I Can Trick You Into Getting Naked or Make You Psychotic: The Ember Files - Log 16
Journal Entry
I didn’t know my ability was so rare until I turned thirty.
Apparently it’s only [ZODIAC SIGN REDACTED].
They say “entanglement” is a metaphor. Psychologists write about emotional resonance at a distance. Lovers claim they “just know” when the other is hurting.
But I don’t imagine it. I do it.
It’s scientific. I can sync with other peoples’ brainwaves. Change them.
It started when I was twelve. My mother had a panic attack in the kitchen. I was upstairs. I felt it — sharp, tight, black. I focused on slowing my own breath. When I did, her gasping slowed. She didn’t know why.
In college, I experimented on boyfriends. One would wake up and beg to eat me out if I focused before bed. Another confessed he couldn’t stay angry around me, even though I constantly cheated on him whenever his band was on tour, which was often.
I can induce sleep in strangers on the subway. I watch their eyelids droop as I drop my own frequency.
It isn’t empathy. It’s control.
I need either proximity or familiarity. With those familiar to me, they can be anywhere in the world. A shared history is a conduit. The closer the bond, the stronger the link.
I can push someone’s mind from manic to docile. Or from calm to psychotic. I can seed dreams. I can soothe. I can agitate.
I told one therapist. She said I was delusional.
I didn’t go back.
I’m careful. Mostly.
But there are nights I sit in the dark, reaching for everyone I’ve ever loved. Tuning them like instruments.
Some days I wonder if they know.
If they feel it.
If they dream of me against their will.
That’s the least of their problems if they did me wrong. To these poor souls, I root myself in the black soil of their minds. Even their purest thoughts rise through me as a twisted poisoned tree reaching for light that never shines.
Link to previous log - Log 15.
