Now in custody of these idiots, my options were limited to obeying whether I liked it or not. I guessed they wanted to question me further or something like that.

  We exited the building and headed straight to the town hall where I had been at yesterday, once inside we went to the same dark room that was decorated like some barbaric ritual chamber.

  There was a guy in there with chocolate skin, he seemed strangely young and was dressed in animal pelts like some old prehistoric shaman or something like that. Plague stood on a table for the four of us in the room to hear him.

  “This woman claims to have witnessed the beginning of the infection. We shall now see if she speaks the truth or if she is a heretic.” He raised his arms as if to add flare to his speech.

  I suppose that he worshiped the infection or something like that. It was a bit odd that.

  “Great psyker Markus, please be of use to us now.” He said. The other guy bowed down and approached me.

  “Please relax, it won’t hurt.” The black guy said.

  He reached his hand towards me. I tried backing away but I backed into the two guards. It was then that I realised that I didn't have much choice. When his hand touched my forehead, everything disappeared.

  I was in a white void, standing with the guy.

  “Where are we? Why is it all so empty?” I asked.

  “We are in your mind. The emptiness is to be expected.” He explained. “I am Markus, the great psyker. We will now have a tour of your memories to find the moment when the infection started and to investigate it.”

  “Great, so now you’re going to root inside my head?” I asked.

  He took a moment to answer as he seemed concentrated on doing something. However it seemed as if whatever he was doing was fruitless.

  “Its strange, I cant seem to search your memories myself. Hey, could you try remembering the moment, please?” He asked me.

  I tried, and I was able to quickly find it as it was a memory I went over time and time again. It was odd, instead of watching it as a scene in my head, I was watching it almost as if it were happening again. The whiteness was stretched and in a flash it all seemed to give way to the inside of a café. It was the same café I had been in, with exactly everything as I remembered it. It was filled with faceless people, I guess I couldn't really remember their faces too well. The door them opened and I saw myself walk in with my brother. We were talking as we sat down on a table. It was quite cool. I was able to see everything under a new perspective. The waitress then went to ask for our order and I was in her way, but she went right through me. It seemed as I couldn't interact with anything.

  “Quite the fitting place for the beginning of the apocalypse” said Markus. He was walking around.

  “You guys didn’t know where it had started?” I asked him.

  “The city, yes, but that was all. All we really know is that it happened here and that it spread like wildfire.” He answered. He was closely examining everyone around. I however, was more focused on examining myself, well, my memory self. I was quite lively back then, I wasn't as much of a sarcastic jerk. My brother and I were deep in conversation about the status of our living condition.

  “Ayla, you need to stop spending the social service money on dumb shit. We barely have enough to afford food.” He said.

  Due to us being orphans at such an age, instead of going to an orphanage, the government payed us really little to keep living in our parents house. Thankfully our parents had owned our little flat so we didn't have to sacrifice our kidneys to pay rent. However, we were financially tight, real tight. We could only afford the utmost essentials and even yet we would sometimes go hungry.

  “Yes Donn, I know. But we don’t need to be as poor as we are.” My memory self said. She gave him the puppy eyes. “You could find a job, you're old enough now. Please?” I said. My brother immediately scoffed.

  “I can’t, I wanna study for college. I don’t have the time for a job.” He said. As he had just finished his first year of high school he was more than old enough to work, but he wanted to be something in life. “Which is something you should think about too. You’re at the age where you need to think about your future. Ayla, as your brother, I can give you this piece of advice.” He said.

  “Please, illustrate me.” I said.

  “Make sure its not on backwards.” Said my brother. Of course, the sex joke was taking a bit to show up in the chapter so here it is.

  My memory self chuckled, and it was then when it all happened. I felt sick the moment I heard myself laugh.

  The man in front of us dropped from his seat, convulsing. He was in fetal position clutching his stomach and he began foaming at the mouth. The mood in the café shifted. Everyone stopped their conversation and the only thing that could be heard was the man’s groaning. The lady beside me got up from her chair as she brought her hand to her mouth in shock. The silence lasted all but five seconds until someone screamed. Then it was hell.

  Everybody crowded around the man as he stopped convulsing and lay unconscious on the floor. A man claiming he was a doctor pushed his way through the crowd and knelt besides him .

  “Ayla, lets go, now!” Said my brother. And I of course, obeyed as I didn't have a better thing to do.

