Sentilia

Chapter 28

They approached quickly, and I could see clearly into the closest man's mind. The other Sentilians were beside me, probing my mind, questioning my plan. But I didn't care; it was the only option I could think of, right now.

"Do you have a better idea?" I said, sarcastically.

I felt a spark of renewed hope then, and determination coming from them. They came to stand behind me, facing the forest, their postures confident, and I knew at once that I was going to lead this experiment. They were waiting for some sort of direction from my part. We started picking one man each out of the dozen that were coming.

And all at once, we started. We were connected, we were strong; we were all thinking about speeders going around their heads. That was the vision we projected as one.

The weaker minds immediately begun to slow. They forgot why they were running, why they wanted to hurt us; they were looking around in the air, trying to figure out what was happening.

However, some still came speeding in our direction. We all wanted to help, but if we lost contact with our chosen target, they would just start running towards us again. So we concentrated harder, as a whole, to help the others, and our easier targets just started crumbling to the ground.

An eight of a second passed, and the others all stopped dead in their tracks. Our concentration didn't break, or even lessen, and our triumph was glorious.

"Maxine!" I turned towards K, with a smug face, trying not to break my concentration. His eyes widened, his mouth opened. My smile faded. Oh no.

I turned to the forest, where he was staring, to see a man standing there with a gun pointed towards K.

A lot happened at the same time, then. Without thinking, I jumped in front of K to protect him. A shot broke the silence. Just a foot before the bullet hit me, a flare of blue light threw up in the sky and stopped the bullet.

The safeguard was working.

I was still alive.

K had done it.

I looked up at him. His face was red, beads of sweat were dripping from his forehead; he was frozen in place. His eyes were locked on the position where the soldier had been standing, from which he was long gone.

Another shot. This time it crossed over, barely missing Kleio. I jumped up.

The next shot, which was headed straight for me, was stopped, again, the same way it had been previously. What was happening?
"Kleio, are you doing this?" I choked out the question, crouching down, knowing another bullet could hit me at any moment.

"Yes, I am," was his murmured answer.

"Damien!" K called his name without turning his head. A man in his forties appeared beside me, nodded once to Kleio, and concentrated on the forest. A few of the soldiers had retreated. But Damien was watching out for us.

I tried probing Damien's mind to find out what had just happened, since Kleio was closed off again, trying to fix the dome. But Damien was trying to hide something. His energy was centered on sweeping the forest to uncover any lurking danger, so I jumped at the occasion to dig a little deeper. In the end though, Damien was experienced and I wasn't able to read any of his thoughts.

Not a noise broke the silence. The atmosphere was tense. The adrenaline was slowing in our veins.

"I...I think I got it to work properly, this time."