Beyond the Horizon(An apocalypse novel)

Chapter 15: Interception

He stared at the place she’d appeared at for a few moments more before sighing. There were more important matters at hand.

’Delusion.’

He hadn’t found a practical use for it so far. Masking his own sight and smell had its uses, though it arguably had its downsides as well.

It was all fake, after all. If he was bleeding, then hid the pain, blood, and wounds from sight, he wouldn’t even be able to tell when he bled to death.

At least from what he could tell. He wasn’t willing to test it out.

Then there was the pain in his skull. The longer he kept the skill active, the worse he could feel it getting.

It wasn’t unbearable though. Not yet.

’Not much for now, then.’

After combing through his mind, the best he could come up with was negation. Removing distractions like smells, sounds, or even pain from stopping his focus.

The proof of concept already worked. The air smelled fresh rather than rancid; the ground looked spotless as well.

’What about sound? Or pain?’

He didn’t waste time in putting those thoughts into action. First was the sound.

Miles targeted the rattling of the heater and the deluge outside. He imagined them not being real, what the room would sound like.

The pressure on his skull increased again, to the point it began to feel like a light migraine. But it worked.

The world instantly quieted down. He could hear the whispering conversations coming from his classmates.

When he paid close attention to them, however, the words turned up muffled and incomprehensible. As though they were underwater.

His brows furrowed at that.

’Why—’

He stopped the thought before it fully formed. The answer seemed rather obvious when he thought about the ability.

[Delusion.]

It was all a lie to begin with. In reality, the snowstorm and the sound of the heater still boomed through the gym, drowning out any whispers or close conversations.

The ability merely added a filter on that reality, clearing the storm and heater, but it could never make those whispers any clearer.

Leading to the current situation, where the whispers were louder as he’d imagined they’d be in a quiet room, yet completely incomprehensible due to the actual situation.

A shiver ran down his spine in the face of a reality so obviously mangled. Still, he didn’t stop.

’I might as well go through with it.’

Next, he targeted his wounds—those on the back of his hands and his face. It’d been hours, yet they all still hurt.

Feeling the pain emanating from them, he closed his eyes once more, imagining his skin whole and painless. Just like it had been this morning.

He struggled with this. Even though he’d been fine this morning, and the visualization should’ve been easy, the sensations of the wounds—directly connected to his nerve endings—were much more difficult to override than just sight or sound.

Still, after taking deep breaths to clear his mind, he was barely able to do it. The moment he did, all the pain vanished, instantly.

He felt exactly like he had this morning, right before that window blew in next to him.

Unfortunately, the pressure also spiked, pushing what had felt like a light headache onto the cusp of becoming a full-on migraine.

Miles could only revel in that state of painlessness for a scant few moments before slowly deactivating the ability, seeking to avoid a repeat of the last time he’d done it.

The dulled sensations crept back in like a tide. The awful smell, the deafening noise, and the pain all phased back slowly, breaking through a fog of his own making.

He could only let out a sigh of relief once done. The transition still felt jarring, yet the whiplash was much more manageable this time around.

Witnessing how thoroughly it could twist his sense of reality, he could really only thank his luck that the whiplash was all that happened to him.

He looked up from his perch, seeing the other students still waiting. Those with their friends were whispering softly between themselves.

As expected, he truly couldn’t hear anything.

Beyond that, he had found a few more limits to the ability.

’The pressure seems to increase with complexity.’

That, and how well he could visualize things. Some delusions were naturally easier to believe than others.

Making an item disappear from his line of sight was rather simple, all things considered, as long as he could imagine what lay behind it.

On the other hand, creating detailed, complex objects would be much more difficult, same as getting rid of a large wound from his body. Both for different reasons.

Complex delusions took a much higher toll on him. As for the wounds, it was rather hard to deceive himself into believing there were no wounds, especially when they kept making their presence known to his nerve endings.

All in all, he could only hope there was more to it than just this.

’Perhaps at a higher level.’

He’d seen those numbers beside the skills and had long come to terms with the reality facing him.

From what he’d seen online, and all he’d experienced so far, there was no hope of things going back to how they were before.

Just as he had that thought, the sharp sound of an alarm ringing pierced through the room’s deafening atmosphere.

Mr. Morgan glanced at his vibrating phone, a dark look on his face.

"That’s thirty minutes."

The room stayed silent in response. There really was nothing to say, besides maybe ’I told you so.’ Miles doubted anyone, even Brandon, was callous enough to say that out loud.

The silence gave way to tense somberness as they all looked to Mr. Morgan for direction.

The man opened his mouth, then closed it, before shaking his head.

"I’ll give Freeman a call."

He typed something on his phone before tapping it and placing it on speaker. It began ringing, audible even through the racket.

Once, twice, thrice, and on the fourth try, it picked up.

A stale, distant, yet familiar-sounding voice came through the line.

"Mr. Morgan."

It was the principal.