The Gifted Chronicles: Power

Chapter 17: Nightime adventures

Ash tosses and turns in her bed dreaming of an apocalypse that consumes the world due to the tyranny of her enemies. She wishes she could use her own gift to give herself a good dream but Ash knows that her own tricks won't work on her. Ash sits up quickly in a flash, she hits her head on Ollie's head noticing that he is standing over her licking her face with comforting licks. She holds her forehead and looks at her digital watch which reads 4:oo a.m. "Ow, I'm sorry Ollie, are you okay buddy? Why are you standing on me? He sits down on her lap wagging his tail while slightly hurting her legs due to his weight, "Get off me." Ash whispers to her lab, "Oh, I'm betting you want to go outside?" Ollie gets up leaping off her bed and spins circles on the floor, "Ollie, Ollie, Ollie calm down buddy." She whisper yells at her as she jumps out of bed to grab him. She kneels on the floor to give him a hug to calm down, "okay, okay I'll take you outside." Ash looks around to see the others asleep. She glances around and shoves her pillow and clothes in her bed to make it look like she is asleep, they'll look for Ollie as well. Ash shrugs her shoulders at herself. She pulls on her tan ankle length hiking boots, "Ollie ready to go outside?" She pulls on her coat and grabs her staff then sneaks to the door with Ollie following her. Ash walks out into the quiet dark hallway. "I wonder if everyone wakes up in the night." Shortly after she hears the slight echo of the door open after her, "I guess I was right huh Ollie?" Ash and Ollie make it to the main lobby where they sneak outside. Ash walks down the road to find a second road splitting off, in a way I'm glad I grew up around here. She walks down the road with Ollie sniffing about for any scent he hasn't smelled. Ash hears the faint sound of a pond fountain. "Ollie, wanna go swimming?" Ollie bounds over to her answering in yes. That is how Ash and her parents picked out Ollie's name; she remembers they took him down to the creek as a puppy for the first time and he jumped right in like an otter. Ollie the otter dog. She rounds an S curve to hear Ollie splash in the water excitedly. "Ollie come here boy." Ash runs over to the dock that stoops over the small pond with a stick she picked up on her way over there. "Look what I got for you." She throws it into the pond for Ollie to catch. Ollie jumps into the pond like an otter.

Scorch churns in her bed thinking about all of the people left behind at the old facility. She picks her head up slightly to see Ash take her dog outside the room, don't worry about it she is probably taking her dog to go to the bathroom. After several minutes of shuffling in her bed while trying to make her mind go blank she decides to get up and go for a walk. What am I even doing here? The team seems to do well without me. Besides I need to go home and see my family. Scorch opens the door to walk around the hallways hoping that walking off her thoughts will help them leave her in peace maybe she could even get Ash to use a mind trick on her to get rid of these thoughts. The hallway was unusually dark, lit by dim emergency floodlights lined up on the ceiling. There is both comfort and fear to the dark but I am not sure which I should choose. Scorch carefully makes her way down the grey linoleum hallway when she hears the patter of bare feet down the hallway in front of her. She presses herself up against the wall doing her best to blend in unnoticed.

Blaze wakes sweaty up from a haunting nightmare of S.T.E.P. attacking the previous facility and seeing people he would have gotten to know get die right in front of him. He glances around the room to see the others sleeping soundly. But doesn't notice Ollie laying around. Blaze shuffles his blankets to make it look like he is still in bed then he teleports to the pantry of the mess hall. "Midnight snack should ease my conscience." He whispers to himself as he pulls out a bag of ranch chips. I couldn't save them! I left them behind! It's my fault that I dropped a ship onto our people without thinking of the consequences. Blaze clutches his bag of chips and sits down thinking of the same thoughts. We will be saving the people that got captured soon though. Blaze stands up and places the chip bag back onto the shelf. Instead of using up his energy in his metabolism Blaze decides it's best to walk back to the room. As he is making the last stretch down the hallway, he hears the creak of the room's door clank shut. Blaze continues walking until he gets to the corner of the grey hallway and peers around the edge at the figure trying to sneak around.