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Chapter 15 - Reaction - Part II

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However, no matter how hard she tried to quell it, something about the mantra’s rhythm was disturbed, the pattern in her mind uplifted as something shifted the balance between the syllables.

At about the seventy third second, Athira gave up trying to repair it and instead focused on finding the source that kept disrupting the flow. Her skin tingled, the torrent of colour beneath it responding to something in the room.

She lifted her eyes, finding her sight locked on Zoe’s figure.

Athira knew she was right the moment it clicked in her head. The nausea that rocked her body since Reader goaded her into letting go of any semblance of control dissolved into something calmer, purposeful almost. Zoe’s glow literally warmed the illness from her.

That makes no sense. Nothing like this has ever happened before and it’s had enough opportunity to do so.

Yet there was no denying it. She could feel Zoe’s colour as sure as she’d felt the orange running through the pole in the heart of the Elite HQ, only this was a hundred times stronger. The vibrant yellow aura that was Zoe called to Athira’s black as clearly as the girl was sitting next to her, singing in her ear.

Why?

Athira sat there, unable to return to her mantra, unable to settle her mind until Zoe’s voice broke the silence in the room.

“That’s time, with an extra fifteen seconds just to be sure,” said Zoe. She stood up, giving Shift a lopsided smile. “You’re up.”

“Again?”

“Again.”

Shift moved from his spot against the wall to the side of Will’s bed beside Zoe. He took the red colour’s hand and squeezed it, his own green flowing around the linked palms. The emerald glow was like the tide, the cycle of ebb and flow repeating every few seconds, occasionally punctuated by a flicker of red as it pushed back towards Shift.

“Anything?” asked Zoe.

“His colour’s there, but it’s weak,” said Shift, dropping Will’s hand. “It doesn’t want to shift with me at all. Sort of like something’s blocking it.”

Athira moved to stand next to Shift. Her eyes found Will’s face, studying it without realising she meant to. There was something there, something she couldn’t entirely be sure of... but it was there.

More curious than anything, she extended a hand, hovering it over Will’s blanket covered body. The something was around him like an aura, emanating from the other side of his body.

The other side. The contact point.

“It means the problem doesn’t lay in the physical,” she said, levitating herself over to the other side of the bed. “It lays in his mind.”

“You sound sure,” said Shift.

Athira was too distracted to respond to his sarcasm. “A person’s colour is linked to their mindscape. If the mindscape is altered, damaged in some way, it affects their colour.”

She heard Shift mumble something to Zoe as she placed her hands on Will, one across his chest, the other on his forehead. With the physical contact, the weak pulse of red colour fluttered under her touch.

Will’s colour wasn’t as easy to sense as Zoe’s was. It was like the orange colour in the silver pole. It was there, but she had to focus to be sure of what she was feeling. Her hand slid down to the right side of Will’s chest, beckoned by some unseen force.

Her palm reached a section that felt different somehow. Her subconscious supplied the words she couldn’t grasp once again.

The contact point.

Athira frowned. The contact point of what?

“Thira, did you find something?” asked Zoe.

Athira bit her lip. “I... I think I can sense his mindscape,” she said.

“Is that even possible?” asked Shift. “Seeing your own mindscape, that’s rare enough, but someone elses?”

Athira swallowed down the nausea rising in her throat. “I don’t know.” She went to remove her hand. “But--“

The word died in her throat. Under the thin fabric of her borrowed suit her protective runes flared, searing into her skin. The sudden shock of it caused her to cry out. Her legs collapsed underneath her but she didn’t fall, her colour kicking in and keeping her in the air. Her hand at Will’s side shook uncontrollably, the tendons and muscles unable to cope as her colour rushed to it.

She grabbed her wrist with her free hand, trying to drag it away, but a rift had been created and the torrent of colour pouring through it made it impossible to control. She couldn’t pull it back, she couldn’t slow it down, only hover helplessly beside the bed and try not to scream as her colour ripped her body apart.

“Athira!” She wasn’t sure who was talking, but her name was the only word she could make out in their speech. “Athira!”

