Despite a calm silence pervading the cramped confines of Ain's rented room, there was just no restful sleep for the two women, with Yani doing nothing but staring into the distant. Ain did not need to read her companion thoughts to see what she was thinking about and chose instead to maintain a mild scan, mindful of the state she was in.
How will she cope with identifying their bodies tomorrow?
Resigned to being unable to do much to console her, Ain decided to visit the place of their refuge turned crime scene, placing herself into the mind's eye of the police officer she had alerted. She could read in his mind being perplexed with what he and his fellow officer found there, curious as to how he had dreamt the scene exactly as that they saw upon arrival. Four men, three unconsciousness and one with a nasty wound in his throat wrapped with a t-shirt stemming an otherwise profuse bleeding.
She could also see they had cordoned off the whole prayer hall, a buzzing crowd gathering outside, peering to see what had happened.
John…. Here as well?
Her opponent had slipped into the mind of a villager, a supposed recovering drug addict, half stoned from a dose of meth that lulled him into a wonderful world where he was a hunky demi-god, lusted after by women, all nubile and wanting him.
Eh? He doesn't know what happened here? Curious…
She could read in her opponent sticking only using the faculties accorded by his host, listening in to the crowd and seeing through his eyes, and not traipsing from the many other thoughts on what had turned out to be a hell of a day for the village.
Ain was about to launch a mind tap on John when she suddenly felt an intense waft of telepathic energy entering the zone, an icy void latching onto her scan, riding on it and on to John. She saw in the latter's host a startled look, then one of fear, at the new entrant.
For a moment, Ain drew a blank, unable to read a single thought from the people gathered. The whole place went deathly silent, their mind a mere static, and the sensation of her own being trawled by an unseen entity, swatting aside her mentally erected defenses with simple ease.
Another telepath? One of us?
And then she was reading again John's apprehension, a sweaty fear of being stripped from the ability to plunder and manipulate the minds of others. Ain realized whoever it was who scanned the group of people had left her untouched. She tried to latch on to any fleeting tendril of the scan but discovered not a trace was left.
Who the heck was that?
The crowd remained blissfully ignorant over their lost seconds, their minds still on the scene, assuming, and speculating. She found John, too, was gone.
Finding no new insight, Ain left the scene, returning to Yani's side. She found her thoughts calming and thinking of the things she needed to do next: going back to the wrecked house to see what could be salvaged, to the mortuary to identify her son and uncle, the police station to file a report.
She's so methodical in her thinking. Is this your way of coping, Yani?
Ain shivered, one she hoped from the cold air-conditioned air sweeping across her exposed skin.
****
Saari's heard the frantic thumping of his heart, one he had never experienced before when his consciousness fully returned to his physical self. He was flushed hot despite the air-conditioning of the room he and Kendall had booked for the night.
what the hell was that?
Discovering himself sweating profusely, Saari recalled the intrusive scan whilst in the village where he had detected Syafa's use of her telepathic abilities. Had it not been for him roaming around eaves dropping on the dreams of others, curiously finding the mere traipsing from mind to mind somewhat calming him, he would have missed the focused mind blast Syafa seemed to have mastered. Stung by the ease of her executing the assault, he scurried to pinpoint her location, but only managed to track the noxious, nasty thoughts she had implanted into a man he found whimpering in front of a house. Saari read a crowd gathering and joined them, curious as to what had happened.
It was at that very moment when an intrusive scan plundered through his mind as he was prying around for any information, hoping to pick up on Syafa's whereabouts. His mind had gone blank for long moments throughout the penetrating assault of his host's thoughts and memories as well as his own. He left the scene immediately when freed of the scan, the heart of his host beating incessantly inside its cage from the intensity of the probe.
not Syafa… but who?
Saari had since deduced the block of dark matters residing within his mind powered his newfound abilities, and provided a defense mechanism against Syafa, that damnable woman he hated so much without knowing why. On occasion, he had detected her presence, scanning his mind, but the mind assault against him whilst at the village felt different. It had somehow brushed aside the dark barricades in his mind aside before playing the reels of his life's event at speeds he didn't realize possible.
Breathing deeply finally helped calm him. He knew it wasn't Syafa. She had always shunned him, contend with reading his peripheral thoughts and despite her defeat of him when he tried to take over Arman's mind, she didn't take the opportunity to finish him off. This newcomer paid little heed to the noxious bile he had erected as a defense against Syafa.
Embracing the silence of the room, Saari wandered around his own mind, finding nothing erased, but feeling the remnant sensation of the stranger's uninvited violation of it, his memories plundered and accessed at will.
what was it looking for damn damn damn