Sentilia

They approached quickly, and I could see clearly into the closest man’s mind. The other Sentilians were beside me, probing my mind, questioning my plan. But I didn’t care; it was the only option I could think of, right now.

“Do you have a better idea?” I said, sarcastically.

I felt a spark of renewed hope then, and determination coming from them. They came to stand behind me, facing the forest, their postures confident, and I knew at once that I was going to lead this experiment. They were waiting for some sort of direction from my part. We started picking one man each out of the dozen that were coming.

And all at once, we started. We were connected, we were strong; we were all thinking about speeders going around their heads. That was the vision we projected as one.

The weaker minds immediately begun to slow. They forgot why they were running, why they wanted to hurt us; they were looking around in the air, trying to figure out what was happening.

However, some still came speeding in our direction. We all wanted to help, but if we lost contact with our chosen target, they would just start running towards us again. So we concentrated harder, as a whole, to help the others, and our easier targets just started crumbling to the ground.

An eight of a second passed, and the others all stopped dead in their tracks. Our concentration didn’t break, or even lessen, and our triumph was glorious.

“Maxine!” I turned towards K, with a smug face, trying not to break my concentration. His eyes widened, his mouth opened. My smile faded. Oh no.

I turned to the forest, where he was staring, to see a man standing there with a gun pointed towards K.

A lot happened at the same time, then. Without thinking, I jumped in front of K to protect him. A shot broke the silence. Just a foot before the bullet hit me, a flare of blue light threw up in the sky and stopped the bullet.

The safeguard was working.

I was still alive.

K had done it.

I looked up at him. His face was red, beads of sweat were dripping from his forehead; he was frozen in place. His eyes were locked on the position where the soldier had been standing, from which he was long gone.

Another shot. This time it crossed over, barely missing Kleio. I jumped up.

The next shot, which was headed straight for me, was stopped, again, the same way it had been previously. What was happening?

“Kleio, are you doing this?” I choked out the question, crouching down, knowing another bullet could hit me at any moment.

“Yes, I am,” was his murmured answer.

“Damien!” K called his name without turning his head. A man in his forties appeared beside me, nodded once to Kleio, and concentrated on the forest. A few of the soldiers had retreated. But Damien was watching out for us.

I tried probing Damien’s mind to find out what had just happened, since Kleio was closed off again, trying to fix the dome. But Damien was trying to hide something. His energy was centered on sweeping the forest to uncover any lurking danger, so I jumped at the occasion to dig a little deeper. In the end though, Damien was experienced and I wasn’t able to read any of his thoughts.

Not a noise broke the silence. The atmosphere was tense. The adrenaline was slowing in our veins.

“I...I think I got it to work properly, this time.”

“Are you sure, Kleio? We don’t want a Max-get’s-her-leg-blown-up part two, do we?” Damien’s voice was heavily sarcastic, but his body was stiff.

I took a hesitant step forwards and reached down to pick up a close by rock. I threw it at the shield, and we saw a splash of blue energy ripple across the surface of the dome where the rock had stopped mid-way in its flight before it fell back down on the ground. We huffed a sigh of relief.

I had forgotten all about my leg with the adrenaline and all, but jumping in front of K had not been smart; I could begin to feel it now.

K called the people on the other side of the city to tell them the news, “proceed with caution,” he had said.

We heard shouting, and then heard gunshots cracking in the distance.

Relief pulsed through our minds when we heard faint whistling and celebratory cries from across the city.

“How did you do it?” I asked.

“Well, the spheres needed some way to connect so the energy linking them together would create a shield between each one of them. At first, we had theories on how to get them to talk to each other; we figured we’d put one central sphere to emit to the others that were receivers. But in the end, it was your idea that made me realize I had to think about it in a simpler way. It was all about getting them all to emit and receive at the same time, like we do.

You see, the first time it worked on and off because the energy flow wasn’t constant, so all I had to do was to stabilize it, and voila!"

Before he had time to finish, I leapt into his arms and he swung me around. Everyone was laughing and celebrating, and we knew that we were safe now.

For a while, at least.

