The rest of the day passed in a strange fashion, as if existing outside of time.
Kai was both stuck in his head for far too long, wondering about his impulse control
Yet also outside his mind, on high alert, scanning for Mr.Berhns.
What that left him with was a feeling of unease, yet very little understanding of why.
Ignoring the blanket of confusion, Kai managed to shove aside his self doubt as the final bell rang.
He reached out a mental tendril as he passed Logan in the hallways, motioning to him to follow.
It was now, or maybe it would become never. No, he would become never, no longer in existence.
The fear of unexistence, of death, hadn't filled Kai so much during his initial days on earth. After all, it couldn't've been that much different from the before.
But after these past few weeks, he had come to understand something.
The great black, the oppressive emptiness, wasn't so empty after all. It was anything but.
Death was… different, somehow. Kai didn't know how he knew this, but deep within him he knew that if he died, he would not go back into that oppressive nothing. He would cease to exist altogether.
Therefore, he knew he needed to avoid this at all costs. No blow was too low if it meant avoiding the fate of that which he could not comprehend.
And so Kai found himself here with Logan, scanning the school hallways with a fearful focus, unwilling to miss any sign of the man.
It felt like an eternity, a sea of backpacks and students and teachers flowing by.
It was so much information to process.
Kai felt himself becoming overwhelmed, losing control, spreading out-
And then he felt it. That oddness, that emptiness-
It had to be him.
His sense of relief allowed him to recenter himself, to rein himself in, and once he was again in control, he began to tail the man.
Kai didn't notice the man shiver as his mental energy recoiled.
Kai followed Mr.Berhns out to the parking lot, watched him walk past the empty tennis courts, and then he brought his plan, his desperate attempt to remain invisible and unseen amongst those of this world, to fruition.
"Hey! Mr. B!" Kyle shouted, watching the man pause.
The teacher hesitated a second before turning around with narrowed eyes.
"Kyle, it's not appropriate for students to stop teachers outside of the school building. I really must be going now."
Kai sent a surge of energy through his mental connection to Logan before returning to his conversation.
"Wait!" Kai was practically pleading at this point. "I just have a question about this homework assignment!"
The man clutched his bags of lesson plans and ungraded homework tightly.
"It's you, isn't it?"
Kai stepped out of Kyle's body slightly to prepare for the upcoming confrontation, choosing to send external instructions to Kyle instead.
Kyle's head tilted to the side. "Whatever could you mean?"
The teacher's hands trembled.
"The Hiroshiman."
Kyle said "I have no idea what you are talking about," but the cadence of his speech, the tone of his voice, and his choice of words had changed.
"No, no, you're here for me! Why are you coming for me!? I won't tell anybody!"
With that said, Mr.Berhns turned heel and ran.
He ran like a madman.
Even Kyle's impeccable physique couldn't keep up with the inner strength terror could imbue in man.
Thankfully he didn't have to.
With a mental command, Logan stepped out from behind the corner of the courts, blocking the teacher's path.
With the brick walls of the school on one side and the blue mesh walls of the tennis courts on the other, Mr.Berhns had nowhere to run.
The man tried to push past Logan, but the boy grabbed his wrist and twisted, forcing him to stop.
His bag slipped, papers falling out and fluttering to the ground.
Unwilling to face his inevitable fate, he continued to struggle until Logan pulled his hat off.
The instant the beanie left his head, Kai sent a surge of meaningless energy into his mind in an attempt to disorient him.
It worked.
The teacher stopped struggling as his eyes grew dull.
Logan released the man's wrist from his grasp as Kai shifted his attention elsewhere, frantically leaping into the mind of the teacher.
He had to find the memory.
He had to.
He had no other choice.
He had seen what humans did to those other than themselves, those who were slightly different, or better in other aspects.
They ended up in cages, experimented on, tortured, until their eventual deaths.
He searched, expanding to catalogue as much of the man's mindscape as he possibly could.
He struggled to rein in the energy as it began to seethe, nearly losing part of himself to the turbulent, anxiety-clouded insides of the thoughts of Mr.Berhns.
But then he found it.
His knowledge.
And yet, the man was fighting back. Fighting against him somehow.
He felt the memory slipping through his grasp, and he knew there was no time to analyse it.
And so he didn't.
He let out his all-consuming hunger, directing it towards the memory, and ate.