They’re here. They’re watching. Always watching. No one sees them. No one can. I can. I see them. Looking into people’s souls. Writing. Recording. Reporting. I don’t know on what. I don’t know to whom.

They’re here. They’re watching. Always watching. No one sees them. No one can. I can. I see them. Looking into people’s souls. Writing. Recording. Reporting. I don’t know on what. I don’t know to whom.

They’re here. They’re watching. Always watching. No one sees them. No one can. I can. I see them. Looking into people’s souls. Writing. Recording. Reporting. I don’t know on what. I don’t know to whom.

Excerpt from “Buzzzfeed’s Top 10 Creepy Things Found In Mental Asylums”

The world rippled. As the two monstrous attacks sped toward each other, a wave of light blue energy spread outwards from a point just in front of the door. The energy was radiating from an expanding opaque bubble that quickly subsumed the students crowded by the wall. Musa and Freja shared a look, eyes wide in shock, before the bubble consumed her. Musa, nearly completely empty at this point and still in freefall, could only watch as the cerulean bubble ate up first his summoned gauntlet, then his arm, before he fully entered it.

~~~

Jas was pissed. Musa and Freja’s battle had been the most excited he’d been since nearly dying repeatedly in the Burrow a few months back. Thanks to the humans’ proclivity for gambling, he had been slowly establishing himself as a social hub and valuable source of information during these events. He had no illusions about eventually leading the cohort, no Elvar could, especially with racial tensions the way they were, but being one of the people they turn to in times of uncertainty was never a bad thing. Look at me, manoeuvring myself into a socially advantageous position. Father would be proud.

He looked around. Him and all his classmates had been absorbed by some bubble made of a light blue glasslike substance, giving everything an aquamarine tinge. He couldn’t see the outside of the bubble, but as he watched, the strange construct expanded and Freja, then Musa’s ridiculously huge metal glove, then Musa appeared through the azure wall. Musa looked very startled as he crashed into his now motionless gauntlet. Freja’s miniature star had likewise stalled in the air, possibly an effect of the mysterious ability that created the bubble, which had now stopped expanding. She was pulling on the handle of her flail to no avail, as it was stuck in place.

Chatter started up behind him, the other students starting to worry about what had just happened. Jas wasn’t that stressed however, as he could still feel the Sun, and Musa and Freja were disproportionately powerful. He trusted Musa at least to get them out of any hostile situation.

There were no threats immediately visible and they were on campus grounds, so it couldn’t be an attack. This is one of the most heavily defended places in the world. Hmm. Maybe a defence mechanism?

He filled his Seed and light poured out of his eyes. He’d discovered he could channel his Seed into his eyes and they would shine with a blinding radiance, a radiance that revealed to him all the strands of power in his vicinity. It was generally useless on campus, as there was always a plethora of conceptual abilities being used at any one time, but as he glanced around, he could see a thick shell of azure energy surrounding every student. He looked at Freja and she was shooting the blue barrier that kept them inside. She’d imbue her gun, but the bullets would leave unempowered and bounce off the wall. Interestingly, the shell covered her and the gun, but not the projectiles she shot. Suppression?

He turned to Musa and the man was sitting on the edge of his still suspended gauntlet, swinging his legs in his particular carefree manner. He saw Jas looking and waved. Jas gave a wry smile and waved back. He, just like the others, was covered by the sapphire energy. But the gauntlet hasn’t dematerialised. Is this some sort of stasis?

He shut off his Seed and went to look for Birgitte, only to see a mass of panicked students behind him. They weren’t uselessly running around but rather filled to bursting with Sunlight, with their weapons out and various effects and abilities being brandished. They were all looking at him in anticipation and he just blinked bemusedly. Birgitte pushed through the crowd.

“Jas! What the fuck’s going on? What did you see?”

Ah, my bad. I forgot how that looks to others.

“Nothing especially imminent, but we all seem to be encased in a… cocoon of the same energy that makes up this cage.”

Jas held up his hand and lit it up with his Seed, but the light didn’t extend into a beam as it usually did.

“My current hypothesis is that this is a suppression or stasis field of some sort. We cannot use any abilities that extend past our own bodies and the abilities that are already in the air have been immobilised.”

Birgitte looked up at Musa, who waved again, and took in the giant frozen metal hand and the little frozen sun illuminating it from underneath. She looked down at Freja, who was now kicking at the wall in frustration, with an imbued boot that was conspicuously not exploding.

“I think you’re right. The question is what can we do about it.”

Birgitte was very proactive, which was a great thing in combat. Unfortunately, this wasn’t combat and her taking charge of the efforts to find an egress would sideline him a bit too much. He glanced at the few other Elvar near the back of the group, slightly separate from the humans. That was the reality of being a minority, prince or not. Either you were exceptional, or you were left behind.

He couldn’t politically sabotage the closest thing he’d ever had to a best friend though, so he simply embedded himself in the decision-making group.

“What we need, fair maiden, is to collate our information and formulate a plan of escape. Come, surely we need our resident Sprouts to weigh in.”

He reassured the rest of the students while pulling Birgitte towards the two powerhouses.

“Friends! Stay calm, I beseech you. Whatever manner of entrapment this is and whoever conceived of it, they evidently don’t know who the fuck we are!”

