Powerless

6: Tomorrow

I lie in bed, thinking of everything that has happened in the past couple of days. When I stop daydreaming, I notice the pounding in my head. Whenever I have one of these, I sleep it off. I close my eyes and let myself drift off to sleep,

I'm walking down a sidewalk with Julia, everything seems normal. I notice that we are surrounded by several women with the same face. The same eyes, the same face, they're everywhere. All of the eyes are staring at me, I turn to talk to Julia, but she's gone. The women have stopped staring at me, they've turned their attention to a small building. After staring for a while. I realize that the building is the ice cream shop that Julia and I went to earlier today. One of the women walks into the shop. The rest of the women turn towards me and start surrounding me in a circle. I can't escape. The more I look at their faces, the more I notice how fake that they look. The artificial women stay circled around me until the 1st woman returns, simultaneously, they turn to the 1st woman.

"Julia, Time Traveler, 17 years old. Status: deceased."

"Deceased? No, she can't be dead. She was just here, she was right here. You couldn't have killed her. You didn't kill her!" I scream, trying to comprehend the words that I just heard.

Julia is dead.

I wake up. My palms still sweating from the dream. Julia is dead

"Julia!" I scream, crying, hoping to hear her voice again.

"What? What's wrong?" She asks me frantically, running into the room.

"I don't want my powers anymore. I hate this. I can't do this anymore. I have to live with all of these things happening to everyone around me. I can't go through this anymore."

What if you can't save her? You'll be all alone again. I can't go through this anymore. She's all I have left.

"What happened? Did you have another headache? Another vision?"

"Yes." I say, nodding.

"Can you tell me what happened?"

"You died."

"What?" She asks.

"You died, we were walking down the street, these women started to surround us. Then you disappeared. They trapped me until one of the women returned to the group. They all said,

"Julia, Time Traveler. 17 years old. Status: deceased.

"Status? So, like a computer? How would they know that I was dead? They would have to track me in some way, right? How could they track me without a tracking device?" She rambles, too fast for me to respond.

"Slow down, repeat literally everything that you just said, Say it slowly, so I can walk through it with you." I say, halfway joking, trying to calm her down.

"You said that they said 'Status: deceased,' how would they know that I was deceased without some sort of tracking device?"

"They couldn't."

"You said that a group of women surrounded you. Can you elaborate? How many women were there?"

"At least 20. They all had the same face, same body, none of them had hair. They were all exactly the same. They were fake. I'm pretty sure they were robots, their faces seemed sculpted." I say, thinking over my dream.

"How did they get there?"

"Maybe someone sent them. Someone could be out to get you. No, no one in their right mind could want to hurt you, and everyone here is sane. Everyone with a power, at least."

"Not necessarily. super villains aren't always sane." She says calmly. "They just don't get mentors. It's just a lot more difficult for them to develop their powers. Only the most determined person would be able to fully develop their powers on their own. Why would someone want that so badly?" She asks, genuinely confused.

"What if someone wasn't given a mentor, so they're trying to get revenge? They developed their powers on their own and they are stronger than ever." I suggest.

"OK. So, why would they be after me?"

"Duh, you're a mentor now. If they get rid of the mentors, then all of kids will have to work as hard as they did for powers. Everyone will have to work as hard as they did."
'Do you know when it's going to happen?"

"Tomorrow."