Dateless and Deadly

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Turns out, a warehouse is the perfect place to host a series of magical tests. There was even an entire area filled with what looked like an obstacle course.

Dread curled through my stomach. I definitely wasn’t here for any sort of physical endurance testing. Let’s just say, I suck at sports. I run. That’s it.

“Ooh an obstacle course,” Sam clapped her hands together in excitement.

What a freak.

“Some people’s magic lies in their physical talents,” Dillon Fort said from behind us, making me jump a little. “Will for instance, can run much faster than most people. He has practiced for a long time to increase his speed and agility and now can run faster than a moving vehicle.” He motioned us down a hallway. We followed.

“This room,” he said gesturing to the room we were looking into from the open doorway, “is where we test for telekinetic ability.” There were a series of objects spaced around the room of varying shapes and sizes. The largest thing in the room was a boulder about my height and wider than the doorframe. Hm…how’d they get it in here?

We moved on. There were a series of rooms dedicated to telepathy some which consisted of two separate areas where one person sat to have thoughts while the person in the other room attempted to read them.

There was also a room filled with electronics of all kinds. Some people could feel the magnetic waves in electronic devices and manipulate them. At least, that’s what our tour guide told us. I was still on the fence about believing in this whole magic business. I mean sure, I’d seen some pretty solid proof thus far but maybe they’d slipped something in the kool-aid, you know? Like poison in the air vents but only hallucinogenic drugs that made you see magic.

That could totally happen.

Once we got to the end of the hallway there was only one room left. In it there was a chair facing a large box that looked a lot like one of those outhouses they have at baseball fields.

“This is where we’ll begin,” Dillon said. “That is what we call a sensory depravation tank. It blocks out all outside sound and images allowing you to focus completely on the magic within you. For today, we did not fill it with water but generally we would so that even your sense of touch is not a distraction. However, the tank can be quite frightening and we didn’t want to scare you ladies off.” He twitched his mustache at us and winked.

Right, that made me want to stay. Not.

“I’ll go first!” my sister volunteered, raising her hand in the air way too enthusiastically. Jeez, what a brown-noser.

“Excellent,” Dillon clapped his hands together, equally enthusiastic. These two were so peppy. It gave me the creeps.

Dillon led her into the tank and after giving her a thumbs up, he shut the door. James walked into the room and with a nod to Dillon and a slight grimace in my direction he took a seat in the chair facing the tank. Dillon and I moved out to the hall to await the results of the test. Dillon explained that because James had excellent telepathic abilities, he was selected to run through a series of images in his mind to see if my sister could pick any of them up.

As I was staring at the tank I was hoping that nothing would happen. I was trying to think of what our lives would be like if we were forced to join this stupid war. Or in Samantha’s case, if we chose to join this stupid war. I just wanted our boring old life back. The one where I did the dishes on alternating days and Sam stayed out late partying while I was at the library. I cringed at the thought of my sister being able to throw people in the air (cheerleading aside).