Even with winter's approach foretold by our beautiful sunset evening, I was reminded once again of the many little things continuing to stress me out. I called Lumina again, just after getting home from my shift. This time, I went through the day without those horrible chain of headaches or other such issues. Even so, it was still difficult this time to contact her.

"There must be something to it. I can assure you there is no such thing as rapid aging." Lumina and I just got through bouncing ideas about the recent difficulty I've been having when contacting her, but she was out of ideas just as I was, grasping at impossible straws.

"Well it has to be something Lumina. All I know is, this isn't right. It's too soon for me to be having these problems." For what felt like a minute, Lumina and I both were in silence, thinking all the way back to compare to the current moment.

I've kept this issue on the down-low, since I just didn't want to think about it anymore, but the problem is only getting worse. It's been affecting me ever since that time way back, when I nearly crippled my own brain by using excessive psionic energy in an unstable connection. Ever since that day, little by little, I can tell I'm growing weaker as a Scion. It's getting harder each time over the years to successfully contact Lumina, even when all of the weather conditions are perfectly favorable. That's not all. There are times now where the things we used to be capable of in a strong connection now require an even stronger connection than they used to. Ultimately, I'm becoming weaker, and the rate of it now is alarming.

"There must be an explanation Reed. It has to be something we can control."

Lumina is on the optimistic side, which is more than I can say for myself. I can't come up with any leading ideas, only possible theories. It's really bad, because if I suddenly become too weak for telepathy, that will be it for me; my life will be over.

Lumina has assured me over and over that this kind of decay in psionic aptitude over time as humans age is supposed to happen, be it at a much slower rate. The problem is, if I can notice the decay, it isn't slow enough. I'm twenty-one years old, and the estimated cut-off age for psionic support is about 62, so yeah; it's too soon to feel this weak.

I can easily compare then to now. Back then, it took me only a few seconds to call Lumina with my brain with almost no energy draw. Now, it takes somewhere between 22-39 seconds if I'm lucky, and of course I can feel dizzy after doing so until I drink more water. Mental Synch is becoming more difficult a thing to invoke. Seeing through her eyes is so much harder even in freezing cold temperatures as it was not before. Even phasing the connection is now a delicate task. Of course, I can feel the difference in energy too, that buzzing sensation in my head nearly absent each time. I don't know what is wrong with me, but it has greatly impacted my psionic potential in negative ways, and if this rate keeps up, I'm ultimately going to be screwed.

"There has to be other connections Reed. Think back. What else changed over the years?"

I was already putting my full mind onto the idea, but it took me a long time just walking around with Lumina in silence to come up with any potential meaning. "I don't know Lumina. Is psionic atrophy really like this? Am I going to lose telepathy because my body can't handle it anymore?"

"No, it's not going to happen that way. If your body is struggling to handle it, causing a global atrophy, then it has to be something else you are doing, something else you have changed."

What's changed over the years...? I asked this to myself for many years after noticing the issue. We've already lost about four-degrees worth of connection strength regardless of all other factors, so I can't afford to lose more...

Back then, I used to have a lot more energy; I'd be excited all the time about lots of things, jumpy and alive, sometimes hyperactive. I haven't been that way since the second half of high school... Why? What happened that could have changed all of that?

Combing through my mind like this might have sounded easy on paper, but I felt like I was trying to solve a universal equation with as much effort as I put onto answering that one question. I might be more grown up now, but why does that equate to this much natural energy loss? Am I getting sick with something? Do I have cancer? Do I have diabetes and don't know it yet? Was Lumina wrong about her estimation of my initial psionic aptitude? I just don't get it.

So, we walked around bombarding our brains like this for over an hour. It wasn't easy, but I did eventually come up with something. "What about emotional integrity?"

"I don't follow."

"Come on Lumina! Try to help me with this." We could both hear the desperation in my voice, my eyes trailing through the vast empty skies, hoping I'll always be able to talk to Lumina through all of that atmosphere. "I don't know why, but over the years, I've noticed myself become less emotional with things than I should have."

"And here I thought that was your doing."

