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Arc F1.8 | Chapter 14: Vibes Exist and I Might Be Killed By Them One Day

Once, Emilia had claimed that, given Coral could feel other people’s emotions, perhaps, if someone concentrated hard enough, they could force their emotions into another person—or more importantly, into other person.As far as Samina knew, Emilia had never succeeded in forcing someone who wasn’t Coral to feel her emotions—likely a good thing, Emilia being the sort of person so harass others in any way she could. Still, her friend’s thoughts and theories on the matter had aided them in figuring out how to help Coral—who had almost immediately connected with Halen in a way none of them could explain while also managing to become friends with of the class as well—in dealing with the emotions she could feel.

A few members of their class had become so skilled at manipulating their emotions that they could send Coral secret messages, simply by tugging up various emotions in quick succession.

It was impressive; it also wasn’t relevant at the moment.

Still, Samina thought of all of the hours they had collectively spent sitting with Coral, pulling up some emotion or another in some mixture of getting her used to actively trying to feel out the emotions of others—the girl had previously spent most of her time trying to as little as possible—and aiding her in cataloguing all the emotions that encompassed the human experience.

Coral was good at it—better than most of the records The Black Knot had about various Dyads with Excess Empathy who had worked with them over the years indicated those Dyads had been. Most Baalphorians might brush aside their abilities, but their organization had a long history of using them as spies—as people who could be shifted into delicate spaces to overhear delicate conversations and return with information on what all the participants really felt about the topic.

Mostly, Samina thought of all this because after all their efforts in helping Coral—in learning how to exist around her, in having Halen’s functions loaded into them so they could pop in on Coral and figure out if she was okay or having a breakdown due to overstimulation—Emilia had suggested that might be possible.

her friend had babbled as they walked down the beach, sweet summer treats grasped in their hands as they chatted and ran and tumbled in the white sands of the Penns.

Indeed, when Coral had first arrived at their school and they had learned she was an EEC Dyad, their entire school had been some mixture of sceptical and thinking that if the new girl could feel anything, it was likely nothing more than . People felt all the time—for instance, Samina was currently getting bad vibes from Lux’s kidnapper and dangerous, but not necessarily , vibes from the new guy.

That was Samina’s mind getting ahead of itself—she had a few seconds more to panic and wish Emilia’s theories about beaming thoughts and emotions into people had turned out to be correct, thanks.

Back to their schoolmates’ opinions on Coral, most people—including Emilia—had postulated, in the days between when Coral had arrived and Halen had awkwardly sent everyone a message about the true state of the girl’s abilities—had assumed Coral was reading something within the physiology of those her abilities touched.

Peoples’ heart rates rose. Their skin sweat. Their pupils dilated. Perhaps Coral’s Excess Empathy simply gave her some sort of inherent ability to understand the information her Excess Connection—and likely her Perfect Awareness—Levels gave her about the current state of a person’s body. Perhaps she could feel a brain firing slower when the person was tired—could feel the chaos within those spiralling neurons when they were ruminating on something. There was even the possibility that Coral might be able to feel the state of a person’s Balance and Load Levels, the two Categories most known for collapsing when a person was stressed or overwhelmed.

Yet, that wasn’t how Coral felt the emotions of people; instead, she seemed to read something through the aether—some energy that floated out of people and slipped through the universe. were something tangible within the aether, Coral able to snatch them up, and with the aid of Halen’s functions, dissect them.

Truly, the details that Coral could pluck from the emotions she felt were astounding—were enough that, with context, she could often guess at what people were thinking. It was part of how she had come across the negative feelings floating within the Drinarna in the station her group had passed through on their way to the papers checkpoint: Coral had felt people hating Emilia for her silverstrain alone for years, that feeling catalogued into her brain and Halen’s functions until every time Coral passed someone who was internally spewing hated at silverstrains, she knew.

Coral always knew things like that.

Context and knowing people made it all the easier to feel them out and determine the thoughts tucked under those emotions—although Coral had once admitted there were caveats to that. Coral and Emilia had started to chat about it. Samina had wandered off. One day, when she had a place within the Baxter family, she’d learn what those caveats were—Emilia had copied her memory of the conversation for various Black Knot agents to watch.

Regardless, that day on the beach, Emilia had suggested that another sort of Dyad may be capable of gleaning thoughts themselves from the aether—after all, weren’t thoughts as much energy as emotions themselves? Brain synapses fired, sending surges through tissue and neurons and muscles.

If emotions, why not thoughts? There were no records of Dyads capable of reading thoughts, but it wouldn’t surprise Samina if such people learned to keep their abilities to themselves, if only to avoid scrutiny.

Emilia had spent hours digging through records of what abilities each known variety of Dyadism presented with. Their abilities and the records surrounding them weren’t always so cut and dry, but she could look—could pick out those varieties with abilities that didn’t match, or no who seemingly had no abilities at all.

Emilia had said, soft and contemplative—a profoundly off-putting mood from Samina’s friend, as it was often followed up with some rain of terror or another. Samina could get down with the chaos, but Emilia’s chaos could be… a lot.

Levi had laughed, kicking his way across the pond they had gone for a dip in.

Emilia had trailed off—a definite bad sign; no good ever came out of an Emilia who was quiet for too long.

Samina had splashed water at her, little flecks that splattered off her fingers and left Emilia giggling.

Emilia had agreed, kicking herself closer to Samina in a way that had made it clear her friend was about to attack.

Then, the attack had come, she and Emilia emerging for lunch soaked while Levi attempted to find his swim shorts—they never had been found, nor were any of them sure he’d lost them during their scuffle in the water.

The point was that right now? With Lux stirring and at risk of alerting the two men that she was awake, Samina really wished she could reach her mind out—could press an emotion or a thought into her friend.

—Samina needed to save her, and something told her that neither of the men were people she could take, especially the new man.

That man…

With her attempts at beaming thoughts and emotions into Lux via intense staring and concentration a failure, Samina turned her gaze back to the two men, freezing in place.

The new man—he was watching her.

For a moment, she was worried she was too visible—that she had shifted without thinking and left herself within a monster’s sights—but no, she hadn’t. Samina was in the same place as before, barely able to see the three people on the other side of the rock wall, which was significantly thicker in this area than it had been previously—still weird that the paths had run alongside one another virtually that whole time. Probably, someone more well-versed in geology or whatever specific word there might be for cave-formation science—was that a thing?—would know why.

Then again, given how strange this whole place was—not to mention the fact that it was a creation of a Lowdouran, allegedly—it was probably some result of their abilities and nothing more.

The new man was covered completely in some sort of deep-black armour, so Samina couldn’t actually see his eyes. It still felt as though he were watching her—a predator, accessing her to see how dangerous she was to them. It was a feeling over her skin—that phantom of someone watching, observing.

, in the end, were something only an idiot would argue didn’t exist.

This man’s were a weight over her—heavy, leaving her barely able to breathe for all the intensity in them. What a way to go: suffocated by the sheer fear of this man’s gaze. Then, the weight vanished and Samina felt liable to collapse. Had she not been worried about one of the men hearing her—coming for her—she might have.

The man didn’t move, only continued talking to Lux’s kidnapper in that strange medley of too many languages, while to the side, Lux came fully awake, and Samina had to decide what to do: attack; try to negotiate with the men; leave Lux to her fate; or do the stupidest thing she could think of.

Samina, of course, choose the last option—the option.