The Peculiars’ Tale

"Stephen!" I ran as fast as I could, "Stephen! Wait for me!" However, no matter how fast I run, I couldn"t catch up with him. They said I can control things here, but why are things not going accordingly? I want to know what happened to Stephen, but what is this? I can"t manifest the things I wanted to see. This place is narrow, cold and dark. I don"t even know where it is.

Finally, he stopped running away from me. I also stopped while gasping for breath. He then turned to me slowly. I can"t see his face but I know, even when he"s covered by darkness, that he"s Stephen.

"Jill. Sorry." His mouth didn"t open but I heard his voice, "I was left with no choice..."

"Where are you? Stephen!"

"... I don"t want to involve you guys. I don"t want to involve my family too."

"Where are you? Tell me." He didn"t move from where he was. Only his voice echoed on the place, only the last words I heard from him when he called me before.

"... I fear them very much, Jill. I want to protect you all. Please take care."

I blame myself. It"s all my fault. It"s my fault that he"s missing. If only I did not ask him to track the blog address, this won"t happen to him. Because of me... because of the curse I bear.... My ability is a curse that I acquire without me knowing where it came from.

I tried to step forward to approach him but I stepped on nothing. I suddenly fell to the darkness of void. I thought it"s the end of me when I suddenly crashed on the ground without feeling hurt. I stood up.

"Jill Morie." I glanced over my shoulder and saw Stephen standing there, but I still couldn"t see his face. "Come with us." I gasped in shock because of what he said and when he offered his hand.

"Jill Morie. Come with us." The words keep on reverberating around me. For every repet.i.tion, the voices thickened and grow in number. And for every blink I made, the people surrounding me also grow in number. No matter which direction I faced, I could see them. It"s the same with my dreams before. It wouldn"t end with this, they will slowly crept up towards me. My head was spinning... I couldn"t breathe.

I suddenly woke up. I can still feel the heavy pounding in my chest, and I realized... that was just a dream.

"Are you okay, Jill Morie?" asked by Seraphina who was sitting on the clinic bed next to mine. We"re still at White Knights. Glancing at the wall clock of the infirmary, only one and a half hour pa.s.sed after the confrontation on the rooftop. As a reply to her, I shook my head.

"I thought... You told me I can control my dream?" I asked to Cecilia who was standing at the other edge of the bed. She"s holding onto her crystal ball where the dreams I had just went through were reflected.

"Uhm... You see... Jill Morie, what you were doing were not lucid dreaming."

What she mentioned was the way to search for Stephen. Cecilia said that through Lucid Dreaming, I can consciously control my dream and by that I will manifest in my dreams the location of Stephen. Unfortunately, I couldn"t do it and I wonder why.

"You were just having a bad dream." Jing Rosca b.u.t.ted in while sitting prettily on the swivel chair. "Base on Cecilia"s descriptions while you"re dreaming, it seems you were having a nightmare."

Jing Rosca stood up from her seat, "Let"s call it a night, we"ve been here for freaking one and a half hours. You can"t possibly master the lucid dreaming in one try, Jill Morie. Just give yourself and us a break." After that, she went out without turning her head back once.

I got of the bedding, "Jill." Then Cecilia blocked me. "I"m sorry if I suggested that to you. To be honest... I can also look for lost things." I furrowed my brows because of what I heard.

"Why didn"t you say so?" I asked.

"Lost stuffs, not human." I couldn"t help but stare at her crystal ball, wondering if the things she can see through it are real. "Remote vieweing, Jill." Okay... Earlier, it"s lucid dreaming and now it"s remote viewing.

"I know that you"re finding it weird – "

"Wrong. I"m used to weirdness. What matter is if it could help me find my friend."

"I"m not sure since I haven"t tried it yet for missing people."

"So... what"s with the mentioned remote viewing?" I asked.

"Remote viewing, it"s the ability to project the sense of awareness about a particular place, can be described vividly without actually going to the place." I understand her explanation but not on how she would do it. Though it really seems more plausible than lucid dreaming. "Compare to lucid dreaming, not everyone can have the opportunity to use remote viewing."

"You know your powers well." I praised her. I wonder when she learned that she"s Peculiar, why she lived roaming the streets and what is the real story behind her ident.i.ty.

"To be honest... this will be the first time that I will do this." After that, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply. I watched what she"s doing. Later on she touched her forehead and it looks like she"s having a hard time. I"m already planning to stop her when she suddenly spoke, "It"s dark..." Dark? "There were many of them." I can"t understand. She opened her eyes and shook her head. "I"m having a hard time looking for him, Jill. But what I saw was the same with your dreams, the dark place and many people whose eyes I couldn"t see."

I shrugged my shoulders, "Let"s go." I can"t do anything about it since what she did is out of my capabilities. Though I don"t want to admit... Jing Rosca was right. I need to give myself a break, but how can I also do that when I was the one responsible for Stephen"s disappearance?

While walking the hallway, I was staring at Cecilia because she"s acting weirdly, like she can"t be at ease while looking to and fro. Maybe having that kind of power is not too desirable... Well, all Peculiars are being through different experiences, only same in extraordinariness, but different in carrying through, too.

"Can you see a ghost?" she was obviously surprised by my questions but she smiled and nodded when her mind processed it. She"s maybe expecting me to be scared but I didn"t. I don"t believe in ghost. Funny, because I don"t believe on it when I can see the future. If I will tell this to a normal person, ghosts are more believable. "So... you can see some of them here?" I casually said. I"m not being insensitive here, only being curious.

Cecilia smiled and stared straight ahead. She"s probably not going to disclose whether there"s a kid following us or there"s a woman standing at the end of this hallway, "I didn"t have friends when I was a kid." She said. "No one wants to befriend me because they were afraid. The elderly said I"m not a normal child." It means she already has that ability since she was a child. "They don"t understand that it"s hard seeing things you supposed to not see." After saying that, she refrained from talking and she"s not wandering her eyes anymore.