"Not on purpose." It wasn't just my natural energy going on a gradual decline, but my emotional integrity too. Back then, on the four days spread out each year that I would call Lumina back after a long summer, I remembered so strongly how amazing I felt to be in her presence again. That feeling still persisted after the fourth summer, but not nearly as strong. It isn't just about this either. These days, I can hear something tragic about someone close to me, and I'll react, but not as much as I know I should. It's as if something has placed a kind of dampener over my ability to feel and experience emotions in any regard. I thought it was all some kind of complicated psychology, and maybe it is. A few summers back, I tried to subconsciously box up my emotions so that I wouldn't have to experience the pain of those summers, realizing the mistake after. It took about an entire year to bring myself back to a sense of normal. I haven't made that mistake again since, to my knowledge. "I wonder if my medicine is involved somehow."

"You mean that crap you take every day that barely works?"

"I promise it works more often than you think it does." Lumina was referring to the Tension Headache I've been taking daily as a means to prevent headaches instead of treating them. She and I went through a whole argument before about a very similar medication. I suffer from chronic headaches, with or without the drug. Lumina eventually realized that I was in a horrible situation whether I let myself become addicted to painkillers or not, so unlike before, she hasn't exactly kicked back on my habits this time. Plus, compared to Excedrin, this one works better, in terms of longevity; not every time mind you.

Rebounds aside, I get headaches whether I take this or not, it's just that I get them less often on this medication, less often enough to barely make life livable again. After all the doctors I've been through, my situation there is practically hopeless.

But what's more important now is figuring out what has been eating away at my psionic aptitude on a global scale. There is a reason why I bring up the medicine, a small correlation I've noticed only half a year ago, recently having told Lumina about it. "That being said, I wonder if the drop in emotions has anything to do with it."

"... You didn't tell me the medicine was impairing your emotions."

"I did; I just wasn't too sure if that was the case. It doesn't happen every time, so it wasn't easy to say that with confidence."

"You know what this means, right?"

"No, what?"

Lumina sighed, preparing to say what she needed to. "I see that you have forgotten one of the base principles of psionics, so I'll remind you. High emotional integrity is required for psionic abilities to work, especially telepathy. If anything makes you emotionally numb when you try to invoke psionic energy, your aptitudes will temporarily weaken. You haven't noticed?"

My audible gasp told us both that I forgot such an important fact. Her words instantly threw my memories into the chain of comparison. I should have noticed this certainly. The recent days our connections have been uniquely powerful were preempted by my own strong emotions, sad or happy... "So, feeling emotions strongly does boost our connection?"

"If you have anything dampening your emotions, your psionic abilities will be dampened in the same manner. Luckily, if you can fix your emotional integrity, then you can get your energy back again. Of course, it isn't certain if this is the reason for your global atrophy, or if it is something else."

"Yeah, well I'd rather first assume this is the issue, because it means I can do something about it. The other horrible scenarios I've thought of have no solutions, which terrifies me enough."

"My next question is, are you sure the medicine is causing this?"

I didn't want to admit it, but the timing all matches up. When I quit Excedrin, I was clear of similar substances for a year or two before going to Tension Headache, and only for the duration of treating what was wrong instead of taking it daily. It seems even this variation has its own addiction and withdraw factors. If I could confidently dump the medicine and be headache free after, even if I had to wait a whole month, I'd do it right now. But I've already conducted such a test only to be chewed up and spit out by my own incurable condition. "I don't know for sure." The medicine is one correlation, but there is also another possible vector. "It could also be how I deal with UAD."

"UAD?"

"Yeah. You know how I always keep something with me to work on, especially on more intense days?"

"Yeah?"

"And you know how on those days where I spend most of my time working on books and such, it becomes harder to contact you since half my mind is scrambled?"

"You think what you do to block UAD might also be suppressing your emotions?"

"I'd need more time to test that out, but I'd at least put it on the table. If it does turn out to be true, that is also something I can fix. Maybe I'm being too aggressive satisfying that part of my mind on days I should be calling you. The bad news is that I'd have to find a new balance to fix it."

"There is more bad news that I know you don't want to hear."

"I'm sure you're going to tell me anyway." I already know what she is about to say...

"If the cause is exclusively the medication, there might come a point where you have to stop taking it for good just to return to normal. Think about it. Neither one of us knows the long term effect of taking this thing daily, as you've been doing."

