Sister Ella - Chapter Two

It was quite dark as Ellen slid into the driver’s seat of her old Volkswagen Beetle, and chills immediately crept down the length of her spin. It always happened when she drove at night. Every part of her childhood was highlighted in excruciating detail, and it squeezed her chest in a vice for an excruciating moment before she could shake it off. No matter how many years had past, she always got that feeling.

It wasn’t exactly her fault, although it took several years to accept that. She had been moody and grumpy. Her father had gone and got remarried to some woman who had two little daughters with blue eyes and blond curls. He loved them, which, in seven-year-old logic, meant he loved her less, and she hated him for it. She said many an atrocious thing to him, accusing him of hating her and never loving her mother who died shortly after giving birth to Ellen.

He had shouldered it all, calmly repeating that he loved Ellen and her mother, but he also loved Susan and her little girls. He thought she would eventually understand, which was why he proceeded with the wedding, but Ellen was stubborn. She refused to listen to him or to talk to any of the three new members of the family, shutting herself up in her room with her books. She spat mean words at her new stepsisters, and she kicked anyone who tried to approach her.

Susan and her girls didn’t like Ellen either. They mistakenly called her “Ella,” and her father never corrected them because he thought it “cute.” They whispered things about her when they thought she wasn’t listening. They would have dinner and go to movies without her when she refused to eat with her stepmother and stepsisters. Ergo, it was not out of the ordinary when her father announced that they were going to a restaurant that Ellen locked her bedroom door and recalcitrantly ignored the announcement.

Her father, stepmother, and stepsisters left soon after. They were gone for many hours, and Ellen grew more furious with every passing second. Her father was abandoning her to go frolic with a new family. Why didn’t he just go put her in an orphanage if he hated her so much? She stomped around her bedroom, thinking how much easier life would be if she were an orphan.

He didn’t come home as hours slipped past her bedtime. She was far too upset to sleep, and so she sat up with her favorite stuffed Allosaurus, Alli, and waited. She moved down from her bedroom to the couch in the living room. She would stare at them when they came it expressing her loathing in a creased brow and wrinkled nose. She would tell her father exactly what she had thought earlier, that she’d be happier as an orphan. She wouldn’t listen to his response.  Instead, she would march up to her room and slam the door as loud as she could. Then she would lock her door and go read about kids without parents who went on adventures.  Ellen waited for the moment to enact her plan.

Then, the phone started to ring. She didn’t answer it. She hated answering phones, but the answering machine performed the task for her. The evil device began spewing horrible stories of car crashes and hospitals. But they were just stories, weren’t they?

Ellen crawled under the dining room table, wrapping a blanket around her head to block out the noise while holding onto Alli tightly with all her strength.

It couldn’t be true. Things like that didn’t happen. They couldn’t happen. They were probably just playing a mean joke on her. It wasn’t true, so she didn’t need to cry. She just had to stay angry. She just had to hold onto Alli, and then her father would come home soon, and he would say he loved her and that the woman and her little girls wouldn’t live with them anymore. Then, they would happy together again. That was it. It had to be it.

The phone started addressing her by name, but she didn’t answer it. She kept her place, convinced her father would be striding through the front door at any moment.

The sun was spilling over the horizon when the knock finally came at the door. Ellen didn’t hear it. Her ear-protective equipment was too powerful over the timid knock. Then she saw uniformed legs entered the house. She knew she was wrong about the joke. Something seemed to snap shut inside of her.

It took a lot of coaxing from a friendly-faced, young police officer to convince Ellen to move from underneath the table. It took more to get her into the squad car with Alli still squeezed against her chest, a blanket dragging from one fist, and a thin nightgown over her shoulders.

The aseptic wards were always painted in vivid detail in her memory. The police officer walked beside Ellen, and all the nurses seemed to be staring. The whole thing was so white, it was like standing in a blizzard that chilled her from head to toe. She felt very cold.

They let her see her father, and she knew he was going to die. He had so many tubes and wires, he didn’t seem human, but some sort of cyborg like in the movies she and him watched before the woman and her girls had come. She walked to his side. His eyes were closed. He was covered in bandages. He wasn’t the right color, the normal color, anymore, but shades of pasty white, vomit yellow, and a palette of fuchsia.

She didn’t know what part of him she could touch. Everything seemed to be attached to wires or some sort of strange colors. His eyes were closed. He looked helpless. But, more than that, he looked sad. Sad at his helplessness. As if he realized in some far off place that he was leaving his daughter behind. His three daughters and a wife.

It hit her in that moment why he could have so easily given his heart away to that woman. Because she needed him. Just as Ellen herself had needed her father growing up. The woman and her girls needed someone to take care of them. Her father did what was needed.

And so would she.

Ellen asked to see her stepsisters. They were talking sadly to each other. One had a broken leg, the other a large bandage around her head. They both froze as Ellen approached. She knew had been awful to the younger girls before, and she could understand their trepidation.

“Here you go, Anabelle,” Ellen handed the older one her blanket. “It will keep you warm even when it’s snowing.”

“Here you go, Clara,” Ellen handed the younger one Alli. “Alli is an Allosaurus and will protect you from anything. “

She realized it was the first time she had used their names, instead of referring to them as “the girls” when she was feeling nice or many more unpleasant names when she wasn’t.

For some odd reason, the police officer seemed to find Ellen’s actions sweet, and was smiling softly at her with glistening eyes. Ellen didn’t understand, but asked to go see her stepmother. She, like Ellen’s father, was connected to many wires and tubes, but Susan was conscious. Her eyes stared deep into the white ceiling above her.

Ellen approached, standing solemnly at the bedside, as straight as a soldier. “Clara and Anabelle are talking. They are fine. I made Alli protect them. I’m sorry for being mean to you before,” she said swiftly. The woman reached out her hand and grasped Ellen’s. Ellen remembered staring at it, not quite understanding the purpose of the motion.

“Thank you,” Susan croaked. Ellen just nodded. She left the hospital.

Ellen fell easily into the role of caregiver, as she was the only one left physically unhurt. She made their meals, and she learned how to use the dishwasher and washing machine from the helpful neighbors that assisted her at first. Ellen never let anyone see her sad, but tried to remain as her father did: solid as a rock and always giving.

At first, it had been hard. Ellen cried at night a few times. She would muffle her tears in a pillow so no one would hear her. Ellen always got the feeling that maybe, if she had decided to go, they would’ve left at a different time and not get hit by the drowsy truck driver. She told herself a million times that it made no difference now. Her father would never come back. Even when she felt lost and cold, she had to keep going. She had to, even through tears.

