You Could Have Given Me a Warning

(6) Ability Unknown

I slowly opened my eyes to find myself lying on the floor in the room where the experiment had just taken place. The patient and the doctor were both gone, but Gemma was staring at me from across the room.

"Oh my God, Lina! Are you okay?" she said as she ran to my side to help me up. I sat up and she helped me lean against the wall.

"My head..." I moaned. My head was pounding really loudly and I could barely see past the blur.

"The doctor said that you have a concussion before she left," she said. My ears were ringing and I saw Gemma's fear in her eyes before I passed out again.

I woke up again, this time lying on my bed in our sleeping quarters. I sat up slowly and didn't see Gemma anywhere. I tried to call out for her, but no noise came out of my throat. I threw the blanket off of myself and tried to stand up. I held onto the nightstand and lifted myself off the bed slowly. I wobbled to the bathroom and turned on the water. I splashed my face and felt the cold water wake me up a bit.

"Ew! What's that?" I said when I saw myself in the mirror. I squinted to get a better look at what was going on with my head. I shut my eyes a few times to see if it was just an illusion, but when I opened my eyes the horrible gash on my forehead was still there.

"How did that happen?" I asked, trying to figure it out. I had a helmet on, so I didn't know why this cut me so badly. Was it the pencil? Thinking hurt my head way too much, so I took a deep breath to try to calm myself down.

All of a sudden, I heard Gemma voice in the other room wondering where I went.

"I'm in the bathroom!" I called. She barged inside and found me staring at my face in the mirror.

"It's healing very well, it looked disgusting at first," I heard Gemma say next to me. I could not get my eyes off of that cut.

"At least it doesn't look infected," I muttered.

"It's still kind of gross," I heard Gemma say. I looked at her.

"Thanks a lot dude, I was just attacked and that's what you've got to say to me?" I said.

"What? I didn't say anything," she said, rubbing my shoulder. "Are you feeling okay?"

"You just said that it was gross," I raised my voice and removed her hand from my shoulder. "Why are you lying?"

"I swear I didn't say that!" she shrieked, getting defensive. "I think you need to rest more, go back to bed."

"I'm fine," I said and rushed out of the bathroom to grab clothes to change into.

"No, you're not," I heard Gemma say.

"What's your problem?" I yelled.

"I didn't say anything again!" she yelled back.

"I-I'm sorry about yelling, it just seems really loud in here," I stumbled, sitting on my bed holding onto the clothes I chose to change into.

"Loud? We're the only ones in here," she said.

"So many voices..." I trailed off, dropping the clothes and covering my ears with my hands.

"Is she hearing my thoughts?" I heard Gemma say.

"Gemma? Did you just ask yourself if I'm hearing your thoughts?" I said quietly. She gasped.

"Oh my God," she said. "Get up, we're going to the Infirmary." She grabbed my arm, but I didn't budge.

"We can use this to our advantage," I said. She stopped pulling. My head started to clear up a little more as I felt her realize what I was talking about.

"You want to read our boss' mind?" Gemma asked. I nodded.

"We can stop her," I said.

"Okay, but you're going to need some help controlling this new ability. And how are you going to hide it?"

"I just need to figure out how to differentiate between real talking and voices," I said.

"Lina?" Gemma asked, "I didn't say a single word during that whole thing."

"Oh... did I just talk to myself for 2 minutes straight?" I asked.

"Yep," Gemma said.

"Then controlling this is going to be a lot harder than I thought," I said. Then, there was a knock at the door.

"It's me, Damien! I wanted to check up on Lina," he said through the door. I put the clothes that I was holding back where I found them when Gemma went to go open the door. I went back to bed and pretended to be asleep. I heard her open the door and Damien's footsteps (and thoughts) enter the room.

"She's still asleep?" Damien whispered.

"Yeah, and the gash from the pencil healed pretty well," Gemma whispered, and that was very hard to hear because Damien's thoughts were so loud, yet for some reason, they were hard to hear.

"Mom's going to be upset, she's probably going to fire that doctor and blame herself for this... Oh God, Lina better wake up soon so she can get back to work" were some of the thoughts that I could understand, but his mind was way too jumbled for me to figure anything else out. This was still some solid information though, and this practice might be useful, although I had a huge headache.

"Alright, well my mom would like to see you in her office right now," I vaguely heard Damien say to Gemma.

"What if Lina wakes up?" Gemma asked.

"That's why I'm here," Damien said. I felt a wave of fear fall over Gemma and myself. Was I going to have to pretend to be asleep for like an hour?

"Okay, I guess I'll... go to her office. See you in a bit," Gemma said and her mind got quieter and quieter until she was gone. I heard Damien sit down at Gemma's desk chair. This was strange because I heard him going on his phone and could see what he was looking at. This was a great time to test my new ability, so I tried to test if I could change how loud the thoughts were, which was super hard and took a lot of focus. I think I made a noise while I was trying because I felt Damien get startled and wonder "what that was."

"Lina? You awake?" he asked. Well, guess it was time for me to "wake up."

"Ow, my head," I muttered, holding my head in my hand. Damien put his phone down and rushed to my bedside, holding onto the arm that wasn't clutching my head. I wanted to laugh because from inside of his head I could tell he was acting. He didn't know how to react so he was being awkward on purpose.

"The doctor said that you have a concussion," Damien said. I looked at his hand that was on my arm and he thankfully removed his hand from my arm.

"I need to use the bathroom," I mumbled and got out of the bed. Damien stood up and gave me space as I hobbled to the bathroom.

When I got inside, I closed the door and just stood there. I attempted to hear his thoughts from the other side of the door, but they were pretty muffled. I attempted to make it louder, but it kind of hurt my head. I was able to raise the volume enough for me to hear, which was kind of cool. I felt like I already had better control.

"I need to tell my mom," was what I heard, and then he dialed the phone number. I couldn't hear the conversation, but I did get the basics of what happened. Gemma was now on her way back here (thank God) and our boss wanted to speak to me when I felt better (which probably just meant I'd have to go in tomorrow).

"Are you okay in there?" Damien yelled.

"I'm good, my head just really hurts..." I yelled back.

"Alright, Gemma's coming back. Just take it easy," he said and I opened the door.