“No. Tell me I am wrong.”
His rage surged out of him, across the floor, up the walls, squirming, like muscle, bleeding and raw, flexing inside too tight a skin.
Miss Gwen opened her mouth to speak, and as she did, a blaring, computer-like ‘EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE’ came out. Only, she didn’t make a sound. She blinked. Actually, they both did.
The heart monitor. It was the heart monitor.
And it was ROM, holding a pillow over Kit’s face.
“ROMEESHA!”
Time slowed then, as if it could not fit all the things that happened then into one second. Miss Gwen lunged at ROM, sending the pillow flying, and Scepter lunged after the both of them, even as the hospital staff burst in, alerted by the monitor that Kit’s heart had stopped.
Yanking—hard—both women into his arms, Scepter himself physically changed, and ROM and Miss Gwen knew instinctively to clap their hands over their ears. The skin of his forehead split, revealing a third, inhuman eye, wild and out of this world. It rolled in it's socket, searching wildly.
For prey.
“ALL OF YOU DO NOT SEE US!”
It was Scepter’s most devastating of attacks. It was no power, nothing he was born with. Rather, something he was taught, up in the lonely and lost canyons of the Himalayas. Perhaps his powers facilitated the affect, but through this learned skill, Scepter could, by the mere power of his voice, force all those within earshot to his will. Even if he victim didn’t want to do it, or if the command was seemingly impossible. But he had to be so careful with it. Anybody who heard it had to obey, and true disaster could result if he wasn’t spectacularly specific.
To those who rushed into to Kit’s room, the three simply weren’t there. Their minds had been commanded to not see them, and, so, they were not seen.
*Make. No. Sound.* Miss Gwen and ROM heard him say in their minds. He had only made them invisible. Any noise or note they made would be heard. To those under his control, their minds would not be able to rationalize a sound coming from an empty room, and the force-suggestion Scepter hand done would come undone. And then things would really get bad.
“What happened?” one of the nurses asked.
“Weren’t there those three in here?” said another. “Starting compressions!”
“Not here now!” Dr. Aikins yelled. “Where’s the damn crash cart?”
“How long has he been down?”
“Only a few seconds!”
Aikins was beautiful to watch, all fluid action and focused intent. The crash cart appeared as if from thin air, and with the bellow of “CLEAR!” she shocked the man’s heart with a loud, electrical snap.
Nothing. The heart monitor still plaintively whined its single, horrific note.
Terms and orders whirled in the air, and then another “CLEAR!”
Kit’s body jerked promisingly, and then, still.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
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