Flashes of red, a brilliant crimson colour flashed before her as the room vanished from her sight.

In its place was a vast, lush landscape, punctuated with oriental style buildings. Large, open training grounds with sandy floors and wooden dummies dominated these structures, while pebble gardens with tiny, well manicured trees edged them.

At a glance, everything looked peaceful. Serene.

Yet as Athira was dragged further and further into the mindscape, she realised nothing was moving. Everything about the place seemed asleep, a mirror of Will’s consciousness. Further still, and everything was covered in a luminescent violet glow, as if someone had dipped it in thick, purple paint.

The glow started to coalesce into figures.

It was all she could do to take short, shallow breaths and try to hold herself together long enough to figure out what was going on. As the glow took on several monstrous shapes, her colour took agony to a whole new level.

Whatever these things were, these things holding Will’s mind prisoner, their energies were reacting with her colour and Athira could do nothing but watch.

The glowing, violet figures straightened, their movements resembling those of something just woken. They fumbled towards her, stumbling over their own limbs as they slowly, inexorably reached out for her. They were going to drown her in unconsciousness as they had Will and their other victims.

Athira writhed, trying without success to close the rift her colour poured through, linking her to Will’s mindscape. Why it was doing so, she had no idea, only that it was and she had to close it to free herself but trying to pull it shut while her colour ran free was impossible.

I have to... Another wave of pain wracked her thoughts. I have to close it.

The figures rose up in front of her, their bodies little more than a gelatinous mass. In their burning grip her colour only ran faster, widening the rift.

They held her firmly, their touch leaving clumps of ooze on her body. Athira shuddered as something solid touched her arm from inside the violet figures.

She forced her gaze to focus.

Inside the larger of the figures that were now rising up all over the mindscape, a small, muscular man with brown hair was suspended in goo. His eyes were closed, but the features were the same as Will’s body in the physical realm.

Athira somehow found the will to move her fingers and grip Will’s clothing, begging her colour to envelop him and pull him out of the sedative claiming them both, but he barely stirred.

She sank back, releasing him and closing her eyes.

This was his mindscape. Without his permission, she was powerless, and without help, she couldn’t shut off the rift. The reaction of her colour with the violet slime figures was simply too potent for her to rein in. The rift would continue to widen until it sucked her dry.

This is it. Reader was right. I couldn’t stop it after all.

Voices just outside her consciousness drifted around her mind, threading between the pain covering her body.

“It’s too strong, Zo, I can’t hold on to it!”

“You don’t have to hold on to it, you just have to divert it long enough so she can bring it in! Shift, shut up and do it!”

“On you!”

Athira cracked open her eyes to find a faint green glow racing up her arm. That point in her chest where the rift resided halted for a moment as another channel beside it opened up. The colour racing through her noticed this and some trickled down it, but it wasn’t enough alone.

“Come on, Athira! Work with us here damn it all!”

Shift.

She surrendered her colour to the channel. The split flow reduced the pressure on the rift linking her to Will’s mindscape and the violet beings that ignited her colour so violently.

Shift wasn’t the only one helping her. Athira could sense Zoe’s colour around her. The yellow energy condensed as Athira knew it did when Zoe was about to fire off a laser, the very air holding its breath.  

“Now!”

With her mind, Athira latched on to the edges of the rift and pulled for all she was worth as Zoe’s colour disrupted the flow of her own for a split second. Coupled with Shift drawing her own rampart energy into himself, it was enough of a lapse for Athira to close the rift.

All at once her vision returned to the room. Her colour released her as she fell back on to someone behind her, who caught her with steady arms.

“She’s out!” said Zoe’s voice.

The arms pressed her back up against their body. Athira recognised her own colour within them and instantly knew who it was. She tried to stand, only to find her limbs shook too much to support her.

The hell is happening?

“She’s still burning,” said Shift. He leant down and scooped Athira up, throwing her shoulders over his head.

“Zoe, watch Will. See if he stirs again, I’m going to try and cool her off.”

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A/N - Thank you for sticking with Indigo, guys <3 I love you all =) *Cookies*