  I wanted to tell my past self to do something, to not run away and to instead stomp on the man’s head to kill him before he rose again. That would have changed a lot of things. I would have probably gone to jail and I wouldn’t have met Mary. But I wonder if it would have been worth it. Mary’s brother would still be alive, everyone would still be alive. But I know I am too selfish to do it, at least back then. Now however, I wouldn’t have done anything other than making sure that man stayed dead. After me and my brother had left, the memory vanished to white just as the man jumped on someone, and that was it. The chance had come and gone, I had missed it and I hadn’t seen anything other than my past self. I hoped Markus had seen something.

  “I missed it, completely missed it. Did you find anything?” I asked him.

  “No, but we can watch it again. Just try to remember that same moment again.” He said.

  I did it. The scenery changed from white to the café, but this time it was like a moment in a picture, nothing moved.

  “Are you doing this?” I asked.

  “Yes.” He answered. He began sweating a bit, almost like I do when I moved something with my mind. I didn’t feel any different when he was doing this. I was expecting to feel something as he was taking control of my mind but I was kinda let down.

  “Come here” he said. He was standing next to the man, who was still seated. The man was wearing a white hoodie that blocked my view from behind.

  The man had his elbow propping up his head, like he was taking a very hard decision then.

  As I made my way there, I noticed something weird. On the table was a blister full of small pills, with no name on the plastic.

  They looked like drugs. The man had one open on the table.

  “Lets see now what happens.” Said Markus. He made time go back to normal and we both saw the man go back and forth in his head about taking one of the pills. Eventually, he took one and after maybe a minute, he started convulsing and then everything else happened.

  “Maybe someone gave them to him here. If he thought they were drugs he would have taken them somewhere else, right?” I said. He pondered the question and nodded.

  Then he made everything go back slowly, we saw everything go down backwards.

  And then someone caught our attention. He was a shady looking person, wearing a grey hoodie. I saw as he passed by my old self, and then he stopped by the table of the guy who took the pills. He seemed to take something from his table, but of course it was in reverse so he really placed something there. Then he whispered something in his ear and backed away.

  “Play it normally now.” I told Markus. He nodded and then the scene played out like normal.

  The guy in grey approached the table with his hands in his pockets. He then whispered in the other guy’s ear.

  “If you want to see your family again, take one of these now.” We heard him say. He them placed the blister with the pills on the table and left. Thanks to him passing next to my past self’s table, she was able to look at his face, and so did we.

  He looked in his mid thirties, not a pretty face but not ugly. It was sort of the most average face in the world. This was definitely an inconvenience, I was hoping he would have like the face of a villain. But finding him would be nigh impossible. In the off chance that he was still in the country and not in a cabin in the woods where nobody lives, that still left about three thousand towns and cities in just our country. Not to mention the chance of him being dead.

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  “Great, just one more thing to do now.” Said Markus.

  “What do we have to do now?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry about it, it should be painless.” Ge answered.

  And before I could react, my head began to hurt like mad.

  The scene changed from the café back to the white nothingness, but this time it was flashing, or at least I think it was. My subconscious self was fading in and out of consciousness, my vision was flashing black and white and I couldn't tell up from down or left from right. The pain was downright the worst thing I've ever experienced, it was so intense that I didn't notice when I collapsed, but I was still conscious. Like if someone where exploding my head every second, the migraine was almost unbearable. I was near fainting.

  In a moment of clearness I saw everything else around me shifting quickly, my life literally flashing before my eyes as Markus browsed through every inch of my mind. I wanted it to stop so badly though. My eyes were about to pop out of their sockets, my hands clutching my temples so hard that my knuckles turned white. The flashing stopped, and I saw Markus standing there concentrating. I mustered all my strength and tried standing, but I couldn't. I couldn't get closer to him. I held out my hand, hoping that my telekinesis still applied in my mind. As I was about to try and lift him or do something to him, a new wave of pain coursed through me, which made me shoot out an invisible wave that knocked him back. It was like a wall of air, an unstoppable force.

  That finally made the pain stop. I felt woozy, dizzy, disoriented, nauseous, indisposed... You get the idea.

  Meanwhile, the jerk was getting up and then made his way to me, he seemed both surprised and pleased with himself.

  “What in the actual fuck did you do!?” I screamed at him. My blood was boiling from that experience.

  “I awakened your powers. Plague told me you were struggling with them And tasked me with helping you.” He boldly exclaimed.

  “And you had to go through my entire life? You watched all my memories, all my private stuff. I should beat the shit out of you right now.” The fucking audacity of that guy. He had gone further than just reading someone's diary, he went ahead and witnessed somebody’s most private moments. Hell, he knows what I look like naked now! He has watched me do stuff! I was fucken mad at him.

  “I didn't see anything, I swear!” He sounded scared. He should be, I was going to twist his nipples so hard they were going to stay purple for life.

