Tyrant in the Shadows

Part 10

There were cold showers that night. Cold showers, lots of tears. Delaney wasn't able to save the officer with shadows in his mind. He was too far gone. They lost seventeen people. All of them were partners, except Ezra. Meaning Sophia was the only one with a hole to fill where her partner was. It was rare to lose a partner. It hadn't happened since the last war. That had been twenty-two years ago. At least for this outpost. It might be more common at the smaller outposts. They didn't communicate a lot. Not unless absolutely necessary.

"Sophia..." David started, walking to the cot in the healing room with his partner, Layla.

Sophia glanced up, tried to give them a small smile, "Hey, David, Layla."

"How are you doing?" Layla asked, her brown eyes studying her friend.

"Well the healers say that I should be able to sleep in the dorms tonight. I'm not too bad off."

"That's not what she meant..." David muttered, his dark green eyes boring holes into the ground. Quite literally. It seemed he was focusing his potential on his eyes. And his eyes were putting holes in the ground.

"I-uh," she bit her lip, "I don't know," she whispers, "I don't want to think about it."

Layla sits down beside her, "It'll be ok," she assures, rubbing her finger along Sophia's temple. Her power was healing. She used her power to calm Sophia.

Sophia's throat relaxed. She wasn't fighting tears anymore, "It doesn't seem like it right now. But I know it will." She blinked up at the ceiling.

"You ready to go back to your dorm?" another healer asked, walking into the room from the door connecting it to the main room.

"Yup," she sighed, sitting, then standing up to stand beside her classmates.

"Remember, no training for the next couple days. You need to gain your strength back and that won't happen if you're using your powers to try to strengthen them. It'll just exhaust you more."

Of course, Sophia knew this. Teleporters were often the ones exhausted. They were in high demand and there were only about fifteen at the outpost. Of the hundreds of people. "Did we lose any teleporters today?" She asked the healer.

The healer thought before answering, "I don't believe so. And thank the heavens for that. You lot are hard to come by." She smiled, but it seemed forced. 

Maybe she was just trying to convince Sophia that they needed her. So she wouldn't do anything stupid. She wasn't going to do anything stupid. Any time a potential died, no matter how, the nearest shadow fed. She wasn't going to let the shadows have that. Not hers. So she nodded to the healer and walked slowly back to the dorm with her classmates. She tried not to look at the empty top bunk that had been Ezra's. He'd wanted the top bunk and she wanted bottom. Before they had been paired as partners, he hadn't gotten top bunk because he was one of the last to get in the dorm to pick a bunk.

When they were paired as partners, they chose a bed. One of the partners got top bunk, one got bottom. It worked well. He still hadn't matured out of top bunk supremacy when they'd been paired. When they would have graduated to officers, they would've started sharing a bed. Some chose to before they graduated. But the partners had to be comfortable enough with each other that they could sleep in the same bed comfortably before they could graduate. It was part of a trust bond they had to have. No one was worried about unplanned pregnancies with the girls. Potentials were usually infertile until when and if they decided to give up their potential to someone else to live a normal life.

Usually it was the healers that weren't infertile. It made sense. Their powers weren't helpful on a battlefield. There was however, a time when one of the life givers in a class above Sophia's had gotten pregnant and, unaware of the fact, fought in a battle. She was severely injured and ended up miscarrying. Sophia remembered how Delaney and Ivan had been stressed for weeks afterwards, trying to stabilize the girl's powers. There were times where after an intense emotionally trying time where a potential would lose control of their powers. Noxious plants were growing everywhere she walked. The problem came with the deadly nightshade.

So, yeah, not thinking about losing her partner wasn't working. David and Layla had left her room. Probably had tried to talk to her but she hadn't heard. She sat down on her bed and that was when she started sobbing.

...

Ivan and Delaney were making their way to the class common area. They needed to gather their class to talk to them. They needed to make sure they were all ok and schedule an appointment with their mental health professional if they thought any of them had become unstable. They had talked about the girl with white eyes and decided they would take time to explore what her powers could possibly be when the funerals had been conducted.

Most of the class was already in the common area. The only one missing was Sophia. Delaney asked Ivan to go get her while she explained to the others what was going on. She hadn't even gotten to the possibility of mental health help when Ivan called her from the direction of Sophia's room. He sounded scared. She ran towards him and immediately saw what was wrong when she reached the room.

Sophia was gone. 

And she had taken her bed with her.