Plan of Rescue

I'm violently woken by Bert who is shaking me and yelling at me, but I can't quite understand what he's saying. There's a loud noise of chaos coming from...well...everywhere.

"Bert, Bert, slow down. What's wrong, what's happened?"

"That's the problem, I don't know, everyone's gone...well...crazy."

Everything goes blurry, then I see all shades of orange and red.

"Bert, Bert, my eyes are hurting again, but this time I know it's not eye strain. I know because my sight has changed, I'm seeing only orange and red."

He laughs, "It's come to you too. You're seeing the thermal heat around us all."

"Now, what's the problem?"

"Everyone's crazy They're running around, smashing things, killing people, doing everything horribly imaginable."

"How can I help?"

"Well, hey what if we took them to the mountain?"

"How?"

"I'll drive the jeep there, in case something bad happens and you go over to Jim and he can take them all in groups to the mountain."

"But hasn't he gone mad too?"

"No I was just with him, he's fine."

"Okay, well we've got to do something," I nod, "...let's do it."

Bert runs to the jeep and I run out the door. I'm running through the broken streets to Zenith. As I approach Zenith I Scream "Jim! Jim! Where are you?" He appears in front of me and I get such a fright that I trip and land on him.

"Bert and I need your help."

"Where's Bert now?"

"He's on his way to mount Zeil. We have a plan to help everyone."

"What's that?"

"As you know, the people of Marblegold are going crazy. Bert says it's due to the concentration of the radiation. He says, if we can get them all up to the top of mount Zeil we might be able to help them, but we need your help. The plan is, he's driving the jeep up to the top of mount Zeil to wait for us. We are to survive this village and teleport everyone, in groups, up to the mountain. There the madness will leave. What do you say? Can you help us?"

"Sure. Lead the way."

We run to the village, we sneak up behind the first group, a group of telepaths.

"Get off us!" One of them says in my mind.

"You have to trust us, we won't hurt you unless you hurt us. We have come to help you and get rid of this madness." I think to them. We all appear at the base of the mountain. "All you have to do is climb this mountain and we'll be back soon," I say.

Jim and I appear back at Marblegold. We jump up behind our next group and we all jump to halfway up the mountainside. Jim slumps down and lays on the mountainside.

He looks up at me. "Nick, I feel so tired I can't move."

"Come on, we're almost done." I blink, Jim turns pink and the air around him turns red. "Jim, you're hot." I put my hand on his forehead. "But you feel cold." I walk up to the mountaintop. I blink and everything goes back to normal. My normal sight begins to fade. I stop and face Jim and start to move towards him. My sight fades back and I look at Jim. "Come on Jim Lets go." I start walking down the mountain.

"I can't move." Oh, if I lost my sight up here he must be losing his ability to walk.

"Okay, Jim I'm coming." I look down at the base of the mountain to see Bert. "Bert! Bring the car up here, but be careful, the radiation fades away up here and you'll lose your sight! It happened to me" I yell down to him. I see the car driving up the mountain towards us, going over all the bumps. It doesn't seem to be slowing down, in fact, it seems to be speeding up. I blink and see the thermal register of the vehicle. The engine is heating up and speeding up. Bert's heat is hotter than anyone else's. I jump out of the way but I remember I left Jim lying there on the rocks. I run over to him and try to pull him out of the way of the car but he's heavy.

"Come on Jim, move, please. We're about to be crushed."

"Sorry mate, you go on without me. I can't move."

"Well, help me."

"No, you go on."

"I can't leave you here." I try tugging his arm. "Mate, come on."

"I can't move Nick. You go without me." I keep tugging his arm. "No Nick, just leave."

The Car is meters away from us. As it comes upon us I jump out of the way and flick myself around in fear that Jim was killed. He had disappeared and the car keeps rolling away over the mountain. But wait, there's Jim, hanging onto the back of the car, he's pulling himself up the tailgate and up the soft canvas-like roofing. I start running toward the runaway Jeep, my sight begins to fade but I keep running. Everything goes black, the Jeep's engine stops, I stop running. I yell out, "Jim! Jim! Where are you?"

"I'm over here, on the other side of the mountain!" He yells back.

"Jim, keep talking, I'll follow your voice."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm blind! I'm blind. But not to worry, I'll still find you." I say expecting a reply, a reply I don't get. The engine starts up again and sounds as if it turns to face me. I don't know what to do, so I freeze. I have never been in this sort of situation before.

I hear a voice in my head that's not my own, "Nick, don't worry, I've got you."

"One of the telepaths?" I think in reply.