But then, it got easier. She knew it’s what her father would’ve wanted, and she found enormous strength through that. She cared for her younger sisters exactingly. She comforted Susan when the woman lapsed into tears at the scars on her body or the loss of her second husband. She became the comforter, but it seemed that did not improve her family’s memory of her name. She was still Ella. But now, they had jokingly referred to her as Sister Ella, because her solemn dedication to care was resembling that of a nun, they said. She did not feel like a nun, she just felt empty, but she did not reject it.

It had been many years since then. She had graduated high school, and gone to college on a scholarship. She had tutored her sisters to no end until they too managed scholarships two and three years after her. They were now attending school with her, Anabelle studying nursing and Clara, teaching.

Ellen freed herself from her car, attempting to lose the memories with it. It was strange, but even with such vivid recollections, she felt as if her father was fading into the shadows of her memory. He was almost becoming a myth or legend or the personification of enlightenment ideals more than an actual person. She couldn’t remember his laugh.

She shook her head, trying to clear up her brain and its darn preponderance for personal history and introspection. She could maybe get a few hours of sleep before the Clara and Anabelle woke up.

“Hey Sister Ella!” Clara declared jovially. She was dressed  head-to-toe in pink yoga clothes. “Early class on Sunday. Wanna come?” She had a round face and utterly sunshine-like personality that made her seem several years younger than her eighteen years.

Still, the happiness was almost grating after a night of cleaning. Ellen rubbed her eyes and stifled a yawn. “Do you want me to come? I thought Anabelle always went with you.”

“Anabelle says she doesn’t feel well,” Clara explained.

“Then, I’d best go look after her,” Ellen said, tracing the line to the bedroom across the hall where she knew Anabelle would be sleeping.

“But, I don’t want to go alone!” Clara pouted.

“Okay, fine, but give me five minutes to check on Anabelle and get some caffeine in me,” Ellen said, attempting to rouse herself into action. She met a drowsy Anabelle with a cup of tea, a heated blanket, and a quick foot rub. She then pulled on some sweatpants and a t-shirt and made a fool of herself in the stifling hot yoga class while her younger sister easily accomplished each pose.

The constant failure did not upset her, and she she even managed to continue the energy to keep trying as her thoughts were diverted elsewhere. She thought of the guy.

She wasn’t positive of his name. She had given him a false name, so he could just as easily given her one. His name could be something more generic, like Aidan or Alex or Alan or something completely different. Still, he seemed like a smart, nice guy, even if he did support economic separation of education.

Ellen started composing emails to him, thinking of the political topics she could write about or anecdotes she could share. She felt she still fell in the range of mildly socially awkward, but she was working on it. And he was the one who instigated the conversation, so she couldn’t be that repulsive.

Ellen was exhausted and sweaty when she came home. Still, she sat herself down to compose the email as Clara used the house’s only shower.

Hey Prince Atamai,

Just thought I’d send you a preliminary email so you know mine for when the shoe doctor finishes his rounds.

I really enjoyed our conversation, and I’d like to continue our discussion on educational reform sometime and perhaps the resulting robot revolution.

All the best,

Joelle

P.S. Robot for President in 2108! :)

Ellen smiled as she pressed send, but her busy brain instantly sought the thousand different misinterpretations Atamai could have of her email. What if he didn’t know she was joking? Had she been too casual? Had she been too formal? Had she been too forward?

Luckily, she was saved for such second-guessing by Clara freeing up the shower. The rest of the day dissolved into repetitive homework (her own and her sisters’) and slogging up to the computational chemistry lab she was in to work on her program. These activities required just enough brain power to silence any nagging thoughts, but not so much she wasn’t able to complete the tasks with her foggy, sleep-deprived brain.

By the time she dropped into bed, almost falling asleep before she hit the pillow, she had forgotten about the email.

Her alarm clock was ringing. Ellen gave an enormous groan and summoned herself from bed. She put some coffee in the coffee machine, and lit up the small kitchen with the light of her laptop. She always had eleven new e-mails each morning, from various spam, word-of-the-days, quote-of-the-days, newsletters, and the like that always appeared every morning. She had twelve today. She scrolled through, and found one by Atamai. A funny feeling started in her toes and squirmed its way to her ears. She didn’t know what it was, but it made her nervous enough so that she opened and read every other email beside that one first.
Then, she clicked the email, but chickened out. Ellen quickly opened another browser to check the news instead before she could read a word of what was written. She scanned a couple of articles before she convinced herself she was being silly.  Then, and only, then, did she click back to Atamai’s email with a deep breath.

Hello Joelle,

I am afraid I forgot that the shoe doctor was on sabbatical for a while in New Zealand. He’ll be back soon for this urgent surgery.
I’d love to discuss educational reform more, that is unless you think I’m heartless for the truck driver comment. If so, perhaps we can talk about my recent million dollar contribution to the Global Education Fund. :)
The party was very enjoyable. I heard the auction raised one hundred fifty thousand dollars for UNICEF.

What do you think about the new European stimulus package? I cannot say that I agree with all ideas of Keynesian economics so I find the idea of spending a trillion dollars on building new roads when you are several trillion dollars in debt absurd.

Cheers,

Atamai

P.S. Cyborg for President in 2096!

She was smiling, ear-to-ear smiling at 5:30 am. Now that was a rarity. She didn’t quite know why she was so happy. But she was. Still smiling, she formulated a response.

Greetings Atamai,

How goes it? The whole cobbler thing is completely fine. I can hardly complain if I am getting something for nothing, right?

As for the economic stimulus, I think there is something to Keynesian Economics (I mean, if you’re poor, so you save money and do nothing else, you’re still going to be poor. I think there might be a parable in the Christian Bible to that effect). However, I believe this only applies as long as the money is spent in the right places, namely education and research. I must admit, I am probably pretty darn biased as an active participant in both, but I believe that the success of a nation hinges on those two things.

Sure, make-work projects are nice and all, but you don’t really get much out of it. You’re just pumping your country full of hot air when you pay people money you don’t have. It’s not going to fix the holes, but it might work temporarily. I think if you want to do make-work projects, you should at least do it in something that the people need, like food. That way, foods costs less and the poor can eat. Win, win.

Yeah, so I am probably oversimplifying economics incredibly, but with all of my twenty one years of knowledge, this is the solution I come to.

