An Overwhelming Feeling and Concerning Conversation

I breathe in deeply. Hold. and breathe out, taking longer on the exhale than the inhale. Eyes unfocused staring at my dormroom’s wall. In. Hold. Out. The feelings of the horny, stressed, and angry college freshmen start subsiding. Being washed away in the exhale, like a sandcastle in the tide. This is the best I can do. Well, this and taking my insomnia meds. By unfocusing my eyes and emptying my head, I can let the feelings from all the shows wash over and past me, effectively transforming the feelings into a form or white noise. After a few minutes of breathing, it normally works, at least until and unless someone feels something strongly, or my roommate shows up. Fortunately for me, my roommate has a new boyfriend, so he’s over there most nights.

It’s working, and the world is quieting itself. I get to work on my paper. Nothing urgent, but while I have this calm, I should use it. I maintain my breathing as I begin to pull up my sources. It’s taken a bit for me to be able to do things while I do my breathing exercises, but I can do a little bit of work.

I do about fifteen minutes of work per hour for a good amount of time. Long enough I lose track. Then, quietly at first but growing louder rapidly, a sharp pang hits my mind through the tide. Hard. A feeling from above, but it feels fainter, farther away than our top floor neighbor. Someone is scared. And concerned. A little confused. A bit aroused. And concerned about said arousal. That’s not a great feeling to have invading my mind right now. And it hits me like a truck. Need to do something about it, I guess. I make my way out of my dormroom, locking the door behind me, and head to the stairs. No one’s in the halls, not now. How late is it? I check my watch, it’s after midnight. Shit, I really did lose track of time, missed late night meal at the dining hall.

I lose the rhythm of the breathing as I hurry towards the stairs. The other feelings start to flood in. More than before. The range keeps growing, the more I try to suppress it, keep it quiet, the more I can feel. What was once around ten yards was now probably closer to twenty. And it wasn’t getting any quieter either. But I can’t stop my little meditations, or I would die of insomnia, my brain overworking itself being bombarded by all these outside feelings. I make it to the stairs and shut the door behind me. Walls, sealed doors, solid ground, all help. They dull the quiet feelings, still ever present, but more like a soft wave in the distance than something truly felt. Leaving only the strong ones to dominate my mind. Like the unsettling combination from the roof, and some rather intense feelings from the dorm room next to the stairs one of the floors below me. More intense in one than the other, but they’re both strong enough to make me hurry up the stairs before any unforeseen side effects occur.

Opening the door to the roof, I see the silhouette of a woman holding a gun. I feel fear, until a voice says, “Oh, shit, sorry,” and Dani drops the gun to the rooftop, “Needed to get here quickly.”

“What’s wrong?” I ask, feeling waves of concern and fear out from her direction.

She takes a moment to breathe, to calm her own emotions as she can see I’m feeling anxious feeling her fear. I breathe as well, in and out slowly with her. The world grows a little quieter. Like a lot of TVs in other rooms of a house, while I’m focused on my own music and my friend is playing something out loud on their phone next to me. A lot of stimuli, but not overwhelming. Then, she explains. “I’m not sure how to explain it, but I’ll start with the basics. Those people targeted me again.”

That’s a problem. Except that’s not what’s concerning her, not directly at least. Or she’s gotten much better at burying fear. “Are you alright?”

She shakes her head, then, likely realizing it might be misinterpreted, says, “Don’t worry about me. I’m just a little off. Flying drunk is not recommended.” She cracks a smile and tries to chuckle, but I can feel her fear still there. I force a smile of my own, to try to put her at ease. “I fought them off, well, with a little help, maybe, I’m not sure.” Her cheeks flush, she’s nervous. Something more to the help. I won’t push, it’s probably related to the general lingering air of arousal and concern about it.

“So, you’re concerned they’re going to come here?” I ask, “It’s too public, and they know they can’t get the drop on me.”

“That’s why this is the only logical place,” she says. Then, she takes another breath and explains. “They waited specifically for me to be a bit out of it, then struck in an empty area of a public place. Had I been walking home alone, they probably would have gotten me. Fortunately the guy with me…” she trails off, then shaking her head adds, “Anyways. You could feel them coming, most of the time, right?”

I nod. I mean, plenty of people could probably overpower me, for sure. I’m no fighter. But I know when they’re coming and can get away easily enough. It’s why I’m not particularly worried. She continues, “Except you can’t for about four to six hours every day.”

Four to six hours. After my meds, I’m out for four hours. Doesn’t matter the feelings I feel. And on days when my roommate is elsewhere, there wouldn’t be anyone around to notice. Assuming they could make it to my room. “So, don’t do drugs for a few days?” I muse, half jokingly.

She chuckles, still concerned, but the fear subsiding. “Are you good today?” she asks, “Or do you really need sleep for tomorrow?”

I frown. Tomorrow I have a lab, but nothing in the morning. “Should be fine returning to the old ways just for today,” I reply, “Why?”

