Psych Investigation Episodes: Episode 1 (A Young Adult Scifi / Fantasy) (2 page)

“
Hey, seriously, man, are you
okay?”

Why is my stomach hurting so
much?

The pain multiplied. His stomach felt as if it
were being sliced open. Jack had missed many assignments before,
but why was this one so important? He couldn’t understand it. All
he could do was watch in silence as Mr. Munson came closer and
closer to his desk. Everything was going wildly out of control. His
head started to fog up. The room was spinning, each rotation adding
another notch of pain. He closed his eyes, wondering what was
happening to him.

Then, as if he’d fallen out of reality, there
was pure silence. Jack could no longer hear the sound of Adam’s
voice, he could no longer hear the sound of Mr. Munson checking
papers, and with a start, when Jack opened his eyes, he realized he
could no longer see the two, either. Everything had gone black. All
at once, his vision had been stripped from him, and the entire
world had been submerged into darkness. Nothing filled his vision,
nothing filled his mind, and nothing filled his ears. He was
senseless.

Jack tried to look around the room, but he
could see nothing. The spinning had stopped, and thankfully, all at
once the pain in his stomach faded. Everything was
quiet.

It was then that Jack came to realize the
assignment didn’t matter to him. In fact, even his own well-being
didn’t matter to him. He was calm, and yet something else—Jack felt
his mind open like a door sealed shut for hundreds of
years. For the first time in his life, everything became
crystal clear. A simple truth emerged. It was a truth that was so
obvious, so apparent, and so pure. It was a simple fact, a simple
reality made bright.

If the damned assignment didn’t exist, it
wouldn’t even matter if I did it.

Jack didn't know why the words had so much
meaning to them. Obviously, if there had never been an assignment
to finish, he would not have had to complete it, but what did
that
matter? There
was
an assignment, and yet he
had
not
completed it. And there was nothing he could do to
change that, right?

But what if I could?

Jack filled with excitement. What if he could
change it? What if there was still something he could do to fix
everything? Something had clicked in his mind, something he
couldn’t explain.

In that instant, sound returned to him, as well
as sight. The class was once again noisy and chattering away while
waiting their turn to have their homework checked. Jack surveyed
the room. He could once again see the gum-filled desks, the
blackboard, and the freshly-cleaned tile floors. He could see
something else, too. There was wild amazement in Adam’s
eyes.

“
Adam, what’s wrong?” Jack asked.
His voice was calm and serene.

Adam’s expression held an air of disbelief.
“Something is dangerously wrong here. It’s like … It’s like someone
poured drops into your eyes when I wasn’t looking. Your eyes are
dilated.”

“
My eyes are what, Adam?”

“
Jack, don’t move.” Adam rose from
his seat and turned to face the teacher. “Mr. Munson!” he called.
“We have an emergency.” The class turned to face Adam, all
probably eager to find out what was happening.

“
Well, it had better be, for you to
disturb me during a homework check.”

“
Mr. Munson, it’s Jack,
he—”

An ear-piercing scream from the back of the
room cut Adam off. Everyone turned to look at the redheaded girl
who jumped from her desk, knocking over her chair in the
process.

“
What in the hell?
” she
yelped. “Oh my god, there’s a freaking fire. M-my … my desk is on
f-fire!”

Burning on top of the girl’s desk, in bright
yellow flames, were her notebook, her homework assignment, and her
binder. Dozens of students crowded around, pointing and shoving
each other for a better view.

Mr. Munson, wasting no time, grabbed the fire
extinguisher off the wall and sprinted to the back of the
classroom, where he unleashed it on the burned papers. What had
once been an organized desk was now nothing more than a charred
piece of wood, covered with burnt, unreadable papers turning to
ashes. Thick black plumes of smoke trailed from the wrecked desk,
filling the classroom with an acrid smell.

Mr. Munson looked down at the fire extinguisher
and then back up at the class. “Somebody better explain to me what
just happened. If I find that anyone was playing with matches, you
can bet that your entire high school career is—”

There was another scream, this time from the
middle of the room. The boy who had been throwing paper balls at
Jack leapt from his burning desk and fell backward. Every paper on
top of it was now shooting flames.

“
Oh, for the love of God, what is
happening now?” Mr. Munson darted to the middle of the room, fire
extinguisher in hand. He wasted no time hosing down yet another
desk.

He wasn’t half finished putting the flames out
when two more students cried out, one from the front of the room
and one from the back, each with their desk on fire. Mr. Munson,
now in a complete state of confusion, sprinted back and forth
between the three fires, trying to put little bits out at a time,
as if he was somehow holding each at bay. Students panicked. Shouts
of terror filled the classroom.

One by one, the papers, homework assignments,
and notebooks erupted in flames all around the classroom.
Eventually the class became too shocked to speak, settling instead
for barely audible whimpers. Adam and Jack stood up in unison as
their desks ignited. The smell of smoke was thick in the air, and
as if on cue, the sprinklers above activated, showering the room
with cold water.

The bright yellow flames continued until every
last desk—including the teacher’s—had been set alight. Mr. Munson’s
mouth fell open while he watched the impossible take place. Between
his drenched hair and horrified expression, Jack found the sight of
him comical.

