Chapter 4: 03

Please trust me. Please trust me. Please trust me. Please trust me. Please trust me.

The prattering of goldenrod or the dry droning of silver. She didn't even speak with her own voice. It disgusted me, and yet, I listened on.

Not like I had much of a choice. You hair's long enough to fit wireless earphones under? Of course I knew that, I'd done it before! But (and here I checked, because little tests of sheer magnitude don't incur any cost or notice) a rank 2 esper is still an esper. Someone with the Second City's power is still powerful, even if they lack any kind of grace. An esper will still die if you put a bullet through their brain.

I was histrionic? No, what did you mean. I totally hadn't figured that one out. But, imagine. Thirteen years of an ordinary school life where there was nothing at all for you to care about during those hours. Desperately clawing against the walls of little box-reality to find people to make it worth it, to share your light with. You have to, or the sun will burn through your empty heart. I got used to it, so used to it, and then it just up and up disappeared with, like, the flip of a coin? It couldn't even be taken away in a nice way! It had to be through someone suspicious' meddling, some kind of dark magical, mystical force that anyone with any light could tell was anathematic to world happiness. Forgive me for thinking I'd be shot next. It's ESP, it's prophecy, you just know these things.

And she kept talking. I mean, of course she did. She was a teacher. I checked the clock. It was some small amount of minutes past eight. Not very many. Wouldn't make sense for her to stop so soon, would it?

Please trust me. She said it without saying that, but I knew, so so much better. A rank 2 could shoot a rank 7 dead, but so could anyone. When it came to thoughts, feelings, intentions, concepts, my intuition would beat hers ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety time times out of a hundred thousand.

See. Or listen, or don't, I'm not telling you to. She mentioned that she was a Veritas student at this point. That's, like, the maths course. I have never really liked maths. Who even does. If you were to pigeonhole me into one of the Second City's four boxes, I'd end up in Litteras, wordsmithing, only smithing isn't right. Is it. It's too mundane, too dirty. Fashioning would be apt, or calling hearts and souls. The denizens of the Second City say they can do that, no they can't. I could. I will always be able to. See, light will always shatter dark magic.

Listen. I didn't need to, not to her words. The only ultramodern maths I would let myself be taught was the famous and beloved chance calculation, one in ten to the open bracket x minus y closed bracket, where x was the rank of the stronger esper and y was the rank of the weaker esper. In the most miniature psychic (psychic, not psychokinetic, you're in Miss Westmoreland's class and I'll never deceive you, I'll make the difference very clear in a second) spat between two espers, that was the chance the weaker esper had to prevail. Unfortunately for us less weak espers, even a minor psychic war could consist of millions of little clashes and contradictions, turning the tables, equalising the board.

See, see why if I was so paranoid I didn't go crazy, fight my little war, run paint cleanser all over her silver and gold. She was twenty, twenty one, right? Certainly looked the part. Sure, I didn't know how she'd teach (and also I wasn't paying attention), but I did know she was trained to teach, and trained to deal with psychic power in excess of her rank, whereas I hid from all training, ran from all standardisation or codification.

In other words I'd lose.

The darkness bred witches and witch-hunters.

I'd lose every curse, blessing, prophecy, mystery, spark of light. I'd be impaled with something else.

Hey! At least I'd be well-educated, ehe.

Please trust me, she said. I could never, I didn't whisper back.

---

It was like a house renovation. It moved quickly with little resistance. She could have had her colours and palette without her psychic power.

Her psychic power? A misnomer, really. The psychic power of the Second City's initialisation system remained the Second City's, a loan or the smattering of a witch's kiss on your neck.

My head was clear in a classroom for the first time ever. There were no words for that, nor would there ever been. I could psychically transmit many things, but not that weird phenomenon or the empty expanse it had ruled me during. That part was some warped miracle, not her personality. I hadn't been listening to her words for <how long even is that? I can't check my phone either...> minutes, and now I was, little by little.

What wasn't any strange power was that she was liked. A radiator did little in the deep winter, so it made cheeriness and admiration so much more apparent in my head.

Although maybe everyone was likeable compared to the fucking geezer. I didn't even want to bother with that one. East and Midwest could have dropped him in the Atlantic or Lake Chicago for all I cared.

If the Second City gave you psychic powers, then show us, the class asked. I hoped one of the four said "actually Hannah's showed us enough out of class as-is" but that probably didn't happen, let's be real. So some Luke stood up, flipped a coin. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. And in my head the flash of a silver pen-knife severed the Linnean hydra, over and over again.

Was it psychokinetic or just purely psychic? Did she twist matter or the world? I watched the coin in midair.

It turned out coins fell pretty quickly.

I watched the light. I was always watching the light, except when I had my eyes closed or was stuck in a dark closet or something. That's how vision works, after all. Standard vision.

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So what could I see spinning around or spinning the coin?

He flipped it again. Heads. It fell too quickly.

He flipped it again. Owens said, shout when you want a tails. Cee (one of our holy quintet) said 'make it spin in the air.' Thanks, traitor? Why'd you pay attention to her.

(Absolute loyalty had typically not worked in classrooms, but that didn't really matter because they were monochrome.)

It did.

(Or maybe it only didn't work on monochrome classrooms.)

After all, it spinning in the air let me look at the coin for longer. And I was so, so curious, absolutely craving to know. Probability or physics or both.

I caught the coin.

Huh.

Huh?????

Probability or physics, Hannah?

A house demolition or a renovation, Hannah?

Anything can happen to anyone, Hannah. Amelia Owens does not control fate. Nobody can, you idiot, so-called, half-baked prophetess. Nobody at all can. It was just a petty rank 2 trick of the wind, and that's what caught your interest?

Hannah was so bored for so long. (I wasn't bored, I was disinterested?! Or stuck in a psychokinetic war between my feelings and boredom.)

Apathy doesn't look cool on anyone.

I was more talented than most people. I could rise higher than most people. I was the main character, wasn't I.

I looked at the coin. A British penny?

Who was Luke. Wasn't his life so interesting. Didn't you want to peer into it, guide it to its highest point, or its lowest point. My light had a certain peak. Resonating at its peak, it gave people a certain purpose, one that I didn't usually follow. I just wanted to live my daily life.

I could live my daily life at the highest point, couldn't I. I (like any other student) could find something brilliant in daily life, something that made living really worth it and proved myself in this forsaken world. I could make others find it, with force or command or manipulation or simple sweet guidance.

Ehe.

I stumbled forward.

Wait wasn't I sitting at my desk a moment ago wait why was I standing

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