Feedback Loop

Julian snarled, clawing at Elias, trying to pull himself up. "Get off me, you freak!"

Elias grabbed Julian’s wrists. Bare skin to bare skin.

"You call me a freak?" Elias whispered. "Let me show you what I am."

Elias didn't shield himself. He didn't block. He opened the floodgates. He reached out with his mind, connecting not just to Julian, but to the town. To the *echoes* of the town.

He channeled it.

"Feel it," Elias roared.

He pushed the pain of Mrs. Gable dying of cancer into Julian’s mind.

He pushed the fear of the parents watching their children cough blood.

He pushed the grief of a town strangling on secrets.

He pushed the terror Chloe felt in the locker room.

*The Psychic Feedback Loop.*

It was a circuit of pure agony, amplified by Elias’s power.

Julian screamed. It wasn't a scream of physical pain; it was the sound of a mind fracturing under the weight of a thousand sins. His eyes rolled back. He convulsed, overwhelmed by the collective suffering he had caused.

"Stop! Stop it!" Julian shrieked. "I did it! I poisoned them! I signed the orders! Just make it stop!"

Elias held on, tears streaming down his face, enduring the pain so he could reflect it back. "Say it again!"

"I killed them! Vane Logging! The water! It’s all in the briefcase! Please!"

Elias let go.

Julian slumped against the railing, sobbing, broken, a shivering mess of a man.

From the shadows of the machinery above, Chloe stepped out, holding the phone.

"Did you get it?" Elias gasped, leaning against a beam, exhausted.

"Live to Facebook, YouTube, and the local news station," Chloe said, her voice shaking but triumphant. "Four thousand viewers and climbing."

Sirens wailed in the distance. Real sirens. State Troopers.