What do you think about nuclear power? I think it shouldn’t be an option until we think of a better way of getting rid of the radioactive waste than burying it. Moreover, the consequences of things going wrong with a nuclear power plant are just too large for it to be considered seriously. As callous as it may sound, a tanker sinks, you kill some cute little seals. If a nuclear power plants goes Chernobyl on you, then you have miles of now uninhabitable land and fallout for millions of people. Nuclear power also takes up more water per a kilowatt hour than any energy source besides biofuel.  That’s why I think we should do more research on solar, wind, and tidal energy.

Thoughts?

Sincerely,

Joelle de Lafayette the Education-Promoting, Nuclear-Destroying Computational Chemist

P.S. I think I am going to get a cape with the above title on it to wear around lab and to formal occasions. I’ll get for one for you that will say Prince Atamai the Keynesian-Denying, Global-Education-Fund-Donating, Royal Liaison to the Shoe Doctor. :)

Her coffee was now cold, but she downed it in one gulp, oddly energized even without it. However, life soon had a way of taking away that energy as she was put through the wringer of several lectures, an unending chemistry lab, and her own research. When Ellen finally returned home, she could barely keep her eyes open, but she checked her e-mail quickly anyway.

Hello Joelle,

That is perhaps the most incredible cape of which I have heard. I may just have to get one made. Somehow, though, I do not believe my parents would be terribly pleased if I modeled it during galas and balls. It is a rather terrible shame.

I think the problem with attempting to employ the poor to farm is the amount of arable land and the location of the work. The urban poor are the ones desperately in need of jobs. Beyond that, there is little return from farming besides the immediate gain of food.

As for nuclear power, it has one of the greatest potential for cleanly supplying energy to an entire multi-billion member population. Solar is still terribly inefficient, which would mean an awful lot of land covered by panels. With wind, you alter avian migration patterns. Plus, they can be aesthetically detrimental. Recently, homeowners vetoed the proposed wind farm on Martha’s Vineyard for exactly that reason. With both solar and wind, you also must have a means of storing the energy, and our current batteries are not prepared to match the need we would have. With hydroelectric power, habitat destruction is intrinsic. It is the same with tidal power, which also has the detriment of the previously mentioned storage problem.

Hence why I am a Uranium fan!

As a chemist, do you have a favorite element?

From your incredibly contrary but always well-meaning friend,

Atamai

Ellen felt awake again. It was funny, how each argument he put forth made her feel more invigorated. She was a little abashed at how easily he poked holes in her arguments, but she was not beat. She quickly googled different topics to make sure her points were valid as she typed up her rebuttal, and she smiled while doing it.

Salutations to my incredibly contrary but always well-meaning friend,

So, let’s start with the urban poor thing. One option would be to provide transportation from urban areas to farming areas along with housing and educational opportunities. Of course, whenever you try to round up people in cattle cars for the “betterment of society,” they best be doing it under their own free will. (I’m not Hitler, I swear!) I think most people, if they were jobless, would jump on the opportunity to have work, food, and a house.
You also point out the finite quantity of arable land available. That is also a big problem, not just in an economic downturn, but for future development of humanity. However, I think society will begin to instigate urban farms to help with this problem. Then, we wouldn’t even need to move people. This development would also mean long-term gains as it is really only through actually working with urban farms that their structures and cultivation methods can be optimized.
As to your concerns about alternative energy: enter scientists. Many scientists are currently working on all those problems. Then, we can have utterly clean energy without being the acne on the face of the world. Obviously we couldn’t switch to renewable energy overnight, but I definitely think we should put our research focus in that area instead of playing with uranium.
As to my favorite element, I think I would have to say boron. It has a rebel side, saying ‘eff you’ to the octet rule they all taught us in freshman chemistry, and it’s an awesome lewis acid without hydrogen. Hydroboration-oxidation can be one’s saving grace in the middle of a nasty organic chemistry final. Boron also forms these awesomely geometric carborane compounds that can be nido (looks kinda like a nest), arachno (looks kinda like a spider), or closo (looks kinda like a cage for a very tiny prisoner. If I were an evil, super genius, I think I would shrink down the hero and put him in said cage while laughing maniacally). I always picture boron as the laid back type of guy in the periodic table that’s very humble and under-appreciated, but has an aforementioned wild side and does amazing things.
That was probably more than you ever wanted to know about boron, but you asked a chemist what her favorite element was so you must deal with the consequences.
I’m trying to think up some controversial subject we can debate. Gay marriage? Abortion? Gun rights? Grossly overpaid musicians and athletes? Take your pick. As you might guess, I’ve got definite opinions on all of them.

Without wax,

Joelle

Satisfied with her email, Ellen collapsed into bed and fell promptly asleep.

Ellen woke up late the next day. This meant she was all but running to her first class, barely dressed and backpack half shut. She jumped from class to class without a moment’s rest until noon when the UNICEF council met.
“Hey guys,” Ellen said breathlessly as she walked in, dumped her backpack unceremoniously on the table, and collapsed into a chair.
“So, how goes wee Ellen’s budding relationship?” Pat asked immediately, turning around in her chair with fingers templed and an eyebrow raised.
“We’ve just emailed,” Ellen said, shrugging in an attempt at nonchalance.
Pat and Dakota looked at eachother, then burst out laughing.
“What?” Ellen asked, ears growing hot as she examined both faces.
“It’s so cute to see Ellen all in love,” Pat taunted.
“I never said I was in love,” Ellen said, her blush deepening. “I just said we’ve emailed.”
“If we lived like five hundred years ago, you’d be at each other’s balconies. Ellen, oh Ellen. Wherefore art thou Ellen? Deny thy major and refuse thy brain. Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and we shall intellectualize our emotions,” Pat declared dramatically. Dakota applauded.
“Let’s work on UNICEF stuff for a while, okay? I’ve gone through the data, and we raised $142,650 thanks to Marie’s and her parents’ wonderful connections,” Ellen said, pulling out her folder.
“Holy hell, that’s a lot of money. That could, like, pay for cousin’s med school,” Pat exclaimed.
“Or a house or a really, really, nice car,” Dakota said, leaning back in his chair to imagine such a vehicle.
“Or a lot of vaccinations and wells,” Ellen said, grateful to be out of the spotlight.
“I was contacted earlier today by a UNICEF representative. They wanted to do a short story on us for their newsletter. Is that okay with everyone? I was going to give them a few pictures from the auction and that trip to Ecuador we did last summer,” Marie said.
“Show ‘em the one where I introduce the kids to real football,” Dakota said eagerly.
“Puh-lease, that’s so not real football. I mean, the ‘ball’ isn’t round, and most of the time you don’t kick it. They should call it hand-egg,” Pat said. “American football is just a sport for fat kids in a country of fat kids.”
“Hey, you’re a kid in that country of fat kids,” Dakota countered.
“But, I am no longer a kid,” Pat said.
“Come on, don’t kid yourself. Being twenty-one doesn’t make you a real adult,” Dakota said.
“First, kudos on the pun. Second, if twenty-one isn’t the age of adults, what is?” Pat continued.
“So, pictures of American football in Ecuador. Does anyone else have any other requests?” Marie asked.
“I nominate a picture of Ellen in a dress. I mean, a gem of that value should be published in a scientific paper,” Pat said.
“Remember, Ellen wouldn’t let us get a photograph though,” Marie said. Ellen was very much relieved of that fact.
“What about the mysterious cutie she was chatting up?” Pat asked, turning to Ellen. “Did he snap a picture of you to show to all his friends back home?”
Ellen shook her head.
“What is his name anyway? You’ve emailed him, so assumably you’re calling him besides ‘the love interest of Ellen Metcalf,’” Dakota asked. “Is he anyone politically connected?”

