Editing Campaign:Zero Day/Hyperion City (section)

==Statuary==
Samantha has heard a lot in the past two months. In the quiet days at the book, she'll sit there with a text in hand; open and unread as she would just listen to the chatter around her. Focusing more on one then another, blocking them all out, seeing how deep she could push. It felt invasive and on some level she felt sick. It had gotten easier to tune out it all but when in the city proper, people everywhere, it was agony. Constant cacophony smothered her.

She would flit away from crowds, try to avoid as many as possible. Occasionally she would hear something, see something that made her ill or feel violated. Other times there were some whose minds were soft and gentle, like a song or poem. She liked those people.

Rarely when she was out with Amanda it was easiest. Concentrate on her friend, who was nothing but faint whispers by now, and she would miss most of the world around her.

Today wasn't such a day.

She was sitting alone late in the afternoon, deep into one of the parks on the University grounds; her usual attempts to turn out or even turn off her powers were being met with the usual lack of success as she nursed her head. She wasn't paying particular attention to her surroundings, mental or otherwise, but she started to get a sickening feeling, phantom tastes of bile much like what she noticed when she happened to see inside the minds of those that seemed the most criminal.
She had never acted on this in the past except to avoid them. A telepath who couldn't even control her own power in a city that had started to see all powers as an incoming threat. The modern day Communist or Muslim. What would happen if she went to the police, she’d become the criminal?

And Amanda, if Amanda was implicated? Friend and Roommate with a monster?

This was distracting; the background noise took on a distracting, malicious intent.

Against her own better judgement, like witnesses to a horrible accident, she focused on that voice and sight.

He was about thirty meters away, the horizontal edge of her sight as she focused. Straight away she was struck with ideas of power and abuse. She felt sick.

Telepathy was strange. She didn't so much as see or hear what was there but something altogether unique.
 
Stray emotions, dream-like glances through their eyes, their thoughts yelled across the reflecting ether, their own self-form for her to see.

What she was experiencing here was sickening. A knife drawn, torn clothing, the taste of blood and tears.

Under that was worse. A voice to quiet to be heard over this chocking malaise. Samantha had to tune it out; it was enough to make her retch.

Then the actual sound could be heard. Rustling or material, some low grunting and muffled sobs.

Samantha stood slowly, unsteady on her feet. She shuffled over to the thick brush that help conceal her and awkwardly pushed her head through to see.

She had to push aside more branches to get a good look; there was a person on the ground, bunched up.

No, two people, one atop another. There was an aggressive motion about it; it looked like a knife was held against the prone figure.

Samantha could hear the crying now, it broke her concentration and it all washed through her mind again.

She fell back through the brush, stunned. 

This wasn't right, what would she do? What should she do? 

The crying ceased. A voice, coarse and aggressive, broke through; ‘Who’s there?’

Samantha started to panic, the very thing she tried to avoid was about to come to fruition. She was to secluded to hope to run, she’d be seen before she got far at all. The park was largely empty, this far from anyone minimises the noise.

The hours after the seizures had been complete chaos. Crimes, looting, violence had spiked dramatically as many, drunk and overwhelmed by the powers they now held demonstrated human nature to a text-book degree.

Samantha spent it in agony trapped with her mind that just would not remain quiet. 

This was probably as good a time as any then to have a post-power rampage.

‘STOP!’

She yelled as loud as she imagined she could across the reflective ether.

“What?!” The figure from behind the brush called out.

Samantha concentrated on that shadow she saw moments earlier, the figure with the knife.

He, it? was standing now she thought. She wasn't looking through their eyes but rather their mental perception. It made little sense but it seemed to reflect the basics.

Samantha quickly grabbed her scarf and tied it roughly around her face. Her hair and eyes were visible but there was little she could do at this point. The figure shuffled around the border of the tangled bush-shrubs, they’d likely see her soon.

What could she do? Yell at him? Could she control him? She didn't even want to pry into Amanda’s mind, could she do anything?

That statuette!

In the first few days she became aware she had been slowly moving that small soapstone keepsake in the hall of the apartment. It was driving Amanda to paranoia at first. Even now she would keep an eye on it whenever she had to pass it in the hall.

Statue, where was there a statue? They populated the campus. Art-projects mostly.

There was one in this park. A Grecianesque Athena statue. Scroll in hand. Knowledge and Wisdom.

About a hundred meters from here.

Awkwardly she bounded after it. Unfortunately, she was no more than halfway before she was spotted by the knife-wielding shadow. It, he? Was clutching the other figure, rag dolled in his hands.

“I suggest ya stop. Ya Fucking Freak!” Samantha started to panic.

“Ya think you gonna play Hero?”

Samantha paused. She had him in her centre vision; the statue was just at the edge of her peripheral. If it would just move. 

The arm with the scroll shifted, it had to of.

‘Just move’

“Wha- Ya lips?”

A stone leg rose slowly from the plinth.

‘Just Move!’

The figure shook his head, seemingly with a sick grin across his lips.

“Make Me!”

The sound of tearing cement signified the other leg was free now from the base.

It was strange, moving a statue didn't require much effort. It seemed to utilise the same parts of her mind that governed her own movement. But the strange sensation of observing this in Third Person was just another mental oddity for Samantha to explore later.

“What? Stop, ya hear? I’ll kill her!” He yelled as he watched the lime ash construct goddess drunkenly stumble towards him.

‘QUIET!’ 

Her scream was directed, she focused as much as possible on his mind. For a moment they were directly connected.

Nausea washed over her, seemed to wash over him as well. His arm fell for a moment and his hostage slipped out of his grasp.

The Statue stopped moving. Samantha’s control broken.

“I’m Gonna Fucking Gut You, Ya Bitch!”

He moved faster than Samantha could track through her sickening haze, there was a painful numbing sensation deep into her diaphragm as the knife sunk in.

He pulled out the gore coated blade as Samantha’s body slumped to the dirt. He stared in shock before a smile crawled across his face.

“I killed a fucking Super.”

Samantha mind was a haze. She’d clutch her stomach if she could move.

‘Is this dying?’

The pain subsided slowly and all she could feel anymore was the numbness. Her vision had faded and all she saw was a vague shadow of her attacker.

“See ya bitch.”

Just behind the shadow she could see another, the Statue…

Just move.

…‘just… move…’

“What?”

The further shadow lurched forwards.

‘just move’

“Oh no… Not again you bitch!”

He quickly stabbed her again. Pain flared across the shoulder but as soon as the blade was withdrawn the wound already had started to bind back together, collagen already laying down laced maze.

“Ya fucking Super”

‘MOVE!’

He paused for a moment, looking back behind himself just as a stone hand lurched forwards, grabbing his knife hand.

There was a sickening sound as the stone agent tightened its grip before its movement ceased. He started to scream in pain.

Samantha slowly got back to her feet, her shoulder and stomach pulsed in phantom pain and she stumbled slightly.

She slowly hobbled over to the fallen, still comatose hostage. She’d seen her before on campus, another student.

Samantha withdrew her own mobile and dialled emergency services.

“Police and Ambulance, Athena park at Sanderson U. Rape and coma.” The voice on the other end started to speak but Samantha was already flicking the phone off again.
She slowly turned to the attacker trapped in the cement grip of a stone goddess.

‘I’m Statuary, you bastard’

She started her long walk home.