Things of Thoughts of Things (1/3)

[Midna]

By this point, Callie was wondering if she was going to wake up on the ground every day. She opened her eyes with a sigh, and sat up. Odd, they weren't in the building anymore. Instead they were on a new street, surrounded by skyscrapers and office buildings. She'd been here before, so it didn't bother her too much, but she wondered how they had gotten here.

It looked like Blayze was still asleep. She didn't feel like waking him up after yesterday's incident, so she just waited. He'd probably wake up soon.

Her phone buzzed, and she pulled it out. Another mission from M. Read three minds? How was she supposed to do that? Maybe it was another of these Pin things. She might even need a special pin to do it...

[Snow]

Blayze muttered a profanity as he woke, cracking his back. "Ugh. Do we have to wake up on the ground everyday?" he complained, checking his phone when it buzzed. He noticed that Callie was already up and he gave her a hesitant smile.

Read minds. He had to read minds. "What is this crap?" he growled. "How are we even supposed to read minds? Is that a thing in this place now? Since when has that been a thing?!"

[Midna]

Callie huffed in amusement. "Looks like whoever put us here has a horrible sense of humor."

She got what Blayze was talking about, definitely. It wasn't possible to read minds in the real world, was it? But apparently they could in this one. "Maybe it has something to do with a pin? I don't think it's your fire or my meteor one, but we haven't used the skull ones for anything yet and there are bound to be more."

[Snow]

Blayze looked at her, pondering. "...Maybe." He shook his head to clear out the fuzzy memories and focused in the here and now, absentmindedly opening his jacket and messing with the skull Pin. "How would we use it anyway, though? It... doesn't seem to have any purpose."

[Midna]

Callie unclipped her own skull pin from her shirt and held it in her hand, frowning. "I... have no idea. I think it glowed a little when we said we would work together though. Maybe we have to say something?"

She looked around, and focused on a short man pacing a few feet away. Then Callie clutched the pin and pointed at him. "Read his mind," she said.

Nothing. She felt slightly foolish, and dropped her arm back to her side.

[Snow]

Blayze chuckled a bit. "Nah, not like that. I think..." He pressed the Pin and concentrated, and suddenly there was an explosion of different thoughts in his head. "Whoa!"

He nearly fell over, but the thoughts disappeared. "I concentrated... and then there were a bunch of different voices! Like a TV show, everyone trying to gain dominance..." He winced a little. "If that's what reading minds is like, then it's not for me."

[Midna]

Callie watched Blayze, and her jaw dropped just a little bit when she saw what he was doing. "Well, that looked... Interesting. Maybe you just have to focus harder on a specific person?" She tried focusing on him, and got nothing. "I can't read you. Maybe it just works on them..."

So she tried. Concentration on the man from before and trying to block out all other thoughts, she gasped as she heard something, a jumbled voice in her head. It sounded like he was trying to remember where he'd left his car. Poor guy. "There's one."

For her second one, she chose a woman in a suit. The woman looked exhausted, with dark circles under her eyes. Wondering what was up, Callie focused on her. "Two-" She paused, her eyes widening, "What?" Appearing in her thoughts was a picture of Callie, then... a gravestone with roses on cold marble and her name engraved on it. She could also sense a lot of sorrow, and heartbreak.

Callie's breath caught. To this woman, she was dead. And the woman missed her. But Callie had no memories of her. Even though she'd obviously meant a great deal to the woman. Her concentration wavered, and the pictures vanished. Callie's voice broke when she spoke.

"Can you... Would you do the last one? Please?"

[Snow]

Blayze noticed her change in behavior and nodded, smiling sorrowfully. "If I start going all army on you, just like slap me or something, okay?"

He touched his pin and focused on a middle-aged man in a suit. But he couldn't read the man. Eyes narrowing in concentration, he switched his focus to a younger man in a lab coat. He was trying to figure out if it would be worth it to buy some kind of device now or later, or if he should just buy a Pin.

And without even realizing it, Blayze began to crouch. Just one hit, he muttered to himself, just one hit to take down the enemy...

[Midna]

Callie nodded and shook her head, trying to calm herself. It was okay. She'd figure it out. She'd find some way to get back and come back to life and find out who this woman was. But she had to wonder, who else had she forgotten? Was it the injury from the car accident that had done this? Or was it something else?

...What if they never came back to life?

She broke herself out of that depressing train of thought just in time to see Blayze start to crouch. The look was starting to appear in his eyes again. Stepping towards him, she gave him a swat to the top of his head, not too hard but not gentle either. "Hey," she said, "Stay with me. Did you read one?"

[Snow]

Blayze broke out of it with a whine. "That hurt," he pouted, rubbing his head. "Yeah, I got one. Cute blue-haired kid with the lab coat. Apparently, Pins are getting more popular." He rubbed his head again, turning look at her. "You didn't need to hit so hard."

COMPLETE!