"Yes, I'm Roco." It says. "I'm right behind you."

"Then why don't you speak?"

"I can't."

"Why not?" I say.

"I just can't. Gee, I knew this would happen. Just believe me, I can speak."

"Okay, sure." He pushes me to the right, into the radiation field, the car goes past us both. "What was that for!? Can you see what's happening? I'm sure you'd say I can't tell you and just believe me. Well, I guess your eyes are better than mine, but I'm sorry but only got my sight yesterday. Why can't you tell me? Oh, let me guess because you can't speak. Am I right?"

"No!" His facial expression changes with the thought.

I blink my eyes and look at him. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realise."

"That's Fine nick, I understand. You couldn't see me."

"So can you tell me now? I want to know why I was pushed." I say to the poor guy with glassed eyes.

"Okay, I'll tell you. I can't talk to you because I'm mute, I literally cannot speak. I pushed you because, although I'm blind too I can see the very near future of the people around me. Not only am I mute and blind, I couldn't tell you your future."

"Okay." I say in confusion.

"There's like this greater power messing up my thoughts when I go to tell anyone."

"So this radiation didn't give you your sight back?"

"No, but others like me still had their vision from before they were exposed. The only thing they gained was the ability to foresee people's near future, in more detailed, their near fates. I just gained the telepath power too. Although using my telepathic powers I can see through other people's preceptive."

"Can you please go and find anyone who can help us take down this car and get them to help fight."

"Sure." His thoughts go quiet and I wonder if he's even doing anything. Then his thoughts come back along with a few others. "They're in."

"Roco, can you try to find Jim?"

"Sure." He pauses and turns his head as if he's looking around. "Nope, his not there."

"Okay, here's what do, Roco, can you please send this out to everyone who's helping? Here's what we do, when the car comes back, I'm going to scan its thermal reading to tell you what is vulnerable, whoever can manipulate objects, I need you to go at it." The car comes zooming past, Roco and I push Roco and myself out of the path.

The car comes back faster than it possibly can. I blink to see the thermal register of this area. At the base of the mountain, the radiation heat register is stronger than at the top, but it kind of fade away as it gets closer to the summit. I look at the car, the engine is overheating and the fan doesn't seem to be doing anything. "Hit the front, between the bumper bar." A rock flies at the car, ripping a hole in some mesh in the front of the car. The car comes closer as it flies past. The fan stops but the engine is still overheating. There's a hot battery in front of the engine to the right. A rod of metal flies past my head and gets lodged in the car. The engine splutters but keeps going. Every time It goes past it comes closer and closer, pushing me closer to the top of the mountain and away from the radiation field. I'm starting to panic. The car is coming straight at me, I freeze, I don't know what to do. Fire starts coming from around the rod of metal. It does a complete front flip over me as the front of the Jeep is blown clean off. I stand there watching it hit the ground on the two remaining wheels and barrel roll down the side of the mountain. I run down to the flaming ball of slow-melting metal inferno. I try to see inside through the flames at two faceless corpses sitting in the seats upside down.

"Roco!" I call out.

I hear his voice in my head. "We did it!"

"You knew this was going to happen, didn't you!"

"Ye..." I cut him off.

"But I know what you're going to say. You're going to say, you knew but you couldn't tell me. I thought you used that power to save people, to make sure their fates don't come so horrifically. Why did you allow for this?"

"Yes I could see this coming, but I couldn't tell you. I know you're angry, but after the rod went through the car and it blew up, there was nothing I could do to save them."

I turned to Roco and start punching him. "Hey Roco, I hope you can't see me when I do this." I trip him over and his face hit the ground. There was a crunch. I lay into him, punching him and kicking him. He fidgets and flinches with every hit. I'm lashing at him, the other telepaths run over and grab me around the on the shoulders and arms and pull me away, I shake them off, punch them up and run back at Roco. I go up to him and kick him in the side so hard he bounces off the ground for a second and rolls over. I run away and hear the others call me "He's dead, he's dead. Nick, get a medic!" I ignore them and keep running. "What have I done?" I say to myself. I put my hand on my head, squeeze in shame and keep running. I can no longer show my face in Marblegold again. "How could I have done that? Why did I do that? What am I?" I ask myself as I run towards Zenith and decide, that's the safest place for me to be in order to keep everyone safe. The elder Apeiros called me the protector, so I'm protecting. I'm protecting everyone else from myself. I don't know what I could do to them. I sit a corner between two pieces of rubble in the dark and stare at the doorway I walk through the other day with the kind of look that says I'm going to kill anyone who walks through there."