“It was my little brother, Aiden. He was one of the chosen. He’s eight. We had no idea anything had even happened to him. He didn’t have any symptoms. So my family and me were all just watching TV, and Aiden was asleep in our mum’s lap. And then all of a sudden he wakes up and he’s possessed or mad or something, and he’s running around like an animal. He bit our Dad. It was horrible. And then he went to the front door and was scraping at it but couldn’t get the door unlocked. Eventually, he pulled the chain off the door and got out. We followed him into the crowd outside, and then he lifted his arms up. The next thing we knew, he was above the crowd, like he was flying.”

Jessa woke up for what felt like the hundredth time, unsticking her eyelids and blinking away the blurs of desperate slumber. Her head pounded from the dehydration of too much sleep, and she could tell that her three days of rest and no shower had led her to a lazy stink. She finally pulled herself out of bed and scuffled past the tray of comfort food that had been left outside her bedroom door.

She took a cool shower and tried to gather some semblance of person-ness.

“Me and my mates saw it on the news after Lynch showed up at that hotel. And when he said all that about being really powerful and all, we didn’t really believe it at first, we thought it was just someone having a laugh. Then when he used his telekinesis to actually lift that fella up, we were like what the f**k?! And then he disappeared and we was proper livid, then. Lynch was obviously a monster, but the fact that he was able to do all that stuff, and nobody knew about it? Yeah, that made us properly pissed off. That’s probably the main reason we joined the march. Even by the time we got to Downing Street, though, it was already packed enough that we couldn’t get close.”

Cleaner and more awake, Jessa slipped into a fresh bath robe and took a deep breath before going downstairs. As she approached the kitchen, she could hear the sound of adults talking. In the background, the television regaled first-hand tales of the recent happenings.

“I told you, Mike, I think we should leave her be.”

“She’s been in bed for three days, Jean. She’s barely eaten; she hasn’t said a word.”

“She just needs to come to terms with things on her own time.”

“But she has no idea what’s going on at the moment. What if they come and she’s not ready? Remember what they said on the news, Jean, ‘resistance will not be tolerated’.”

“Oh, stop that right now. Stop talking like one of them.”

“But they are coming, we know that. And we know our sweet girl doesn’t have a bad bone in her body, so it’s all going to be fine. It’s just a precaution.”

Jean Baxter sighed loudly. “Precaution, yeah right. It’s inhumane, Mike, that’s what it is! What right do they have to do this?”

“They’re just afraid.”

“Of what?! Lynch was the one to be afraid of, and he’s gone now. End of story.”

“Sweetheart, not everyone sees it the way we do. They need to make sure this won’t happen again.”

“And what, treating all parapsychs like criminals is going to help? It’s monstrous. I thought we as a civilised population were past this kind of judgment and barbarism.”

“I just can’t believe all this is happening,” Audrey said sadly. “I would have always thought that an event like this would bring people together, not drive them further apart.”

“At the very least,” Hugo replied, “I would never have expected things to go this way.”

“My husband and I live in a flat on Fleet Street. We’re on the second floor, so we saw the whole thing. We were watching the news, and there was a cameraman in the crowd. So there we were, following it live, and then my husband says to me, “Janet, that’s just up the road,” and he was right, they were heading right for us. So we ran to the window, and sure enough, they went right past our building. It was just horrifying. People didn’t know what to do. From above them, all we could see of the chosen were the backs of them as they floated along above the crowd. It was like something from a nightmare. Some people were chanting “get Lynch,” and others were just screaming and crying. Eventually, the chosen passed and then it was just a mass of people in the street, climbing over cars, and others were smashing shop windows in. I don’t know if they were looting or just looking for a place to hide, but we were so frightened that we barricaded our door from the inside.”

“Have you heard anything about them reopening the borders?” Jean asked.

“Nope,” said Hugo. “I think it’s indefinite, until they get all the interviews done.”

“I’m really worried about Jessa’s interview,” Audrey said quietly. “They’re bound to find out that she knew something. Especially after what happened to Felicia Mortlock.”

“Felicia’s situation was different; she has a history with Lynch. Plus, they seized her possessions. That won’t happen to Jessa,” Hugo said quietly.

“Poor Felicia,” Audrey replied. “What did they even find that was so damning?”

“I heard from John that she’d kept an old diary from back in the day, but that’s all I know. I just hope she’s all right.”

“I doubt it,” Audrey said. “We don’t even know where they took her. I wonder how many others have been detained.”

“What are you talking about?” Jessa entered the kitchen. “What happened to Dr Mortlock?”

“Oh, Jessa! There you are!” her mother embraced her with a tight hug that Jessa half-heartedly returned.

“What were you talking about? What’s going on?”

“Sit down, love. We’ll explain everything.”

“I was by myself. I tried to join a peaceful protest at Westminster, but when the fights started breaking out, I ran away. Then when I saw the big march toward St Paul’s, I guess I just panicked and joined them, because I didn’t know what else to do. It was horrendous, but I couldn’t look away. They all filled the place so quickly that by the time I got inside, I was quite far back, near the front door, but I could see clearly enough. When he came out onto the balcony, the sound from the crowd was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard. Then when they all started shaking, I cried. I don’t even know any of the chosen, but I got so overwhelmed that I was just bawling my eyes out, and the people all around me all started holding each other’s hands. It was surreal; I can’t believe it actually happened. I know a lot of people are trying to figure out what happened to Silas Lynch, and I was pretty far back, so I guess I’m not the most accurate source, but it looked to me like he had a heart attack. It’s like he was taking all that energy from the chosen but he couldn’t handle it—his body literally just failed. I guess maybe that’s a good thing, right? That there’s a limit to how much power someone could have? I don’t know. I just hope everything gets back to normal soon.”