I had to find William.

K’s head snapped up, he nodded, “William.” He looked down at my leg: “Two birds, one stone. Let’s go.”

“What?” Why was he talking about birds?

“It’s an expression...never mind.” He brushed the air with his hand.

We left in a rush. I was starting to feel weak and wobbly, and I wasn’t sure if it was all the blood that had left my body, the adrenaline dissipating in my system, or the fact that I was about to see William again. Maybe it was a mix of all three.

I fidgeted during the whole ride, but when we finally came to a halt, I saw him, standing in front of the hospital. They had moved him to their medical facility to help out with the injured. All anxiousness left my body, and a calm reassurance took its place. I could see that he wasn’t hurt. He seemed to be checking up on a nervous patient in front of the building.

I stepped out the speeder without looking back at K, and ran towards William—limping. I had intended to throw myself into his delicate grasp, but I stopped short when I got to him. His smile was inviting, he seemed happy to see me, but I still hesitated, not knowing for sure what he was thinking. I tried to get into his head, but his bright eyes held mine, and it disoriented me. A second ticked by, and he grabbed my waist, pulling me close to his warm body.

“Max, I’m glad you’re okay,” he whispered into my ear. Had he really given me the strength not to limp anymore? Or was it that he just didn’t notice it?

“Actually...” I started speaking, but he pulled away. My heart tightened, “no,” I wanted to say. He had let go of my waist, but firmly took my face between his hands; I thought I noticed his breathing accelerating; his hands slightly tremble, as he bent his face down. His soft lips pressed fiercely against mine.

He continued to kiss me, more tenderly now, and the earth quaked beneath my feet. He had wrapped his arms around me again, supporting most of my weight; I could barely touch the ground with my toes anymore.

I flinched when I felt his hand on my thigh, and I lost my balance, suddenly feeling like I was going to pass out. For once, it wasn’t because of him.

“Ouch,” I whispered, my face changing quickly from bliss to agony.

I didn’t want to fight it anymore; I wanted help, and I wanted to be healed. As his hand fluttered above his own thigh, his face frozen in a mortified expression, I remembered he probably knew how I felt. He didn’t limp at all anymore, so I had high hopes for my recovery. If I could only get him to wake up and help me...

“Get on this stretcher, now!” He put his arm around me to help me get on.

“We need to get you inside, hang on.” He started turning the stretcher around, only to find K standing in the way.

“No need for that,” he had run inside to get an emergency kit while I was reuniting with William. I felt an ounce of guilt.

“Would you mind, doc?” He was gesturing towards the equipment. William opened his mouth to speak, and closed it again.

Then he started looking at what he had to work with, and he asked Kleio where was the anesthetic.

Kleio cussed under his breath, and said, with an apologetic tone: “I forgot it inside.”

“Please, I can take it, just take this thing out of me and fix me, now,” I begged.

“Okay. It might sting a little, but just relax. Like you did earlier: look into my eyes, and open up your mind. It’s not going to hurt.” Kleio was standing beside me, and he took my hand.

I was going to do everything Kleio, or William, would say. I was starting to doze off, gradually.

“Okay, here it goes,” I heard William say.

Then, the pain I felt woke me up completely, bending my body in half as I screamed out in pain. He was removing the bullet.

“HEY! Max, look at me, look at me,” Kleio was repeating, so I obeyed. I directed every thought and all my energy on him. In an instant, I couldn’t feel the pain.

Kleio hung his head down for a minute, and tightened his grip on my hand.

“Are you okay? I can’t feel anything anymore... is that normal?” My voice was getting weaker as I fought against the fog clouding my eyes. As my mind started shutting down, I caught a glimpse of K’s mind. I knew I was in his mind in an instant because it was a mix of excruciating pain and then a sweet replay of our kiss in the cave. Both feelings were alternating like a light switch. I understood then what he was doing. Taking the pain for me, probably because he was able to channel it more easily with another strong emotion. I wanted to tell him to stop, I wanted to tell him he didn’t have to suffer for me, but I lost the struggle; my eyes closed shut and I lost consciousness.