“Honestly, I have no idea. We were just joking and pretending to be all aristocratic. I think the last one I addressed to ‘my incredibly contrary but always well-meaning friend,’” Ellen shrugged.

“The last one, eh? As in, you’ve already exchanged an extensive series of emails? And you say you’re not in love. You know what I would love? To see Ellen try to seduce this guy,” Pat said.

“I can just see it. ‘Are you made of copper and tellurium, because you are CuTe,’” Dakota said, pushing up an invisible pair of glasses on his nose.

“‘You must be a good benzene ring because you’re pleasantly aromatic,’” Pat said salaciously to Dakota, swirling an invisible erlenmeyer.

“‘Oh baby, quench me and work me up!’” Dakota exclaimed, whipping of his invisible glasses.

“Alright, alright you guys,” Ellen said forcefully, glowing bright red. “That’s enough.”

Pat and Dakota dissolved into chuckles.

“Marie, I got the card of the photographer who was there, if you want to contact her about photographs of the event,” Ellen said, trying to regain her coolness but a brilliant pink still tickling her cheeks as she combed through her backpack.

“Thanks, Ellen,” Marie said as Ellen handed over the card. “Is there any information that anyone wants me to tell the writer for the newsletter?”

“Dakota ‘the Kodiak’ Bear is a purveyor of football knowledge to the underprivileged,” Dakota announced.

“American football, not real football,” Pat interrupted, rolling her eyes.

“Any serious suggestions?” Ellen asked.

“You know Dakota and I are incapable of being serious,” Patricia said, crossing her arms. “That’s biased.”

Ellen smiled and shook her head. “I think you’re good Marie.”

“Good. They want to do the interview tomorrow. Next week I’ll show you the draft and everyone can approve it,” Marie said.

“Awesomeness. Anywho, if we’re all wrapped up here, I have a hot date with some dead guy’s poetry, so I’ll just skip right off to it,” Pat said, clapping her hands together.

“Is that John Donne thing due tomorrow?” Dakota asked.

“Why else would I be doing it?” Pat countered.

Dakota groaned, sliding down in his seat. “Dammit, so much for trying to work out today.”

“Come on, the pale and tubby look is all the rage these days. Come to the library and we can discuss how horny the old bastard was when he wrote ‘The Flea,’” Pat said as she retrieved her backpack. “You can call on Zeus to smite to John Donne later.”

Dakota left with Pat, and Ellen scampered off to play with her program some more.

Amethyst - Part Three - Chapter Two

Morning tickled her face through the window. She scrunched  her nose and stretched. It was strange to see the room in a full color scheme after seeing only purple for the previous seven hours. Tomorrow she may not see it at all, depending on how this meeting went. Therese imagined time would pass slowly until that time, so she was very much surprised that she had barely had time to shower and brush her teeth before someone knocked on the door.
“Heh-ro?” she mumbled, with a mouthful of toothpaste. She quickly spit it out and gargled with water. Wiping her mouth on her arm, she repeated, much more clearly, “Hello?”
“Good morning, Miss Evans. Your presence is requested. If you would put on your helmet please, I will escort you.” Therese did not recognize the voice of the woman on the other side. It did not matter. It’s not like she would ever get to know the person. And she would have to put on that nauseating helmet.
Therese slipped her shoes on and, with equal parts trepidation and determination, she put the helmet on. It was a bit like being blinded with earmuffs on and encapsulated in water while being bound in a straight jacket. She hardly knew which way was up or down.
“I did it,” Therese said, hating the words. At least today would bring some sort of resolution to her imprisonment.
The door opened, revealing a woman with a bun and eyes of the same ice grey. She held her shoulders erect and had skin dark as night.
“Hello, Miss Evans. My name is Director Schultz,” the woman said.
“Uh, pleased to meet you,” Therese felt like this title meant she was important, but what were you supposed to do when meeting important people? She couldn’t exactly shake her hand.
“Please follow me, Miss Evans,” Director Schultz said.
“Okay, um, ma’am, er, Director Schultz,” Therese said awkwardly. After so much isolation, Therese decided her social skills probably needed a tune-up. All the same, Therese followed.
Director Schultz did not instigate a conversation. Neither did Therese. It allowed Therese to concentrate on containing her brain, but that took so much effort she barely managed to keep upright. It had been easier to control when she was talking.
“In this door, Miss Evans,” Director Schultz said, pulling open a door. There was a guard on the other side. How far had she walked? She didn’t recognize this hall at all. It was difficult to shake off the intense feeling of disorientation she felt, and she was very grateful when someone offered her a chair.

“I don’t think you’ve been formally thanked for helping us avert that bomb crisis,” Director Schultz said, sitting in a chair across from Therese. It looked like they were in a board room, and there were several other people there, but none she recognized. Not even Dr. Ott.

“It was what anyone would’ve done,” Therese said slowly, concentrating on her words. She had to keep her brain from wandering.

“The instigators in the attack were stopped by a police officer. Did you have any role in this?” Director Schultz asked. It was so strange. To Therese, the events seemed like they had occurred years ago. She had a good inch or two of hair that had grown back since they cut her skull open directly afterward. Still, they had never questioned her. They didn’t talk to her. They didn’t know.

“Yeah. I, um, kinda told her, well, impressed upon her, that the truck looked suspicious. I didn’t really have time to do anything about it myself, because, you know, the bomb. I wasn’t doing mind control or anything. I just, kinda, well, nudged her,” Therese said awkwardly. It was easier when she talked to Dr. Ott. How come it wasn’t getting any easier now?