  “Do you realise how much that fucking hurt? You're in for a hell of a time now asshole.” I got up from the void floor, I was determined to get my payback.

  I made my way to him, he was backing off from me. I used my telekinesis to hold him in place. I didn't realise it then, but I didn't get tired from it. I was able to easily hold him in place and not get tired.

  Finally, I could see the fear in his eyes. He was desperately trying to exit my mind, I could feel it in me. That was when I grabbed his nipples and twisted them hard. He squealed like a swine, it was like music to my ears. His pain was my pleasure, his despair my bliss.

  Call me sociopathic but he kinda deserved it to be honest. You have no idea how much it hurt for him to root in my mind. Now it was only fair I return the favour. I was now going to rotate his nips off of their place.

  With one final twist, I felt the one in my left hand come off. The screams of that guy were just absolute nirvana.

  “I'm sorry! I really am!” He cried out. “Just let me out of your head, please!” He begged.

  I was finally satisfied and let him go. After that I felt another tingling in me and my vision went back to the real me. I almost fell over as I regained control of my body, and I saw that Markus was clutching his chest and rubbing it.

  “Ungrateful bitch.” I heard him under his breath. I did a sort of try towards him, like if I were going to go after him and he immediately jumped back and flinched.

  Plague was also with us looking all confused at what I had tried to do. He looked over at Markus in search of answers.

  “Sir, we found him alright, and I also” he gulped down “brought out her powers.” He pointed at me.

  “Oh splendid, tell me, what can you do now?” Plague asked excitedly.

  “I think I can push things around. Like an invisible force.” I said. He them demanded an example so I searched for a target and found a flimsy looking chair and I took aim and blew it apart as if it had been hit with a cannonball.

  It was a good feeling being able to do it without getting tired.

  Plague seemed satisfied enough and we left it at that.

  “Sir, we need to discuss our next plan of action. We found the guy responsible but its not going to be easy to find him.” Said Markus.

  “Ok. Ayla, you are dismissed. Go away and do whatever you want while the grown ups talk.” Said Plague. I decided to let that slip as i didn't feel like arguing with a dumbass, so I left them to it.

  Now I was finally going to enjoy a full real day in a sort of normal society for the first time in two whole months. And what better way to spend it than with my girl. I made my way through the streets again towards my apartment, I had been away for about half an hour give or take, so Mary should be awake by now. I ran up the stairs, panting all the way up. I barged in through the unlocked door and found her eating a fat bowl of cereal with some coffee.

  “Morning Ayla. Donn told me that you had to do some stuff and he’s gone out to find his purpose in life.” She said.

  “Purpose in life?” I asked.

  “Yeah, biological purpose anyway.” She answered.

  I laughed at the witty joke, it was quite good. “Really now? Jeez, don't tell me. Its the tomboy, right?”

  “You betcha it is. But he didn't say he was going to do her, not yet anyways. He said he was going to try and get a job with them to hopefully make some money whilst we are here.” She explained. It was just a cheap excuse. He was definitely going to flirt with her. The job part though was quite a pressing issue. We were after all going to run out of food in the dispensary sooner than later and the people here would only be so kind. We needed money.

  His idea of a profit was a good one. After all going on suicidal missions was bound to pay quite nicely and as a bonus was fun, not to mention the fact that we had been scavenging since the beginning whilst the people here had lived in this organized community basically since the beginning. We were cut out for the job.

  “You know, that's not a bad idea. It would be fun.” I said. I saw her shrug in indifference as she sipped some coffee.

  “I guess so. But id much rather have a safe job, one that doesn't involve the zeds or anything similar. Just my personal preference.” She said.

  “But think about the benefits! We would be worshiped as heroes, we could have anything we wanted.” I went behind her and put my arms around her neck and crouched down to whisper in her ear. “And we could have a lot of time to ourselves. After all i doubt we’d be out all the time.”

  She sighed a chuckle and tried to act annoyed. “You really have a dirty mind, you know that right?”

  “Yeah, I know” I said into her ear. I buried my face into her neck and smelled the shampoo of her hair, which was now much silkier than before. It smelled of blueberries and strawberries.

  “And by the looks of it, you're not going to hide it.” She answered. “Just let me finish this and you can have some of me.”

  She drank the last of her coffee and left everything in the sink.

  Before she could do anything else, I pressed myself onto her and pushed her to the kitchen counter. I put my lips on hers and we both enjoyed the moment. Her hands ran up my body, sending shivers down my spine. I was about to get her shirt off, but we were interrupted by none other than my brother.

