My name is Sally Johana Willus, daughter of Samuel Willus, my age currently 24 years of age.

The date is March 4th, 2152.

My father is a quiet man. He only says what is necessary, and even then just grunts the answer when it’s not about work. He isn’t unsociable, he just rarely speaks when it’s not necessary.

He has a certain charm about him, that feeling of wanting to depend on him. I guess that’s what mother was attracted to. She always liked the caring kind of man.

You see, Dad and Mom loved each other, they married young, mother was 17, dad was 16. They dated for about 2 years before dad finally married her, due to getting her pregnant, it was a shotgun wedding. I believe he would’ve waited longer if not for me. Although I was told by mom she faked the pregnancy, though she got pregnant at the honeymoon, and dad still doesn’t know.

But as time went by, Dad eventually got drafted into the military. He spent about 10 years in service, mostly in Special Operations, once they discovered his psionic ability.

Psionic abilities started showing up in the late 2090’s, some people got super strength, others enhanced reactions and so on.

Dad’s psionic ability is unique, AOC is what it is called, Area Observation and Control. Within a certain radius, my father can observe and interact with anything and anyone, with little or no restrictions.

Of course he can be countered, however the equipment and knowledge of this has been repressed, or is a heavily guarded secret by my dad and the government.

However, the years Dad spent in the military changed him, or so mother says. She said be became even more distant, as if he wasn’t part of the world, but just an observer. It was as if he refrained from touching anything, this included food.

Psionic abilities are like a double edged sword to the user, they grant immense power, at a certain price. Such as a person with super speed loses some arm strength, or a person who can fly loses the ability to walk.

Dad’s AOC has two stages that I know of, the first stage is Observation. Which is what he uses most of the time, at most he gets a bad headache after a few hours.

However, the Control part is where the sacrifice exponentially increases. Depending on what he Controls, he either loses some small amount of body mass, to losing emotions and connection to the world.

However even these are so minute, it’s almost impossible to realise he lost anything. I wonder what he had to do to get so far as to lose as much as he did.

Mom couldn’t stand living with the husk of the man she once loved, as she said; so she divorced him, and took me away with her. The last I saw of my dad that day was through the rear windshield, tears streaming down his face.

It was surprising for me to realise that my mother was also crying. I didn’t realise until later it was for my sake. They divorced when I was just 15 years old. My father was 33 years old

My life without my father was dull and grey, for me and my mom. When I went through high school, there was a father-daughter dance, I sent an email every year for three weeks in advance to him, telling him about it… He never responded, not even once.

Volleyball and Basketball tournaments, same thing. We won state in both, twice in a row. That was my junior and senior years.

When before I went to college, I went to find my dad…

The town was gone, nothing was left except a mound of dirt inside of a crater.

Psionic abilities, a double edged sword, the more powerful the ability is, the greater the harm to the user. However the damage is normally small, not even noticeable.

However it is different for world changing psionic powers. These take memories, or emotions. The power it took to create a crater of that size, would likely wipe away all memories of the user.

Essentially, every time the power is used the user “dies” and a “new” person is born. Completely oblivious to the previous incident.

After the trip I gave up on finding my father… until I saw him at the New World memorial service. Standing in the shadows, protecting the memorial for the day. He was dressed like the old TV character Columbo, which was his favorite detective show.

Three months later I got a call from an hospital

“Hello, is this Sally Willus’ number?” asked the nurse on the other end

“It is, may I ask why you are calling me?”

“It’s about your father, last night he... .”

“I’ll be right over.”