“
Everyone out of the classroom—now!”
Mr. Munson opened the door and evacuated the room. He might not
have known what was going on, but Jack knew that now wasn’t the
time for the teacher to worry about it. His first priority was the
safety of the students.

Everyone on the third floor tried to catch a
glimpse of the fire before being led out of the school. That is,
everyone except Jack, who was shaking his head in confusion,
marveling at the coincidence that had just taken place. He felt a
bit groggy, and he had the feeling that he’d forgotten something
very important, but he pushed the thought out of his mind, grateful
for his sudden change in luck.

Whatever had just happened, Jack was saved,
though at the expense of his entire classroom. He swore that from
then on he would hand in all his assignments on time.

Oh, who am I kidding
?

“
So, another child has been
murdered?” Paro asked his team, his tone filled with regret. He
inhaled, calming his nerves and steadying his shaking
hands.

“
Yes,” Sarah answered, “and this one
is just as bad as the rest.”

Paro looked around at his team, each of them
sitting at the round glass table in their newly-renovated staging
room. Computers and lights blinked and flashed different colors,
temporarily brightening the dimly-lit room and indicating various
status updates. They had some of the most advanced technology on
the planet at their disposal, but it came to them at a steep
price.

To his left sat Sarah Blighter, a beautiful,
slim woman with black hair tied neatly into a ponytail. She was in
charge of gathering intelligence, and her brilliant mind made her
right for the job. She passed the report around to Paro and the
other two members of the team.

To Paro’s right, sliding the paper off the
table and into his massive hands, Kazou Takashi grunted. He was a
muscular Japanese man whom Paro had recruited two years earlier. He
tracked a finger along the report Sarah handed him and shook his
head. Kazou had short black hair and several deep scars running
across his face. He looked like a warrior, a man who had seen the
depths of hell and lived to speak of it.

Paro sensed a grin burning into the side of his
face, and he turned to glare at Michael Reed. He sat casually back
in his leather chair with his legs propped on the table. Of all
present, Michael had been with Paro’s team the longest.

Despite all the years Paro had worked with
Michael, he found him to be quite a troublesome individual.
Michael’s inability to take anything seriously, his utter lack of
professionalism and playful mannerisms, were a never-ending
distraction that often drove Paro to the edge of
madness.

Paro’s identity was unknown to the team. Not
only his birth name, but where he was from, how he got there and
any other information about him.

“
So, tell me, people. What do we
know?” Paro wasn’t surprised when Sarah was the first to
speak.

“
The child’s name was Jonathan
Herbert. One of ours found him this morning in an abandoned
baseball field outside Anker Town. It’s too early to know for sure,
but from what I can see he was probably murdered in the same way as
the others.” She picked up the remote resting on her lap and
projected the images onto the screen.

“
As you can see,” she continued,
“much in the same way as the other children, our victim had his
heart removed from his chest, punctured through his body, and then
exited through his mouth.”

Paro remained silent while he watched Sarah
shift through the disturbing photos of Jonathan Herbert’s last
moments. Kazou was the next to speak.

“
And just to confirm with you,” he
said in crisp, unaccented English. “There were no cuts or external
damage anywhere on the victim?” Kazou had a surprisingly gentle
voice, in spite of his scarred face and massive
physique.

“
That’s right. Because there was no
cutting, and because the victim apparently ‘coughed’ up his own
heart, there is little doubt that a Psych is responsible. The only
question left is which kind? Who or what is
responsible?”

The team pondered quietly for a moment. Michael
was first to break the silence. “Well hey, isn’t it obvious,
fellas? The murderer has gotta be a Telekinetic. I mean, since his
heart was ripped through his body and all.”

“
It’s not as simple as that,” Kazou
said. “Sure, an unusually strong Telekinetic Psych could have that
kind of destructive power, but Psychs from that line can only move
what they can see. How would this killer be able to dislodge
someone’s heart? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Michael grinned. “I’m more concerned with how
Sarah is dislodging
my
heart, with that sexy smile of
hers.” He made an exaggerated gesture of blowing a kiss in the air.
Sarah shook her head. Paro knew she was used to Michael’s annoying
remarks.

 “
Unless, he was an
Unrestricted,” Sarah said, prompting the entire team to once again
shift in their seats. She mentioned the one thing the others
preferred to be left unsaid.

Kazou leaned forward in his chair. “You can’t
be serious. As rare a breed as we regular Psychs are, the chances
of someone having the ability to control all the lines are one in a
million. In fact, with the exception of Paro here, I don’t know
anyone who was born with such a talent.”

Paro, who had been listening in silence,
decided to involve himself in the argument. “I agree with Kazou.
The chances of the killer being an Unrestricted are slim to none,
but there’s another possibility we’re overlooking. What if there
was more than one killer?”

 “
I see what you’re saying,
Paro,” Kazou said. “If there were two killers, and one was a
Telepath, that would certainly make things easier to accept. I’ve
heard some of them are not limited to seeing just inside the mind,
but throughout the entire body. With a very powerful Telepath, he
or she could project the images directly into the mind of a
Telekinetic, and then it would be quite simple for him or her to
…”

“
Exactly,” Paro said. He folded his
hands under his chin. He could see by the look on his team’s faces
that they were taking a moment to think of the dangerous
possibility of two Psychs murdering people together. It was not a
welcome thought.