“Whatever means you used, the result remains the same: the criminals are within custody. It might interest you to know that during interviews, they confessed to practicing beforehand in a New York metropolitan complex, the one at which Mr. Sanders was falsely apprehended.”

Therese was at attention, but the quick ascent caused her consciousness to knock against the helmet quite violently. It hurt a lot, so she took a moment to collect herself before responding breathlessly, “You guys agree that Greg Sanders is innocent?”

“He was acquitted of all charges earlier this week, Miss Evans,” Director Schultz said calmly.

“Then, then-” Therese started, trying to control the buoyancy in her chest, “then you guys don’t think I’m evil or something. Then, you won’t lock me up forever. Then, then-” Therese cut herself off. The helmet felt like a boa constrictor around her brain. It was hard to tie thoughts together, but she could tell she was getting too excited. Director Schultz had said nothing of the type. She needed to breathe.

“I’m sorry,” Therese said, rubbing her face. It felt very hot. She needed to stay calm. “Excuse me. So, what does that mean for my future, Director Schultz?”

She looked up to find Director Schultz’s eyes on her. Therese knew for a fact she was psychoanalyzing her at that moment. She guessed for anyone not cooped up for months and being forced to wear this constrictive helmet, her outburst must seem bizarre. Therese decided for the umpteenth time she really wanted to take it off.

“We believe you can be an asset in both protection and obtaining information. We would like to reinstate your training, with certain precautions,” Director Schultz said.

“Like what precautions?” Therese asked nervously. This blasted helmet was a “precaution.” If all precautions were going to be like this, she might be happier in her room.

“For one, the helmet that you have been acquainted with,” Director Schultz said as she gestured to Therese’s helmet.  Therese unconsciously shuddered. “When you train, there will be the supervisors for you. All will wear the helmets and all will be instructed to anesthetize you in case of loss of control.”

“Okay. That sounds reasonable, I guess. But, if you don’t mind me asking, once I’m done with all this training stuff, what are you going to have me do?” Therese asked slowly. Everything sounded alright, she guessed, but she couldn’t shake a disconcertedness that had made a nest at the base of her skull. Maybe she could figure out what is was if she could just remove the helmet and begin to think straight again.

“You have a unique ability to verify and extract information, Miss Evans. Surely it is not too large of stretch of imagination to see how that could be useful,” Director Schultz said easily.

So, she’d be a torturer without the torturing. At least, that the immediate image that ‘extract information’ brought to Therese’s mind before her helmet decided that was a little too much thinking and threatened to suck her brain past the event horizon.

She squinted her eyes shut and massaged her temples over which the helmet had set several charges of C-4. She maintained the posture for several moments before slowly opening her eyes. She hadn’t noticed it before, but the lights in the room all seemed at least vaguely pointed in her direction, rendering all the faces in shadows, leaving but vague impressions of their expressions.

“Alright, um, I think I’d like to go back to my room now, please,” Therese said quietly.

“Agent Herr, Agent Burgess, and Dr. Koehntop will escort you,” Director Schultz said.

A trio of the darkened faces stood up, which Therese took as her cue to do likewise. She looked at her feet throughout the journey, concentrating very hard on keeping her brain in check, before she was admitted to her cell. She thankfully chucked the helmet as far away from her as possible and collapsed on her bed.

Her head still hurt, even without that sadistic helmet. A fire was radiating across her skull in throbbing waves of excruciating pain. She couldn’t think properly about what she had just agreed to, but she retained enough mental capacity to realize it probably didn’t matter if she agreed or not. Depending on how you count, there were twenty deaths attached to her name, and Therese imagined they had probably already processed all the paperwork declaring her dead or something, which would make it really difficult for Therese to go to school or get a job.

She’d have to get a fake ID, like the one Dr. Ott used to go drinking.

She managed a quiet smirk and a forceful exhale that might have been mistaken for a laugh at the resuspended visualization. Dr. Ott the underage partier. Oh, she really needed to get out more, which she guessed she would, if she went along with this whole thing, whatever it was.

Was there ever a time in her life she didn’t have horrible headaches? Oh yeah, when she couldn’t sleep or she would kill people. Therese buried her head beneath a pillow. The three people who were going to play dog trainer for her she guessed would not be as keen to befriend her as Agent Necker was. They’d all probably undergo training where they were informed Therese was highly unstable and any sudden movement or extraneous thought could mean that she was plotting their doom and world domination.

But, there was a silver lining that Therese could not deny and she knew she should probably be a little more grateful for. She was going to help. She was going to use her messed up brain to actually do something constructive, to maybe cancel out the bad karma she’d been wracking up the time previous in her life.

She had so much more control over it now than she had ever had before. For the first time in her life, she was beginning to understand her brain, in her own strange way. That in itself was a major breakthrough, but if she could combine it with helping people--It was what she always wanted.

Then, why did she feel so gloomy about it? She sat up, attempting to ignore her headache and focus on that feeling of angst that was so prominent in her psyche, reaching up from the intuitive Therese that usually only came out when she meditated. Maybe it wasn’t angst. It was a little sad and a little scared. Was it dread? But, what was so dreadful? Therese had just reasoned that Director Schultz’s proposal was exactly what she wanted.

“Either tell me what’s wrong or stop sending weird emotions,” Therese muttered, massaging her head. “I can’t do much on just a feeling.”

Maybe Therese would meditate. Maybe in that way she could solicit her id to fess up as to what exactly was bothering it.

She pulled her legs up into a lotus posture and slowed her breathing. She closed her eyes slowly, keeping her thoughts low and open. She released her mind and opened her eyes to an amethyst world.

She drew off the bed and into the center of the room. She paused for a moment, staring at the helmet Therese had discarded earlier. The purple hung hazy over it, almost as if it were a mirage. It exuded a repulsiveness that puddled by her feet and sent her tip-toeing backward.

She continued around it until she met the doorknob. She stared at it for a long moment. Very faintly, she could see it too warp the violet of the world, so faint that she had not noticed it before. There was something in it that her purple visions could not comprehend or counter.  

She drew to her knees and examined the doorknob from every angle. By turning her head just right, she could catch the glimmer of the shimmering, fracturing purple, like with the helmet. It entranced her as much as it repulsed her. There was something here, something important. If only she could just figure it out.

Hesitantly, she stretched her fingers out in front of her and touched the doorknob.

Therese woke with a jolt. She rubbed her temple irritably.

“Come on, id. I know you’re interested in the doorknob, but I was wondering about your opinion of Director Schultz’s plan,” she muttered

She sighed and leaned back on the bed, thinking. “Is it that you just want to escape? Is it that you don’t like the plan because we’ll end up being here forever? That they’ll keep a closer eye on us so we can’t never run away?” she whispered.