“Well, either they have something planned for tonight, or the same team was going to target us both one after the other.”

“So if I stay up tonight that takes care of the first scenario, but as far as the other.”

She cuts me off as I start down a train of thought. “The other scenario won’t be a short-term issue.” Her concern is not for me as she says that. Nor for herself. It’s the concern over the attraction to this mysterious helper.

“What happened?” I ask, genuine curiosity both about my friend’s life and about whether this will blow back on me.

She pauses, realizes I’m me, and shakes her head with a smile. “Be less effective,” she jokingly complains. Then with yet another deep breath, she explains, “So, I’d been out drinking at a local bar. Had a bit too much to drink and some regular offered to walk me home because of the muggers. Evidently, he scared them.” I nod, feeling her memories of those feelings. Alcohol turns feelings into a weird soup, as do memories, so combining the pair makes for an interesting experience. She continues her story, “No muggers, and I had a bit of a headache, but then I saw the people from the woods rushing towards us, along with two other guys, probably that backup they were talking about. They grab me, then in under a minute they’re all dead. Like, from seeing them to corpses was probably thirty seconds at most.”

“So, your new boyfriend is like, ex-military or something?” I ask with a smirk. She gets a whole bunch of feelings at once when I say that.

“Something. He seemed to vanish into smoke and move like they did back in the woods. And, at a certain point, I’m pretty sure I felt him messing with the harmonies of the electromagnetic field.”

The confusion returns in a massive tide as she starts to put together the pieces and they don’t fit in any way that makes sense. I try my best to. He’s got to be like us somehow. But we both have fairly straight forward changes. Not multiple. And they didn’t have multiples either. Which meant there had to be a relatively straightforward explanation for her new boyfriend’s actions as well. “Maybe he can copy abilities? Did you move the currents before he did?” I ask, piercing things together.

She thinks about it. “Technically, yes,” she says, “I was playing with the harmonies because they feel different when drunk. But it took me a while to get the hang of it, and he impaled a guy with their own gun using the field maybe a minute after I mentioned the harmonies at all.”

I add a shake of my head as well. “And, unless the muggers around your house are also like us, that wouldn’t explain their fear of him.”

“He seemed as surprised as me at the abilities he did as well. Maybe even moreso, though that’s just because my confusion in the moment was overcome by concern that if they called for backup against me, you might also be in danger,” she adds.

That adds a whole mess of things to the picture, and not in a way that helps me see what it all means. If he’s confused by it, then it can’t be something he knows he’s doing prior to doing it. So it’s more like me than Dani. Something that’s just always happening. A different realization hits. What if it isn’t just our types of things. What if it’s anything he’s ever seen. Or, worse, anything he’s ever heard of. “How much did you tell your boyfriend about me?” I ask, my mocking tone turning to genuine concern on a dime.

She sees my shift in tone, and thinks about the question. “I’m pretty sure I just mentioned your name,” she says, “Why? Is there something specific, or do you just think he’s a risk?”

“Specific,” I reply, “Your boyfriend, if I’m right, is probably mostly a risk to himself and anyone who his body thinks is a threat. Probably.”

“What do you think?” she presses. She genuinely is trying to figure out this mysterious figure. She really does like him more than she wants to admit.

I shrug. “For you, you could feel the hum, but little more than that without focusing, right?” I muse. She nods, and I explain, “But for me, it’s sort of automatic. Always on. And these changes happened when we were near death, right. So what if his is wired right into his fight or flight response. He starts instinctively copying things.”

“Still doesn’t explain the fear of the muggers, right,” she explains.

“It does if the limiting factor isn’t just what’s around him. And if it doesn’t only apply to special abilities but also any abilities.”

Then, realization floods. “You think it’s anything he’s heard of, any skill or power that he thinks is possible. That’s why you were concerned about how much he knows about you.”

I wobble my head, equivocating a bit. “Actually, I kinda think it’s just anything he’s seen or experienced. But it might be heard of, hence the concern.”

“Shit. So, he’s just going to be hopping around and messing with the currents all over the place now,” she replies, “That’s not great for anyone.”

I try my best to calm her. “I mean, he clearly is a regular, so he’s living his life well enough. Maybe he’s found some way to control it, like we have. To mitigate when it affects him.”

“Lily did mention he was an expert in avoidance,” Dani muses, then explains, “She’s the bartender there. He asked something about if there was anything going on that he didn’t want to know.”

“See, it’ll be fine. I can stay up tonight, you head back home. I know plenty of escape avenues if the masked men attack,” I tell my older friend.

She nods. “Alright,” she replies, “Take care.” Holding out her hand, the gun lifts itself into it, and then she begins to move vertically, lifted by the gun, into the night sky. She really has gotten the hang of whatever she’s got going on. There is an intense pang of anger from below me. Frustration mixed with self-loathing. Someone has a paper due tomorrow, I’d bet. I hate being awake in a dorm at night.