Everyone was at first stunned, as he’d never sworn in public before. But smiles started breaking out and someone in the middle of the crowd whooped, before the entire congregation broke out in self-congratulatory cheers.

“Fuck yeah!”

“We’ve survived way worse than this!”

“Hell, we’re technically veterans!”

Jas had a huge smile on his face as he walked with Birgitte over to Freja. He wouldn’t do it often but he’d noticed that people generally responded well to Birgitte’s curses. On Ega, curse words were taken much more seriously, but humans seemed to love them. Of course, she was an attractive girl so they may have been responding to her, rather than her words, but Jas wasn’t exactly ugly himself. Musa didn’t know, but the elf had walked into a girls’ bathroom earlier on in the year by accident. He’d seen a list of hot guys scrawled on one of the walls and took great pride in being near the top along with both his roommates. He hadn’t even known human girls liked Elvar.

Freja saw them coming and called up to Musa, who jumped down and met them underneath the blonde’s still shining flail. The pink, lacy gloves still looked hilarious on the tall, dark warrior.

“Birgitte’s a bad influence on you, bro.” Musa said with a laugh.

“Indeed she might be. I’m still shocked myself, it’s as though a devil grabbed hold of my tongue and compelled me to use her foul language.”

“Fuck you, Jas,” Birgitte smacked his shoulder while laughing, “True or not, we need to find a way out of here. Freja, you made any progress?”

“Not even a bit. I can’t hit hard enough to break it open, not without my Sprout. Shade, I don’t even know if it can be broken open.”

“Shit. Musa?”

“I haven’t even tried. My only weapon is suspended ten metres above us and I can’t summon another. Freja’s as strong as me, well almost, so if she can’t break through with raw physical power, I can’t.”

“Almost? This blue stuff saved your ass just now, you wouldn’t be talking shit once I’d actually won.”

“If you’d actually won. You’re mighty self-confident for someone who’s lost most of our matchups.”

“Some of us have abilities that actually take skill to use since we don’t all carry around a personal boutique, gloveboy.”

The two Sprouts’ eyes were locked on each other, barely two inches apart with playful grins on their faces. Jas and Birgitte shared a look. Jas had always thought Musa would end up with Birgitte as he was constantly flirting with every girl but only spent actual time with Birgitte. But ever since Freja had quite literally exploded into their lives, the two had had this sexually charged rivalry. It was nice to see Musa not sitting on his bed staring up at the ceiling, but it led to awkward situations like this, where the two who had initiated the conversation became simple bystanders as the air practically crackled with tension. Birgitte was having none of it though.

“Yes yes, you’re both very attractive and very strong. But unless you’re gonna tear each other’s clothes off right now, we have a situation to be resolved.”

Musa turned towards them, giving his trademark smirk and shrugging sheepishly. Freja’s gaze lingered on him though, slightly biting her lip before also turning towards the two. Jas took charge.

“Friends. So far, we have confirmed our powers are restricted within this cage. We do however still have our connection to the Sun, so we can be located if worst comes to worst. My preeminent concern is that no authority figures have come to check on us despite your tremendously loud battle and this unnatural blue trap.”

“That’s actually a good point,” Musa chimed in, “when I was up in the air, campus looked completely normal. Unless we happened to be the first targets of an attack, there’s no reason no one would have checked on us by now.”

“I see three possibilities,” Freja started, “First: we’ve been transported somewhere. Maybe elsewhere on earth, maybe this is a pocket dimension, I don’t know. Second: we’re in exactly the same place, but this is something everyone except us knows about so no one really cares to get us out. Third: we’re in exactly the same place, but no one knows what the fuck this is and people are frantically swarming outside trying to contact us. Who brought their phone, actually?”

They all patted their trousers, only Birgitte having brought her phone. Jas flashed his eyes at it and sighed in defeat.

“No use, your mobile is ensconced, just like us. The grapevine won’t function on it in here.”

“Ugh, so we have no fucking options then?”

Musa looked deep in thought, before giving a tentative answer.

“Not... necessarily.”

All three of them turned to him.

“Cannon, your Roots still work right?”

Freja lifted her palm and stared at it, before nodding yes.

Musa grinned in response, his dimples creasing.

“Then I have an idea.”

~~~

They hadn’t talked to him once. Ever since coming to this cursed place, not one living being had spoken to him. They were there alright, perfectly abiding by the Kingston Conventions, feeding him once a day and giving him his fifteen minutes of Sun, but conversation only happened between him and a face on his cell wall he’d drawn after the first week of silence. He still didn’t know what they wanted.

He’d first demanded, then firmly stated, then politely asked and finally pleaded for some sort of answer. He was a step away from begging at this point. They didn’t mistreat him, he wasn’t beaten or tortured or even interrogated. He was just ignored.

He was kept in a pretty spacious cell, it had an enclosed toilet, a fireplace that was yet to see use and a bed nearly as comfortable as his own. He’d initially been confident about his chances of breaking out, but after weeks, there hadn’t been a single lapse in security. He was beginning to lose hope of ever leaving.

His door opened. It’s nowhere near dinnertime. Dare I hope it’s a rescue squad? He lifted his head off his bed, having gotten into the habit of laying down and staring at the ceiling to pass the time.

“I must say,” the man spoke in a pleasingly masculine baritone, smooth and rich, “I’ve been looking forward to finally meeting you.”