  “Letssss g!!…” He was celebrating something before he saw us. His arms were raised in triumph as he stood by the doorframe to the kitchen in shock. Mary and me were also too surprised to do anything and we just stared at him uncomfortably for way too long. “Umm.” He said. Now that he had overcome the shock he was deciding whether to laugh or say something stupid as usual. “I feel like I've interrupted something important.”

  Then I realised that I was still pressed against Mary, so we both pushed ourselves off.

  “Yeah, and it better be for a good reason.” I said. He lowered his arms and scratched his head.

  “We got a job!” He exclaimed.

  I wasn't expecting that, specially the ‘we’ part.

  “What do you mean ‘we’?” Asked Mary. I guess we were thinking the same.

  “Yeah, we. I went to talk to Sofia about joining her squad but instead she said that I should join a different one along with you guys. And luckily there was a recon squad that only had one person in it! So I went to talk to him in the HQ and he was delighted that we were offering!” He said. Yay for him but neither Mary nor me had ever offered. Kind of a dick move to get other people involved without consent.

  I sighed and brought my hand to my forehead to stop myself from slapping my brother square on the face

  “You fucking what!?” I shouted at him. He somehow seemed surprised that I was mad at him.

  “I signed us up. We are now part of the ninth recon division.” He said. He seemed pleased with himself for this. He was smiling like an idiot.

  Mary was still staring wide eyed at him. She was clearly just as surprised as I was.

  “Why, just why did you think you should have dragged us into this? What reason under the sun crossed your mind to decide we should also go?” I asked.

  “We need money, so now we all have jobs!”

  “We don’t want jobs that are going to kill us!!” Screamed Mary. “How much of a fucking dumbass do you have to be to not see that!?” She was about to leap to his throat by the looks of it. She was furious, not without reason though.

  “Well its too late to change our minds now.” He said.

  “Our minds!!?? OUR MINDS!!???” She shouted. Then she stormed off whilst cursing everything in the world. I heard as she went into our bedroom and slammed the door. We then heard a muffled scream as she screamed into the pillow.

  “Seriously, why did you do it?” I spoke softly to him because I was just too confused to shout.

  “I cant really remember. I think it was because someone told me. I was passing the town hall when I was stopped by someone wearing some animal skins and dark skin. We talked a bit and then I have a lapse in memory and then I really wanted to join the militia along you guys. Its kinda weird that I cant remember that moment.” He said. I'm not going to lie I was kinda expecting this from the beginning.

  It had been Markus with his psychic powers that had ordered him to do it. It made sense and filled all the holes in the story. It would have been really weird if my brother had done such a thing without prior extensive thought. He would have never enlisted us if he hadn't been controlled.

  “Ok I know what happened. That guy was a psyker, he was rooting in my mind before you saw him and he has a bit of a grudge against me.” I explained and he seemed more confused now.

  “Why would he have a grudge on you?” He asked.

  “He was unlocking my inner power or some shit like that, which was true but it just seemed as an excuse to go through all of my memories without consent. So I twisted his nips off in my mind, no biggie.” I nonchalantly said. There was more to it but I really wanted to go see Mary and explain to her what really happened and for that I needed to end the conversation.

  “That's understandable. Well if I see him again I will give him a little zap.”

  “Yeah, please do. So is there any chance of backing out now?”

  “Nope, sorry.”

  Great, fantastic. Absolutely marvellous.

  “I'm going to go see Mary. Please just stay out of trouble now, ok?” I told him.

  “Ok” he answered and I left him in the kitchen.

  I slowly opened the bedroom door and found Mary pacing around with her left hand on her mouth, biting her nails. When she saw me, her hopes lifted up and she was going to say something.

  “It wasn't his fault, ok? He didn't mean to do it.” I said.

  “Didn't mean to do it? Ayla, this isn't the type of shit you don't mean to do.” She said.

  “He was under the influence of a psyker, the one that went through my mind.”

  She calmed down and I explained the entire ordeal to her. After all that she seemed calmer, more understanding of the issue.

  “I'm still going to be mad at him, I cant not be. Jeez, we are so fucked.” She said.

  “I know, Mary. Lets just hope we can back out of it. I am quite important to the people here for what I know and for what I can do, I'll talk to Plague and tell him there was a mistake, ok?” I told her. I sat her down on the bed and sat on her lap facing her and put my arms around her.

  “Who?” She asked. I had forgotten that neither she or my brother knew who ordered the shots around this town.

  “The mayor, I'm sure he will cooperate.”

  She then rested her head on my shoulder.

  She sighed. Now that I think about it there could be a real chance that Plague had ordered Markus to manipulate my brother, but it was too far fetched and I honestly don't think Plague needed to beat around the bush that much if he wanted me in the militia.