Therese lay there a moment before she realized she was waiting for her id to respond. Therese decided she definitely sounded insane now that she was not only talking to a different part of herself, but expecting an answer from it. Even then, she knew her id did not use words in the classical sense, so waiting for a response was silly. Her id would probably give her vague answers through strange fascinations with doorknobs.

She smirked at herself. Yep, she was crazy, but what else was new?

She wanted to help people. She really did. So, why did this plan to help people not get unanimous approval from all parts of her brain. Why was her id still focusing on doorknobs, wanting escape? Did it not trust Director Schultz? Why was it so worried?

She picked up a book, lost interest, and then picked up another, trying to distract herself. There was nothing to be worried about. No matter what, she always had control over herself now that she had grown comfortable with her mind. She would help, and that was that.

Amethyst - Part Two - Chapter Two

“Dr. Ott, please tell us about your findings for today,” Director Schultz requested.

“I believe I have made a breakthrough, although she still is incredibly suspicious of authority. I believe she has deep-seated issues with her future and purposefully ignores it. Mortality is an overarching theme. She’s seen many die and does not wish to do so herself.

“She also fears who she is now. The reoccurring dream is representative of her mediation on the past. She has no comfortable place to be. I do believe she is experiencing deep emotional turmoil that is physically manifesting as headaches. She is still a teenager and thus has difficulties in managing the emotional difficulties of her past,” he concluded.

“Dr. Henderson?”

“She really is quite extraordinary. I attended with Agent Necker as he asked her to attempt to find a memory of his without touching. She proved my hypothesis correct. I would really appreciate if I could do a few imaging studies on her as soon as possible. I think I disagree a bit with Dr. Ott, though,” Dr. Henderson ended quietly.

“Really? How so?” His tone was cutting as his eyebrows ascended upwards.

“I believe there is a physical cause of the headaches. Agent Necker will surely agree with me that she is a diligent worker. I do not think she would invent them, Dr. Ott.”

“I do not believe them to be a figment of her imagination, Dr. Henderson. They are very real. However, even hard workers can have emotional baggage they are unequipped to handle.”

“I do not believe she is emotionally unbalanced,” Henderson returned.

“Dr. Henderson, you are speaking from your background as-” he started.

“A neurologist. I study the brain, but in a different way from yourself,” she said proudly.

“Ah, but I do not believe neurologist delve into the psyche from a personable approach, as I do. You merely observe EEGs and cranial folding,” he cut back.

“Doctors, please. It is evident that you differ in opinion. Dr. Ott has known Miss Evans the longest, so we shall defer to his judgement on how to proceed with her as a person. However, Dr. Henderson has successfully proved her hypothesis suggesting she has a greater understanding of the abilities of Miss Evans, so she will be given permission to run tests on the subject. Agent Necker, do you have anything to add to the accounts of either Dr. Ott or Dr. Henderson?” Director Schultz asked.

“Miss Evans is an adult, albeit a young one. I see no need to apply scathing labels of teenager to point to emotional instability. From my interactions, she seems tired, and that is all. She has little to herself, so she attempts to keep her mind private,” Agent Necker added.

“It is concerning she appears to have not spoken openly to anyone. We do not know her motives. And her capabilities seem beyond what we originally thought. She is improving beyond what we can control. She can get information, make people feel things. It would be in our best interest to figure out a way to limit what she can do, if need be. Checks and balances,” Director Schultz said.

“She has expressed nothing beside compliance while I have been with her. I do not believe it prudent to attempt to limit her. It would only give her reason to mistrust us,” Agent Necker replied.

“She has not been so compliant with me. She has shown an obvious distaste of authority. While I agree we should not let her know there are any attempts to limit or control her, we should begin to explore options. For one, I think she would be more compliant if she had someone to talk to, similar in age and situation. Someone that could be her friend,” Dr. Ott declared.

“There is no one that fits that category, Dr. Ott,” Dr. Henderson shot back. “To take genetic manipulation out of a government-funded laboratory takes a special breed of scientist that is willing to spurn the law which they must have held righteously to throughout their education, has access to large amounts of money, and that can find hundreds of thousands of fertilized human eggs to perform tests on. Even then, probability is against them. Humans have evolved over a course of billions of years. The likelihood of those scientists stumbling on something as great as this, even if they knew what they were looking for, is infinitesimal.”

“It does not have to be as great as this, Dr. Henderson. It just has to be something. A friend would ease her into this transition, as she seems to have a fair bit of bitterness being here and being who she is,” Dr. Ott responded.

“Dr. Henderson is right, Dr. Ott. We have not found such an individual before. At your request, we can redouble efforts in searching such an individual out, but is there any other alternative?” Director Schultz asked.

“If I might offer a suggestion, Miss Evans has expressed a desire to avenge her mother. If she is allow to assist in a case, perhaps she will be more at peace,” Agent Necker said calmly.

“Dr. Ott?” Agent Schultz asked.

“It is possible. Some small thing as to not upset her too much may be of use. You would have to be careful though. I think it best to not let Miss Evans know quite the extant of what she could use her powers for.”

“I agree. We will keep these suggestions in mind. Thank you for your time. Please report back at the same time tomorrow,” said Director Schultz, dismissing them.

Therese sat up quickly. Her head was killing her. Her shoulder was stiff. And she was tired. So much the norm.

She stretched her shoulder out slowly and wiggled her fingers about, flexing them experimentally. It was strange to touch them to their right-hand counterparts, feel the difference in sensation experienced on both sides. She wondered if it would ever be normal.

This was her normal. This new normal. She would learn to accept it. Maybe she could do some good with it, as the simple carrier of this thing that she was able to do.

She was still in her clothes from yesterday, so she took a quick shower and brushed her teeth before she glanced at her alarm clock. Tonight had been a better night. She had given up on sleep only an hour before she was summoned. She guessed she only managed to fall asleep until much later than normal, so they canceled each other out.

She glanced at the door knob. She could just walk out of there. She could do what she did back with the people who murdered her mother. She could just make everyone she passed want to let her through. However, the control she had was so tenuous. It had led to the disaster last time. It would never work. And then she would have to have a long talk with Dr. Ott when she got back.

She regretted the sentences she spoke the day before. He probably called her depressive again and diagnosed her with anger management issues. He seemed to always assign several disorders to her when she felt perfectly fine herself. Well, maybe not perfectly fine, but as fine as anyone could get in her situation.