"I know Lumina. I just can't be sure I'll survive after I'm off the thing. So at least until I figure out the cause of these headaches, I plan to stay on it."

Lumina normally would have been far more aggressive on making sure I wasn't too much into medication, as she was before. These days, she cautiously warns me without being too pushy on the final decision. The reason is something neither one of us will forget. It happened last year just after that winter started. Lumina asked me about what I'm to do about the medicine and my headache situation, which came shortly after my tenth failed attempt to rectify the situation by identifying or eliminating potential causes within that same year.

Take dangerous medication too often, or face the impossible consequences of unbearable pain seven days a week. Is that really a fair choice any human can make easily? I'm screwed either way, no matter what I do. That day, the frustration overtook me, and I broke down into a mess of tears in front of her. I remember crying for half the entire day while Lumina did all she could to comfort me, finally realizing how complicated these headaches are. The situation doesn't have a solution, so what are either of us to do?

I know the consequences of my actions; my decisions well informed. So, if I tell Lumina I'm not ready to stop my medication, she won't fight me on it like she did in the past. I've already lost a job over it, and I'm on the verge of it happening again.

Even now, the effectiveness of the medicine is much lower than we would like it to be, the tolerance of the past few years catching up to me. If the medicine stops working completely, I'll throw it away and abandon it forever. Declaring that promise is also what pacified Lumina to the constant use of it. I know she's just worried about me. She doesn't want to see me in pain. She doesn't want me addicted to any substance. At the same time, this situation renders herself and me totally powerless.

"Let's assume for a second that this is all true, that your medicine is dampening your emotions, and that this is causing your psionics to become weaker... What are you going to do?"

"Fight back of course. I may not have complete control over my brain, but I'll be damned before I let something like this stop us from communicating. I'll try to learn better control of my emotions, to ensure I'm allowing myself to feel everything, even if that puts me at greater risk of a UAD attack. If the medicine moves to block my emotions, then I'll move to block it from blocking my emotions. I have to."

"I'm relieved to hear it. It's worth a shot at least."

"That said, is there anything you would like to add? Maybe you know of a way to regain some of the lost aptitude? I know it's temporary anyway, but..." I'm not even sure what to say. She is the expert on psionics, not me.

"You can always keep practicing your powers. You know, practice projection to keep yourself fresh."

"Practice my projection?"

"Yeah. You didn't know you could do that? When disconnected to me, if you practice random blind, low-energy projections over time, it can prevent any further atrophy. But you have to constantly keep up with it was much as you can, even during the summer."

"I see. Like flossing a nerve. Your idea is to passively project random psionic signals once a day at least to prevent any further atrophy."

"It can also reduce that weakening you get during a summer when you can't call me, making it easier when we can call each other again."

"Okay, so then I have quite a few options to deal with... Thank you so much for this Lumina." My heart was still racing in desperation, but I felt so much calmer now. Having these options means the end of our era on Earth can be pushed back so much further. I want to have a future with her, and I can't do that if I suddenly lose my telepathy long before I grow old.

"I wouldn't want you to lose your most important ability. I'm here for you Reed, always when you need me, or when you need to talk."

"Best wife I could have ever married."

"We'll make this work, okay?"

"Yeah." Worrying her was the last thing I wanted to do, but I also needed Lumina to help me figure this out before anything worse happens. Total psionic atrophy is now something I can add to my short but growing list of fears. I have to combat any amount of long-term atrophy as much as possible. People who do know me this well often don't realize the consequence of a total loss of telepathy. If I can't call Lumina anymore, it means I can't have a future here on Earth with her in any capacity. If that happens, it will mean the end of my time here. Losing telepathy would normally not kill a human, but if I lose Lumina this way, I'll kill myself instead.

Lumina and I already had a depressing but necessary discussion about it, that if anything ever befalls me permanently after I enter her world, she too would be unable to go on living. As much as it hurt me to hear that, I didn't oppose her, since I knew I would only do the exact same in her situation. She and I are more than lovers and soul mates; we need each other to survive, and that's not something anybody will ever change.

Lumina... I will always love you.