That was going to be what Hasty told her guards to be on the look out for when they got to the meet and greet to find her helper in Pittsburgh.

Finally, Hasty felt that by finding this new Reaper, she would finally be given the ability to advance to the second Tier of her class and unlock truly powerful abilities. It was now only a matter of time.