Chapter 46 part 1

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Chapter 46

William broke down the door and saw Harold in the middle of the large room.  He should have stopped outside the door to look inside, but that would have given him little protection from the fire starter anyway.

Two steps inside the door, he felt the heat build inside his body.  Harold was still twenty feet away, there was no way he'd make it there.

A few feet to the side was a heavy dining room table and chairs.  As he staggered to them, the burning itched all over, adrenaline surged though him, his heart began to race and fear melted away the fog's protection.

More pain ran up from his left calf as the burnt skin and muscle heated from the inside.  The widespread aches in his body throbbed only for a moment, until they were replaced by the burning.

But Jess was just down the hall.  Even as he felt the heat grow throughout his body, he knew he couldn't give up yet.  Somehow, just the thought of her so close gave him the strength to step forward.  He grabbed a chair and threw it at Harold, falling to the floor as he did.  He barely heard the yelp from the living room.

The fog and voices wrapped around him instantly.  The burning was gone, but his body was still too hot.  The Hunter reached in and helped him up.  William scurried around the table and into the kitchen.  He ducked under the counter, out of sight.

As he gasped in breath after breath, he felt the fear beginning to disappear.  With it, the pain and the itch of the burn left as well.  He looked quickly down the hallway that led to Jess, then at the voices around him.  His body was still warm, and he remembered how he had felt each nerve beginning to overheat.  It was important, he couldn't let the voices try to cover it up.  "Let me feel it."

They stared back, all close beside him.

"Go away.  I need to feel this," he said.

The Advisor smiled at him, nodded, and they all faded with the fog.

The pain was immediate, and the fear came back with it.  He thought about it, focused on the sensations and gave the fears words.  He'd almost been burned alive, from the inside out.  He would have died and not been able to protect Jess or Bryan.  And even if he could save them both, she was going to leave him for the only friend that he had.

He put his hands on the cool kitchen tile beneath him.  He hadn't died, and Jess was just down the hall.  He could still help her and Bryan.  And as his mind cleared, he realized that it didn’t matter if the two of them ended up together.  Did he really want to be with the woman that had committed him to a mental institution?  He laughed at the idea.

He might not get what he had wanted, but maybe he didn't have to die.  Not tonight.

The fear started to melt away.  He closed his eyes and followed the shrinking emotion down.  He felt his heart slow, felt the hormones begin to subside in his blood.  He followed the physical sensation deeper.  For a moment, all he could feel was the pain all through his body, but he moved though it and felt the burning itch fade away.  He followed it deeper, struggled to go further, until he felt everything within himself humming, vibrating with energy.

He didn't know how far down he was, how many layers of consciousness he'd pushed through.  He thought about increasing the vibration and heat began to spread inside him again.  Then he pushed it back down.  This was what Harold did, moving his consciousness down to the smallest levels of his physical body, controlling the energy that everything was made of. 

William opened his eyes.  "Come back."

The fog was around him again.  The Caretaker reached down to his calf, but William reached out a hand and stopped her.  The voices could suppress his emotions, dull his pain, but they didn't seem to be able to reach down and affect the more basic levels within him.  Just as they hadn't been able to reach him or control him when he focused on the sensations within his own body, they disappeared when he went down even farther.  They were closer to his waking consciousness and could only dull his emotions and physical sensations instead of directly controlling them.  But his mind was closer to the smallest building blocks than the voices were.  He could influence what went on there more than they could.  He might be able to do more than mask the pain.

He looked at the burn, brought his awareness to the skin, the muscles, the nerves inside.  The pain was more intense as he focused, it grew until it was all he could feel, all he was aware of.  It was overwhelming, but he kept his mind on it and thought about it healing.  He kept the image simple, knew that his cells would translate the direction and do the job better than he could consciously imagine it.

He looked back up at the voices.  With his attention on the wound, the fog had faded almost completely.  Paying attention to them and his own body at the same time was difficult, maybe impossible in his state.  "This is what you do with me, isn't it?  Give me directions like this."

They didn't answer, and he knew they wouldn't.  Whatever kind of consciousness the voices really were, or was, it didn't think about things the same way that William did.

He heard a clatter of wood from the large room.  Harold.

Then, gunfire echoed up from the factory below.

"Help me." William asked the voices.  They wrapped around him and he stood, but they felt less substantial with part of his mind still directing the burn to heal.  Would they still be able to help him?

He stepped back into the main room.

The little man stepped back when he saw William.  Harold's forearm was bleeding and there was a red lump on his forehead where the chair had hit him.

William waited. 

It only took a moment.  He watched Harold's eyes jerk to the hallway, then back.  William stepped around and put himself between the maintenance man and the room where Jessica was.  Harold circled again and William stepped deeper into the room, put the windows at his back.

Then he felt it.  Harold hadn't moved or grimaced or needed to do anything extraneous.  William simply felt the energy in his body, especially in his chest, begin to grow more excited.

He pushed it back down.

Slowly, Harold reacted.  He took a step back, blinked at William and shook his head as if clearing it.

The heat started again, in William's head this time.  He focused on it and brought the energy down to its regular state.  He saw Harold's fists clench as the man looked around, obviously bewildered.

Harold screamed and William felt the heat wash over him.  The windows behind him erupted into flames.  William stepped toward Harold and the little man ran for the door.

The Advisor pointed down the hallway.  She is ready.  She needs to see.

She will need your help, The Caretaker said.

William went to Jess.

*

(Author’s note:  What does everyone think of William’s new-found ability??  And what about Jess...what's going to happen?  Let me know what you think!  Thanks for the votes!)

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