Touch: a Survival Story.

Mistakes: 1.4

Mistakes: 1.4

James:

"James, Bex." Sarah's voice called from the kitchen. "Breakfast's up in five. Finish getting ready!"

"Kay!" James shouted back, his head turning momentarily towards his bedroom door, before returning his attention to the mirrored door of his closet. He watched himself closely, holding onto the handle as firmly as he could. "Okay," he mumbled under his breath. "Now then. Fly. Go on." He tried to will himself upwards off the ground. Nothing. He groaned, then tried again, thinking of air and floating things and just about anything he thought might help. In spite of this, his feet remained very firmly planted to the ground.

"James," Sarah called once more. "Grub's up! C'mon, we're gonna be late!"

James sighed, returning his attention to the door.

"Coming!" He shouted back, letting go of the dresser handle and taking a step towards his door. He let out a little yelp of surprise as his foot came down on nothing but air. He tipped forwards, a feeling disorientingly similar to falling, and threw out his arms to stabilize himself. He wobbled slightly for a few moments, before righting himself. "O-okay," he muttered. "So that wasn't a dream. I really am flying right now. Good to know." He reached behind himself, grasping for the handle of his cabinet and using it to push himself back down onto the ground. "Now I just need to figure out how to land."

"James!" Came Sarah's voice again. "Last warning! Come eat your breakfast or I'm coming in there to drag you out here myself!"

"Right, sorry," James replied with a small sigh, making his way through the door towards the kitchen. "Be right there."

Casper:

Casper made his way to the school by a roundabout route that morning, the same as he had done the morning before and all the mornings of the last school week, taking a different route each time. He figured he may as well use his morning commute to try and find bad people for Tasha. It wasn't a task he relished in any particular fashion, searching specifically for pockets of negative emotion. Quite the opposite, in fact. But he had made a promise, and Tasha didn't really like to be kept waiting.

Casper extended his power out with a groan, feeling his personal bubble of awareness expand to it's maximum range. Immediately, he felt minds colliding with his psyche by the dozen, from the thankfully neutral emotions of most early morning commuters, to the many spots of varied color littered all throughout the nearby buildings. He had been prepared for it, had known it was coming, and still the wave of input threatened to overwhelm him. He held on tight, letting the storm front of it break over him. He let out a small sigh of relief as it began to subside, his mind acclimating slowly to the influx. With a concentrated effort, he slowly began trying to filter out the neutral emotions from the crowd, letting them fade to white noise in his mind. It helped, in a way, having a backdrop of calm, almost bored people all around; it gave him something to anchor himself to. That done, Casper resumed his journey towards the school, his attention focused on the buildings that littered his side of the street. Cafe's, alleyways, and apartment buildings.

The method wasn't perfect. Even at his maximum range, Casper couldn't fit whole multi-story buildings within his perception, but it functioned well enough for the first three stories or so. This was simply the fastest way of searching he'd come up with thus far.

The first three blocks or so were largely uneventful, littered with the occasional spot of misery or fear, but nothing of the sort that he thought might indicate a crime. The lack of activity wasn't too much of a surprise to him. It usually took him days of searching like this to find a lead. He began to hum slightly to himself as he walked, trying to stave off the ever present boredom of the morning commuters in some small way, not that it really helped at all.