Mark frowned, looking at the bewildered major. He was sure that he hadn't been drinking or doing any of those 'mystery' substances that some of the other soldiers had been partaking in.
"Me, the other Blessed, we all have different abilities, right?"
The major continued to question the young man's soberness, but eventually shook his head. Dragging his arm against the flowing blood from his nose, he closed his eyes and rested. It almost seemed like he was about to go back to blatantly ignoring the questions.
But before Mark could say anything, the man muttered under his breath.
"He was right. You all are like ignorant lambs before you come here."
Sighing in resignation, he looked up with slight repudiance and disdain. Maybe it was because he felt interrogated, or simply loathed the Blessed in general. Either way, prying answers from his mouth started to look like a troublesome task.
There was slight contempt in his tone.
"But you... You must be the dumbest of them all. Where did you get the idea that you all have different powers? Well, sorry to break it to you, but you aren't that special. It's just the same type of mental machinations for everyone lucky enough to be graced with them."
Mark sat down next to him, somehow still in disbelief. The way the major first reacted to his abilities was too peculiar, as if already acquainted with them. Now it shows that he seems to already know their details and profundities.
And yet, the brunette and the red-eyed leader of the Spheks from his city were able to pull off feats that lay outside of what he could do. It was almost as if they had completely separate abilities.
But were they? Perhaps they were just other facets, other sides of the same thing. That, or something deeper.
He delved back into the mass of thoughts he had previously been trying to piece together in an intricate web. His past experiences collided with new information to bring forth a deeper understanding. At the same time, the supply of questions he had continued to rise rather than fall.
Maybe knowledge of a subject is best shown by how many inquiries one has rather than the amount of answers.
For the brunette, the unnecessary way her name is hidden couldn't have been on purpose. It seemed more like a flaw than a boon.
After all, why would she need to hide her identity in the first place?
Other than that, he came to question how such a weird ability could even exist if the Blessed were supposed to have the same capabilities. Was forgetfulness a feeling? Or maybe his abilities weren't restricted to sentiments alone, but instead stretched to numerous more functions of the mind.
A plethora of gaps remained unfilled, the needed information once more rose above the extent of his reach. But now, Mark somehow felt closer to what he was trying to achieve, whatever that may be.
To get closer, he simply had to go looking for whatever scraps of insights he could find.
Luckily for him, the major seemed to have a plethora of knowledge on the subject. He just had to crack the man's mind open - figuratively speaking.
Patting the shoulder of the blood-nosed man, he knew the man was listening when a terribly annoyed grumble resounded from his closed mouth, or was it from the nose?
"Where did you learn about the Blessed?"
For some reason, Mark had a feeling that the major, despite knowing so much, didn't have any of the abilities himself. It was a weird intuition that he obtained somewhere in the past few months.
Maybe it was easier for the Blessed to spot their own kin?
He was pried from his thoughts as the major began to speak.
"There was a guy I knew that was just like you. At the time, he didn't know any more about what he could do than I did, which was basically nothing. So, we ended up learning about it together, until his time eventually was up. After that, I just pieced the remaining bits of information together. Some other people with abilities came and went, most of them died before learning anything important. "
The major's words seemed to be credible enough. Mark hoped that the information he had to give would be as valid as they were starting to seem.
"Tell me about how my ability works."
Blinking, the major shook his head and slightly smiled.
"Don't you have any decorum for your higher-ups? You could at least ask in a nicer tone. Anyway, the sun is just rising and I'm feeling hungry for whatever rations there still are, no matter if it's just a goddamned piece of bread. Go get me some and I'll let you off for talking so rudely. Maybe then I will be in the mood to answer whatever you have."
Clicking his tongue, Mark rose and walked away, splashing on the murky puddles once more.
In his little journey, he saw some soldiers gambling for rocks, some smoking what seemed to be a certain type of drug, and others doing more boring things such as scribbling some random stuff on the slop or just idling around.
Once he got to the area where the rations were being given out, he squeezed and squirmed his way through the multitude of desolate soldiers. Yet when the person handing out the biscuits saw him, he was immediately rejected and sent away, not even with a chance to argue for himself.
And so, he returned empty-handed with not a thing save for a slight sense of ire burning beneath his skin. The disdainful little puddles now shook in trepidation from his passing.
Approaching the idling major who seemed to be asleep, he stretched his mind and condensed the potency of his manipulations into one point before tugging at the man's mind, forcing him from sleep with a sense of fright.
He was done playing passively.
"Tell me what you know."