Chapter 70: Bedroom
A/n : Previlaged message, Please go read the last 4 Chapters, i messed up the uploading scheme.
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Ryan gave in without much fuss.
The last time they went out, their numbers had been reduced by almost half. It made sense that they were hesitant about stepping out again.
In the end, he settled for moving out by noon. As for why? According to Chloe:
"The sun will be at its highest point then, so it’s the time with the most illumination."
Miles doubted it mattered much with how heavy the storm outside was. But she looked like she knew what she was talking about, plus it seemed like a good excuse as any, so they all rolled with it.
With the delay, Miles found himself with a bit more time to play with.
’3 hours at most.’
The time was currently nine.
It was the perfect chance to check his ability; most of the others seemed to come to the same conclusion as well. Except Ryan and Sarah. The boy was busy checking something on his phone, while the girl just sulked in her corner.
He shifted his focus to his status screen, reading through the descriptions of his skills and traits again, before releasing a slow breath.
Overall, the upgrades he’d gotten from the pylon hadn’t given him any new capabilities, just increased the efficacy of his old ones. He wanted to test how far he could push [Delusion] compared to before.
’Let’s take it slow.’
Something simple to start with.
He looked at the dim room around him; it was only illuminated by Ryan and Chloe’s flashlights. He decided to brighten it.
Recalling how the room looked when the much brighter emergency lights were on, he slowly recreated a mental image of how the room looked back then.
To his surprise, it was a much easier task than he’d expected. Little inspirations kept popping up in his mind, forming connections in the mental image that he didn’t consciously think about.
How the light would reflect off the others’ faces, where he’d last remembered items in the room, how places in the room that he hadn’t ever focused on would logically look in the dark.
It took all these little details and pieces of knowledge scattered around his mind to form a much more realistic version of what he’d originally envisioned.
When it felt complete, he activated [Delusion].
The room suddenly brightened, like there was a light overhead. It cast realistic shadows of everything he looked at on the ground.
Even when the others moved or shifted from their positions, their shadows shifted to match.
Looking to the ceiling, he found the lights there still switched off. Yet clearly, the rest of the room remained illuminated as though they were all brightly shining.
The dissonance gave him a sense of unease, so he imagined them on.
Responding to his thoughts, the lights switched on, finally matching the rest of the room. It gave the place a much more natural look.
None of the others reacted to any of it, much to his expectation. It only worked on him so far.
It was then something else struck his mind, or rather, the lack of it struck him.
’The pressure is gone.’
Well, it wasn’t entirely gone. But its effects had been reduced so much that he had to focus to feel it.
’I guess that’s the EGO working.... Hmm, if I can handle this much, why not go for something bigger?’
He switched off the lights, plunging the room back into darkness, then began building something else. A place he was intimately familiar with.
At first, he wanted to bring the beach, but he felt a sense of danger from merely that thought. As though his body was warning him that he couldn’t take it. He had a feeling he’d suffer the same kind of backlash that happened when he tried summoning Miss Rose before.
’Even with an EGO?’
He didn’t linger much on the failure, choosing to shift focus to another place he was very familiar with. There was no sense of danger at the thought, so he went forward with it.
A somewhat simple room, only a bit larger than this one. A single bed in the center of it, wrapped in a blue blanket filled with surfboard iconography.
Above the bed was a simple poster. In its blue background, a beautiful yet cartoonish rendition of Abraham lincoln wearing a divers suit while pointing outwards. There was a line of text written above him:
’The Ocean needs you.’
Besides that, there was an alarm clock on the bedside table, a calendar on the wall, and finally a blue carpet covering the ground beneath.
Those little sparks of inspiration came to life again, filling out details and making new connections in his mind. A scratch on the wall here, light fixtures on the ceiling, the pitter-patter of rain on the window facing outside, and even the sound of a TV playing beyond the door.
Details that helped further ground the mental image in his mind, until it completely solidified. It was his room. The one he’d been in just a few days ago.
He activated [Delusion] again.
The first thing he noticed was the rapid increase in pressure on his mind. It was noticeable now, but certainly not something he couldn’t handle.
Most of the group now sat on the blue carpet covering the ground, with the only exception being Sarah, who was now somehow sulking on his bed.
The boy blinked in confusion before realizing their exact locations in the real world had been mapped directly onto the illusion.
Turning his attention from them, he glanced at the shoes on his feet before imagining them gone, letting his toes sink into the softness and warmth of the carpet below.
It gave him a sense of comfort, though nothing comparable to the beach.
"The last question.... Dinosaur... Goal.... Gunfight... Ice cream."
His attention was drawn to the staticky voice of some announcer from the TV beyond the room’s door. It was barely coherent, shifting meaninglessly between buzzwords and various reports.
Beneath its voice, he could hear the indistinct mumbles of a man and a girl talking. Henry and Anna.
His heart lurched at the sounds, but he didn’t head towards the door.
’They’re not real.’
Just figments of his imagination. Behind that door lay nothing.
"Miles, is anything wrong?"
He turned to find Ryan looking at him.