Awake | Wattys Winner!

INTERLUDE

Conrad Blackwood, London Euston.

The well-dressed man's hands dive into his pockets, fishing for a moment before slapping a black passport onto the counter. Conrad Blackwood. It was the only one he had, printed with a fake name and a fake life. 

This would have been so much easier if he wasn't drained, it would have taken five seconds to book a train out of the country, because all he'd have to do was mutter a few words of authority and everyone would have obeyed. But everything was harder now, everything from what to do next to the task of lifting his hand to retrieve the passport after a hesitant nod from the security staff.

His whole body ached. It was completely weak, something he'd never remembered experiencing before. She'd done something to him, something he'd never comprehended. It was like she'd sucked away his life, not just his mental energy, but his physical energy too. The moment the switch was flicked and she gained the upper hand he knew he had to run. He'd lost control, not just of her, but of everything. Everyone.

The headline on the newsstand beside the platform caught his attention. Mass Hypnosis Rumoured to be Responsible for NWBU Disaster. He picked up his pace and boarded the train, casting an uneasy look over his shoulder. He was vulnerable.

Isaac Mikhailov, New West Brighton University.

Isaac's fingers ran over the police tape. He wasn't going to give up. No, there was no way he could. It was very possible that he was the only one who knew the whole truth, but how was he supposed to say that without being taken away with her? They'd written almost everyone involved off as incompetent to give statements. But they didn't understand. He'd obsessed himself with studying hypnosis since the day Aspen told him everything. And he knew it wasn't hypnosis. 

It was something much stronger than that. Something supernatural. And even though he was skeptical of his memories, the touch of Aspen's lips on him, his energy flowing into her as if she were a magnet, made him unable to doubt the truth.

There was something very wrong intertwined with what she could do. 

With his friends left unhinged and his world now filled with an uncertain fear at every corner, he was left with only one desire. He was going to find Conrad Blackwood, and he was going to kill him. Though he was almost certainly weak now, Isaac knew he could be back at any moment to finish the job. And while he didn't have mental superpowers, he also didn't have a destroyed mind, like Aspen. Instead, now that she was gone, he had nothing to lose. 

Aspen Conway, Broadmoor Hospital.

My world is blurred. I'm separated from it by a layer of clouds, it's like cotton balls have been jammed in my ears, my jaw locked with cement.

Every brain has a capacity. Every relationship has a balance. And mine is overloaded, on both parts. I know this because I am alone. I'm trapped. Only it's not by anyone else. It's by my own mind.

My body is muted. I am muted. I'm a captive to myself. If I let one piece of me free I know it will result in an explosion, like a balloon bursting or a flame meeting gas. My mind is my new home, nothing else is reachable. Not my lips, not my fingertips, and not the flock of people around me, shoving tubes down my throat and shining lights in my eyes. Not Isaac and Isobel, whose fingertips had dug bruises into me as the doctors pried me away. 

I can't explain to them that I'm innocent. But inside the power within me, pressing onto my skull like a wild animal wanting to be free, I can sense something. Something dark and twisted and something I'm scared I can't control.

I need them to keep me here, away from them. Where I can harbour this energy at a safe distance. Until somehow, some way, I can let it out and escape.