Title: The Scared People 

Author: David Hearne

Classification: Post-Ep for "The End"

Rating: PG

Distribution: Anyone who wants it can have it.

Send feedback to ottercrk@sover.net

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The first mind I ever read belonged to this kid who teased me in the
fourth grade. He said the usual stuff. You know. "Four-eyes." "Geek."
"Nerd."

Then, one day, I heard something. I didn't know what it was. Not at
first. It sounded like a radio when somebody is twisting the knob. I
got a headache and had to be sent to the nurse's office.

It took me awhile to figure out that I was hearing other people's
thoughts. So what did I do then?

What do you think I did? I listened to the brain of the kid who was
teasing me. I found out something embarrassing about him. The next
time he called me "geek," I said "What happened to your dad's garden
hose?" He got this really, really scared look on his face and ran off.

I felt good, but not for long. I thought about how that kid felt. I
wondered what would it be like to see that look on other people's
faces -- my mom's, my dad's, my teacher's, everybody. What if
everybody was scared of you?

I didn't want that. I didn't want to be the scary thing. I had looked
inside enough brains to know just how bad people can act when they're
scared.

So I kept my secret. It wasn't the only one I knew.

A year later, my family moved to the Philippines. Big deal. It used to
be interesting, but then I got bored real quick. I looked for anything
to do.

That's how I got to be the "chess whiz." One day, this Russian guy
came to my school. He was this big important chess-player who would
play ten people at once just to show how good he was. This time, he
was going up against "young prodigies" as some kind of charity event.
Nobody expected any kid to give him much game, but deep down...the
audience wanted a surprise.

I gave them one. The look on the Russian's face when I faked him out
reminded me of the kid who teased me. I was happy to beat him. He was
so full of himself.

"I had no idea Gibson was this talented," my mother told reporters.
She was smiling, but she was also a little scared. She and Dad have
been scared of me for awhile. They know I'm different. But they're the
ones who are different. They're the ones who changed to me. Dad's the
one who is taking money he shouldn't take from the Hong Kong guy. Mom
is the one always meeting some other guy without telling Dad.

I used to be mad about this. Now I really don't care all that much. I
was okay with just being the chess whiz.

Then I started to have the weird dreams -- stuff about bright lights
and metal tables. I saw oil leaking from the ground. I saw cavemen
fighting with gray monsters.

And I started to notice people with funny dreams as well. Then I saw
they weren't having dreams. This stuff had really happened to them.
Some of them knew about this, some didn't.

There were a lot of these people. More and more.

I didn't want to think about this. I didn't want to be around scared
people. I just wanted to do my tricks with chess and be left alone.

Then someone tried to kill me and I met three very scared people.

One was a man with a big nose. He had stranger thoughts than anyone I
had ever met. Dirtier ones, too. He had two pretty women with him --
one with red hair and one with dark hair. They were both thinking
about each other. They weren't thinking nice things.

All of them were scared for different reasons. The man was scared of
losing something important, but he didn't know what it was. The
red-haired woman was scared that the truth might be too weird. The
dark-haired woman...

She was scared because she didn't know who to follow. She knew what
was going to happen to me, but she wanted to keep it from happening.

She couldn't have stopped it. Nobody could have. And nobody can stop
everything else that's coming. If I told them about the things that
will happen, they would...I don't know...start an army or something.
But there's no point. I mean, people can't even take care of
themselves.

Like that man I told you about... he gets all mad about the 'truth,'
but he can't stop anything from happening. I mean, he can't even tell
the red-haired woman that he loves her. So what good is he?

Anyway, I got kidnapped. I'm surrounded by people who think they're
making the future. They're not. They're not in control. They're just
scared like everybody else.

Like me.

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END