Overlap

Chapter 30: Burning Hatred

<11/08/2010 - 06:30 | 559 Motion Street, Austell, GA, USA>

As I woke from my morning slumber, my mind and body managed to move with purpose. While it normally takes me about forty minutes for my level of alertness to rise, I already felt fully awake minutes after leaving my bed. As soon as I made it to the bathroom to begin brushing my teeth, excitement dominated my mood, fueling my mental energy so that I may imagine what this Monday will be like.

The reason for my excitement would have surprised me days ago, but I now understood the benefits of that choice I made last Tuesday morning. I wasn't entirely thrilled about going to school, but I did have one trump card to make my whole day a little more bearable, a secret that nobody else knows about.

A new power has been given to me, the power to invoke telepathy and use it to stay in touch with an Altiri alien from another world. Sure, it sounds ridiculous when I say it like that, but Lumina is something else entirely. She doesn't pull any punches, doesn't filter any of her words, and best of all, she has motivation in making my life more interesting in a number of ways. I don't know if that makes us friends or not, but I am going to call her again, regardless of whether I believe the Altiri to be real or false.

Of course, it's one of the coolest things I could have ever wished for too. How many other middle school kids can say they've met a space alien before? I know I'm no different from everyone else, but having such an opportunity kind of makes me feel special. I have something that nobody else has right now, hiding in plain sight, a secret ally, a new friend.

It's also been nice and cold in Georgia too, the temperature staying put and behaving as it should. I didn't think about it too much, but I remembered what she said about the main constraint to telepathy. If the outside area heats up to about 64oF, then I won't be able to contact her. If it gets warm during our connection, it will just fail automatically. But I didn't have to worry about any of that right now. I could pack my things, go to school, and live the double-life of a boy who has another mind to experience this world with him. I was finally looking forward to it.

The hour passed as I prepared myself and headed outside. I figured out what I was supposed to do, but also realized I was always going to need a little amount of cover prior to doing it. Wearing a T-shirt and shorts to intentionally absorb the sheer cold around me, I traveled about a quarter of the way to the bus stop before sliding behind a thin tree, resting my back against the bark and turning my head in many directions to scope out who might be near.

But the coast was clear, giving me the green light to attempt a telepathic surge. One aspect of trying to call Lumina was that it created the need for immense mental and psionic focus. I knew what I had to do, but I also knew what I would look like from an outside perspective. I had to shut my eyes, release my hands, tilt my head forward ever so slightly, and steady my breathing. If anyone were to get a good look at me in this exact moment, the pose I was making would be a dead giveaway that I was up to something unusual.

I knew nobody could guess what I was up to if I were to get caught in the act, but I still didn't want the headache of explaining myself anyway. Even if I could make up something, I'd rather not appear to be suspicious at all. What I needed now was absolute silence and concentration from within. Trying to describe what I did next is always something I can't put into exact words. Somehow, I can feel my own psionic projections as I'm making them now. When I project outward, I have to change the frequency of what I'm blasting out to match the psionic signature of the person I'm trying to contact. Therefore, most of this was a deep concentration aura mixed with a sudden mental obsession with Lumina. I had to keep her in my thoughts, every last one of them as they were brought to the forefront in order for this technique to work. I also had to stay focused and concentrate, not allowing the signal to deviate from anything such as a distraction, which can be caused by my imagination alone.