Overlap

Chapter 102: Clairvoyance

<04/15/2013 - 12:30 | Cage High School (Library), Austell, GA, USA>

When I previously declared myself as a psychic, it didn't feel all that special or important. That was because, until recently, I've only had the one power of telepathy. As it turns out, there are an alarming number of psychic abilities known to the general public.

Telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, claircognizance, future-sight, dynamic projection, astral projection, and biolution. Some unlisted abilities were deemed impossible or debunked entirely by the Scryers of the Altiri, though many others are under a full study, while those of the Yogi Philosophy practice these abilities to some extent.

On one hand, I haven't learned much else from what I used to be capable of; I can now invoke future-sight clairvoyance on top of my specific telepathy. On the other hand, using clairvoyance to see the near future of almost any person I want on demand is still pretty awesome on its own. Just saying it makes me sound like a superhero! Yeah, I'm getting ahead of myself there, but how many other people can say they do the same?

I'm allowed to be confident about my powers, because I can invoke them anytime I want, as long as it's cold enough outside and I have the energy. Here; I'll do it again right now, changing my target this time.

I have Honors Lit for my final period, then I go home from the parking lot as usual. I happen to know Banarus is here today, so I'll focus on her for a change. All I have to do is gently keep my eyes shut, calm my mind, concentrate on what I want, and project very specific signal patterns, just as Lumina coaxed me to do. Lumina told me it can be tricky for a novice when I don't understand the personality of my target, but I know Banarus pretty well by now, so that's already been checked off.

I inhaled a very deep breath, letting my silent surroundings of the library dissolve into the ambient space around me. With my eyes still shut and my mind mostly clear of all thoughts, I concentrated the subject matter directly towards Banarus with all the ordinary details, mainly what she looked like and what her character was like. With that in mind, I had to choose a starting time reference for when I wanted to know the most, the start of my last class of the day. Then, I passively waited, projecting psionic signals without too much power, purposely lowering the amount I could project from theoretical maximum. Lumina trained me not to force anything, that what happens next would happen naturally on its own.

The buzzing sensation inside my head intensified from how it felt before, and after several uneventful seconds of the same kept concentration and gradual projections, random moments of events started flashing quickly through my mind on their own. It looked like some kind of movie playing back at three times the speed, segmented up in pieces skipping through random seconds of time and space. After my reference time reached about 14:52, the moments about Banarus became very specific, less fragmented and more maintained. She was sitting with her usual group of friends, giggling and laughing over whatever jokes she and a few others shared, though I was out of that frame.

As soon as I realized what I was seeing, I immediately switched the target perspective from Banarus directly to myself within the same reference time, within the same momentary invocation of clairvoyance. When I did, I ended up seeing exactly the same thing, just from a different physical angle of sight. Shortly after, I saw the moment fragment again, fast-forwarding past the moment where I ventured to the parking lot amidst the crowded halls of other leaving students, eventually making my way to dad's car before going home.

I ended the vision there, knowing I would learn nothing more from seeing the rest of my own future, since I already used it on myself earlier. Once the vision ended, I opened my eyes, allowing the rest of my mind to process everything I witnessed, while taking a good chug of purified water. What I learned from this invocation wasn't anything far out of the ordinary. In fact, it was kind of boring.