She went to her notebook and flipped to the page where nestled tiny in the margin she had written, “Buck up. You’re not dead yet.” For some odd reason, the words always made her smile. It made her think of her dad. He never tolerated any display of emotion. Any sadness was counteracted by telling her to think about it logically and, in the end, get over it. She sometimes wondered if she was actually physically related to him. As she understood it, her grandfather’s laboratory worked with a cartload of fertilized eggs. It wouldn’t be surprising if, as her mother had fertility issues, her parents genome were represented there.

More likely than not, she wasn’t.

But it didn’t matter. Anyone could be born. Not anyone could make something of themselves.

There was a knock at the door. Therese stood up, carefully replacing her notebook and lying the hair on top of it, and then she answered the door.

“Good morning, Miss Evans,” Dr. Ott said. She suddenly remembered why she had lost her temper a little the night before.

“Good morning, Dr. Ott,” she replied evenly.

“How did you sleep?” he asked, clipboard at the ready.

“The same.”

“Dreams?”

“The same.”

“And the headaches?”

“Well, I dunno. Maybe worse,” she said.

He scrawled upon his clipboard excitedly. He had scored a point.

They walked down the hall together. “So, Therese, I was hoping we could discuss more what you said yesterday. How does the word ‘mutant’ make you feel?” Why did he have to bring it up? It was really stupid of her to say so much.

“It’s a generic term. You’re a mutant too, in a sense,” she shrugged.

“What dreams did you have before you applied this term, mutant, to yourself, if you don’t have dreams for the future now?”

“I wanted to be an engineer, like my dad,” she replied tonelessly. He opened the door for her and she mechanically inserted a bagel into her mouth as she sat in her usual chair.

“Why?” he asked.

“I liked my dad.”

He made a note on his clipboard. “Surely you liked other people with different professions.Why an engineer?”

He was not making this easy. “It was an interesting field.”

“How did it interest you?”

“I dunno, I mean, you solved problems. That’s interesting,” she shrugged. He jotted notes down quickly.

“Did you consider yourself a problem solver?” he asked.

“Yes.” She had made it a law to answer with only one word whenever he asked a yes or no question. Still, he got something from it, by the rapid moving of her pen.

“Do you now?”

“Yes.” She fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat as he wrote more. What was he getting out of this?

“What problems did you want to solve?” he asked.

“I dunno. I was trying to figure it out in college,” she said, scuffing a foot on the floor.

“What about now?”

“What problems I’m given,” she replied. This time, she looked him in the eye, staring him down. However, he even seemed to take something from that, pen twisting in some complex dance as he ran it across his clipboard. He turned a page.

There was a knock at the door. Eagerly, Therese jumped from her seat and opened it to find Dr. Henderson outside.

“Good morning, Miss Evans,” Dr. Henderson said pleasantly.

“Good morning, Dr. Henderson,” Therese returned. She looked between the Dr. Ott and Dr. Henderson, seeking an explanation and a gentler way to ask, “why are you here?” Every so often, she got pulled into some research lab to which they connected her up to wires and the like. Was Henderson going to give it a go?

“You don’t look like you’ve been informed that I was going to invite you to my lab today,” Dr. Henderson said, looking over Therese to Dr. Ott behind her with raised eyebrows.

“I wasn’t,” Therese returned, looking back herself at Dr. Ott, who was very evidently not surprised to see Dr. Henderson.

“You’re early. I was getting around to telling Miss Evans,” Dr. Ott cut back.

“Miss Evans, will you follow me please?” Dr. Henderson asked. Therese still found it hilarious how they always made it seem like she had a choice. Still, being physically poked and prodded in a lab was better than this mental game with Dr. Ott.

“Of course,” Therese replied happily, leaving Dr. Ott readily behind.

For a moment, they walked in silence, before Dr. Henderson leaned in slightly, careful to avoid physically touching Therese, and whispered, “So, you don’t think it was my fault?”

Therese shook her head, thinking back to the siphoned memory. When Dr. Henderson first started her own lab, she had brought in a burgeoning PhD student who had great potential but had difficult concentrating. His thesis was rejected, and he had seemed unconcerned of the result. Dr. Henderson had a serious discussion with him and his work ethic. He shot himself later that day. “It wasn’t. No one could’ve seen it coming.”

Therese couldn’t help but feel a connection to Dr. Henderson through that insecurity. To be a part of death, however unwilling, always kinda hung over you. “Thank you.”

Therese wrinkled her nose slightly as her headache worsened as they walked into Dr. Henderson’s lab, reaching a hand up to her temple.

“So, the headache’s are still bad then? When did they start?” Dr. Henderson asked. She gestured Therese to sit on a stool near a bench. The room seemed a combination between a hospital and a research lab with much of the medical equipment Therese had come to recognize and benches with chemicals she knew from her friends who worked in labs during college.

“Uh, soon after I woke up in the hospital. So, like six weeks ago? They weren’t very bad at the beginning. They seem to be getting worse,” she said. No one had asked her that before. Dr. Henderson was acting as if Therese wasn’t just stressing herself out and giving herself headaches.

“Okay,” Dr. Henderson stood up, and strangely, after putting on gloves, gently took Therese’s head in her hands, looking down on it from above. She said nothing, but pulled up an ophthalmoscope. “Please look at my finger, Miss Evans,” she asked.

Confused at what having headaches had to do with her eyes, Therese obliged. Did she need glasses or something? For something so mundane to be causing her such pain seemed morbidly amusing.

Dr. Henderson looked at her right eye, then switched to her left eye. She set it down, and turned to Therese. “Miss Evans, you have papilledema in both eyes.”

“What does that mean?” Therese asked, completely bemused.

“It means your optic disk is swelling, usually caused by abnormal increase in intracranial pressure.”

“So, I have a lot of pressure on my brain?” Therese guessed.

“In a way. I have seen it before in cases of tumors, hydrocephalus, and craniosynostosis. I think the last may be similar to what we are dealing with here. To be certain, I want to get an MRI done on you,” she said seriously, standing.

Something was wrong. What could possibly be so strange with her that would cause Dr. Henderson seem so grave. Therese also stood. “Okay. They did that to me before once. When I first got here they did a bunch of things, MRI, EEG, even genome sequencing.”

“All the better,” Dr. Henderson returned as she opened the door for Therese and they walked down the hall.

“What is this craniosynostosis you talked about?” Therese asked, attempting to find reasons to her concern.

“As you may know, there are fissures in the skull that aren’t fused at birth to allow room for the brain to grow. In some cases, these fissures fuse prematurely, even before the child is born. The brain has no room to grow, which, as you can imagine, has a whole host of complications.”

