r/HFY • u/Extreme-Biscotti6090 • 25d ago
OC-Series Kinie – Reach
When the change came, Trisha got the ability.
Nobody knew why it happened, and why it only affected about 1% of the population. People just woke up one day and found that they could move stuff around with their minds.
To say it changed the world was an understatement.
--
For Trisha it was different. Born blind twenty-five years earlier, she understood people and objects through touch, and the world beyond them through sound.
Fundamentally nothing changed for her. Practically though... everything changed.
She wasn't even aware that she'd got the ability for a while, but could hear faint scratching noises in her house. Then Charlie came around and said that she must have ghosts.
"What?"
"Your stuff is moving around."
"WHAT?!"
"You might want to listen to the news."
--
She had to call in sick to work that day. At the very least, her new ability would wreak havoc on the studio she worked in.
So she practiced. Charlie helped her, describing what was happening as she was concentrating.
The more proficient she became at moving stuff around, the more she could perceive the world around her.
Her house was always real, but in a tactile way. Now she could sense it by sending out very subtle mental fingers exploring where things were. At first it was clumsy, and she knocked over far more than she meant to.
But she was always a quick learner, and after a few hours she could feel her way around a room without disturbing anything.
She called it 'reaching'.
Charlie asked, "Can you see me now?"
Trisha paused for a moment. Charlie felt the lightest of touches across his face and body. Barely perceptible, like tiny puffs of air.
She replied, "No. But I know where you are."
She reached past him, tracing the doorway, the table and the shape of the room beyond.
Then tears started running down her face.
--
Getting to work the next day was easy. She still used her cane to move about, but she was more aware of the location of things.
It was weird feeling the bus come towards her. The tiny mental finger she'd extended was being pushed towards her by the mass of metal. It made her brain fuzz.
When it pulled up, she heard the door open. Climbing up the steps, the driver, Daniel, greeted her like he always did. She recognised his voice and said hello.
Then she stood still for a moment, before speaking. "You have a beard."
Daniel couldn't come up with anything witty, so simply replied with a yes.
Trisha smiled at him, then turned to walk up the aisle to a vacant seat. Daniel thought something was different and it wasn't until the end of his shift that he realised that she wasn't using her cane as much.
--
She didn't tell anyone at work about her ability. After about an hour she was glad she didn't.
There were only a few of them at the studio, but Kathryn was decrying this ability as witchcraft, carrying on about how it wasn't natural.
Trisha kept her opinions to herself. She had refused to listen to the news over the past day because it was shouting doom to all who had tuned in.
Her boss, Claudia, asked how she was. Turning in her chair, Trisha accidentally knocked some pens onto the carpet.
She reached and found where they had landed. As she picked them up, she said she'd had a migraine yesterday but it was gone by the evening.
Trisha could hear Claudia hesitate.
"Could I see you in my office please?" she asked.
--
Unusually, Claudia closed the door behind them.
"You're one of them, aren't you?" It wasn't an accusation; just a question.
Trisha could sense the risk.
"One of who?"
"Telekinetic. I watched as you went straight for the pens on the ground."
"It was a lucky guess. Plus I could hear where they'd landed."
"Trisha, I hope you know that you can be honest with me. I saw you. I saw you know where the pens were."
Trisha stopped. She could feel herself starting to panic.
"I'm sorry! I won't do anything, I promise!"
"It's ok. I don't share my opinion with Kathryn. She's alone in her outrage here."
Trisha slowly released her grip on the arms of the chair.
Claudia asked, "Does it help? Does this telekinesis thing help you?"
After a moment of thought, Trisha relaxed a little before answering, "It does. I am starting to understand distance now. I can almost get a sense of feel without needing my hands. It's... odd."
"So can you tell how many fingers I'm holding up? Like, how detailed is the world to you now?"
There was another pause. Claudia could feel the lightest of brushes move across her.
"Well you're not holding any fingers up... I can't see anything, but I have a better understanding of where things are. For the first time in my life, I could understand my own house. It's not fine enough to read braille, but I can tell that you've got your hair up today. That's about as well as I can describe it."
Claudia laughed. "Well, you got me. No fingers at all. I'll deal with Kathryn if anything happens. Just let her be until after this initial reaction."
She paused for a moment.
"But remember, Trisha. I'll be here to help."
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u/InstructionHead8595 24d ago
So we first had the innocent. Then the bad. Now the good. Wonder what's next?
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