“But, I’m not a baby. Brains don’t grow when you’re an adult. You can’t make more neurons, or something like that, right?” Therese asked.

“There has been recent research to show that adults do regenerate some neurons. However, it is not quite what I had in mind. I think your brain is growing much faster than that, Miss Evans,” Dr. Henderson said seriously.

As they went into the MRI room, Dr. Henderson went to the lab techs who were apparently in between doing experiments. They talked for a moment, before Dr. Henderson returned to Therese.

“They are allowing me to squeeze you in. So, if you’ll please,” Dr. Henderson gestured to the MRI.

Therese obediently laid down on the the table, thinking intently as she was pulled into the machine. Dr. Henderson thought her brain was growing? How strange was that? Maybe this would be how she died, her brain grew too big for her skull. Maybe she would just have a stroke and keel over at any moment. Dead.

Therese stared at the interior of the MRI. Could they just open her skull up? I mean, would it be that hard to just break her skull up into the fissures she had when she was a baby? Would they leave room for her big brain? What if her brain never stopped growing, and all the sudden she had a giant head that she could barely support?

She almost laughed at the image, but didn’t, knowing she had to keep still.

“Miss Evans, while you are there, would you mind trying to did what you did yesterday?” Dr. Henderson asked. Therese noticed she wasn’t very specific. She guessed the lab techs did not have clearance to know about her.

Therese knew it was impossible. Dr. Henderson was very far away. A few millimeters had been hard to breach. Perhaps she just wanted Therese to try, to see what her brain did. Other scientists had done that to her.

Therese realized she didn’t know the student’s name who died. That would be her goal. She summoned up all her energy, and attempted to press it from her, into the void of the air, and to Dr. Henderson.

It felt as if the ground had been suddenly yanked out underneath her feet. She felt nauseous, but she kept pushing. Dr. Henderson was out there somewhere. She didn’t sound that far away.

She felt a tickle, but it became too much maintain. She slipped back into herself. She thrust her energy out again, seeking out exactly where she knew Dr. Henderson was. She felt as if she was slowly dying as the energy was sucked from her. She couldn’t stop though, she had to keep going when she was so close. She made contact. She was slipping, but she clawed out wildly through Dr. Henderson, attempting to find grounding, something to hold onto.

She fell.

When Therese opened, her eyes, she staring into a very bright light was above her. Her head felt as if it had been split it to two. Everything seemed slightly fuzzy, and she was so very tired.

Therese made out someone’s face. “His name was Chase,” she murmured.

“Are you alright, Miss Evans?” it wasn’t Dr. Henderson. Where was she?

Therese closed her eyes, pressing a hand to her throbbing head. The light was too bright. She sat up slowly, attempting to recollect herself. “Where is Dr. Henderson?”

“She’s talking with some people. Do you remember me? I’m Dr. Vaca.”

Therese opened her eyes again, staring at the balding, Hispanic man with a ridiculous mustache and open, brown eyes. “Yes. I do. You were the geneticist. Did you find anything interesting with my DNA?”

Then, she felt it. She felt the answer before he spoke. She felt his excitement over the nature of the experiment, his confusion as he wrestled through billions of base pairs, and his determination to keep going. “Well, it is all very interesting. There are many, many novel mutations we simply haven’t seen before and that we don’t know the effect of-” he started.

Dr. Henderson had entered the room, Therese realized without looking up. “Miss Evans, you’re awake.” An overflow of emotion was pouring from Dr. Henderson. It was too much. Therese clenched both hands to her temples, trying to staunch the flow of thoughts.

“Miss Evans, are you alright?” Dr. Henderson asked.

Therese took several steadying breaths, attempting to find herself. Her name was Therese Evans. She was eighteen, almost nineteen, years old. Her parents were Daniel and Carol Evans. She was as strong as her father made her.

She looked up slowly as her own thoughts overcame the static of those around her. “I’m fine. It’s just, well, I don’t really have to try now to hear what you guys are thinking. I have to try not to hear it. I have it under control now though. So, my brain is growing, then, Dr. Henderson?”

Both faces had identical expressions of stupefaction. Dr. Henderson quickly recovered. “That is quite astonishing, Miss Evans. And yes, your brain is growing. I was talking to my colleague, a neurosurgeon named Dr. Lewis, and he believes it possible to reassemble your skull to fit the increasing volume. We have scheduled the surgery for next Monday. More than that, we’ve target the region of the brain responsible for your abilities.”

“Wait, it’s just a region? You mean, you could remove it, and I’d be normal?” some strong emotion was brewing in her chest. As she thought to decipher it, her headache crescendoed. She let her defenses down. She felt the onslaught of Dr. Henderson’s and Dr. Vaca’s minds pressing down on her.

Her name was Therese Evans. She was almost nineteen years old. She grew up in Idaho. Her father was an engineer. Her grandfather was an illegal, genetic experimenter.

She found herself again and motioned for Dr. Henderson to continue.

“Theoretically, yes. Is that what you want?”

“I don’t know. I will have to think about it,” Therese rubbed the side of her head. She could be normal. She could touch people without becoming them. She would not hear their thoughts. She would not have to fear that eventually the voices in her head would become so loud she couldn’t hear herself. Maybe they would let her leave.

“I’m really quite tired. Can I go to bed now?” she asked. It was all too much.

Dr. Henderson nodded, and Therese was escorted back to her room. She stared at the ceiling for a long time, rubbing at a skull soon to be broken apart to make way for an enormous brain. She may not be a doctor, but she knew that things growing abnormally was a precursor to cancer. Maybe a brain tumor would kill her. Would removing the part of her brain responsible for this ability stop the abnormal growth as well?

Maybe.

She had five days to figure it out. To go back to being normal or not. Well, she was never really normal, so she couldn’t go back to it. Her ability had just been latent. How would it have been if her father had trained to use it, as Agent Necker was doing, instead of teaching her to avoid using it? What could she be accomplishing now? Would her brain not be squeezing itself to death inside her skull as then the fissures hadn’t fused when she was a young child? Would she have been able to stop the people from murdering her father? Her mother? The girls?

She could get away from it. Never have the purple dreams again. Sleep normally. Go back to real life. Get a boring job. Have friends.

Her headache was pounding in her head. At each peak in the sine function of pain, she lost control a little. Her mind expanded outward, touching the consciousness of those around, feeling their pains and their triumphs.

It was always getting worse. Would she, in the future, not be able to stop it? To never differentiate herself from the minds around her? Would she go insane?

It was a lot to think on, and she did it uneasily long into the night.