The Attempted Mental Hijack

Sicarius paced through the hospital halls, weaving in and out of the busy crowd. Doctors and nurses were rushing to places as more and more patients were carried inside.

There was a continuous increase in patients that had occured the duration Sicarius had stayed here. The fatality of the injuries, like the amount of patients, were similar, except the speed was twice as fast.

It started out with people with black eyes, then to people that were stabbed, it reached the point where each new patient that arrived left a trail of blood.

A stretcher passed by and he was able to catch sight of an officer, his skin dissolving into a mushy liquid. The stretcher that carried him seemed to be withstanding the acid, but it only meant the officer had to withstand the accumulation of acidic liquids under his body.

Sicarius was staring at the gruesome sight when he felt it. A strand of consciousness observing him.

Sicarius was a psychic master, multiple times in multiple worlds. He knew the presence of a being of the psychic realm, and right now he was feeling it.

He turned, trying to scan for anyone who had their attention focused on him. With hyperfocus, it wasn't difficult to see the bearded man who was watching him from down the hall.

As if happy he was spotted, the bearded man smiled and waved his hand, motioning for Sicarius to come close.

Sicarius eyed where the bearded man was and paced toward him. This was exactly where the last evaluation was to take place.

"Carius Gray!" The bearded man said, "Hello buddy, come inside!"

Sicarius simply nodded in acknowledgment as he entered the room. The room was a rather tame area of space with nothing but arrangements of desks and drawers. A bed could be seen by the corner, presumably for the bearded man's patients, while a single table was set in between the middle of two rather big sofas.

Knowing that the bearded man was a psychic, Sicarius had begun managing his thoughts.

In this world he did not achieve psychic prowess, right now all he could do to defend his thoughts were simply to destroy them.

This required a special kind of hyperfocus, one that was focused within. To be aware of every thought and to destroy them before the thought even fully forms was a rather complicated process.

"Come on little guy, don't be so tense! Take a seat!" The bearded man said as he himself sat down with a notepad and a pen in hand.

Sicarius sat on the remaining sofa opposite of the bearded man. His hyperfocus kept at the maximum to be prepared for anything.

"My name is Richard Nichols, I will be the facilitator for our little session here." Said Richard as he glanced through his notes, "This is supposedly your last psychological evaluation? Well, I'll be the judge of that!"

Despite the man, Richard, being so friendly, Sicarius was feeling his intense observant consciousness. There had been psychic facilitators before, but rarely did they emanate such pressure. Sicarius doubted that this man was only a regular psychiatrist.

Suspicion, but only for half a second.

Richard eyed the boy in front of him and smiled. The moment he saw the boy watching the corpse he had begun dissecting his mental state, and yet it wasn't simple. He couldn't read any of the boy's thoughts at all.

That minute emotion that just passed him. It was alike suspicion and yet it passed by too quickly to be sure. How was that even possible? For a thought to disappear before you even knew what you were thinking was similar to mental illness.

"Now Sicarius, as far as I know, my past colleagues had attempted the traditional approaches already," Richard said as he opened his palms and hovered them over the whole room.

The walls started to dissolve revealing a verdant meadow as the various furniture within the room slowly shrank into the green grass that sprouted under their feet.

"Now we're gonna try some unconventional approaches," Richard said, "What goes in your mind when you look around you?"

Sicarius scanned around him. Nothing but the sofa they sat on remained from the previous environment. Sicarius could feel the breeze lightly brushing on his face, his hair moved slightly in the wind. He could feel the grass beneath his feet, as real as they can be. However, he knew Richard's power was simply manipulating his perception.

"Nothing," Sicarius said,

There was no awe, no expression of surprise, just a dull lifeless reply. Richard's brow furrowed.

"Nothing?" he asked as he wrote down on his notes.

The child was detached. A possible symptom of trauma. Victims detach themselves from their own experiences and feelings to be able to continue living after a traumatic experience.

Sicarius nodded, to which Richard responded with another change of environment.

Now they were atop a skyrise, looking down on the city from above. Such a sight would instill emotion in any being.

"How about now, Carius?" Richard asked, focusing intently on Sicarius's thoughts.

"Nothing," Sicarius answered,

And simply he felt nothing.

Once again Richard changed the scenery. A warzone, muddled with the sight of corpses.

"Nothing,"

Over and over again Richard changed the scenery but Sicarius would say and only feel nothing.

Only when Richard drowned the two of them in darkness did he feel something from Sicarius—the slightest feeling of tension from the boy's mind.

Given that the boy was detached from his own thought that he doesn't even realize he has them, and that the sole reaction he had was when faced with darkness, the boy was no doubt traumatized or at least mentally unstable. The evaluation was done.

"Okay Carius," the darkness faded, and came to be the original tame room as Richard held onto his head, "The evaluations done, but boy was that tiring."

Richard stood up and paced towards the bed where he proceeded to lie down.

For a while, Sicarius eyed him as he waited for the results of the evaluation. And yet the imbecile had started snoring.

"Doctor Richard?" Sicarius spoke,

"ZzzzzZzz--Hmmm, what?" Richard turned to look at Sicarius, "Oh! Child, here take my notes and bring them to your handler, you'll be dispatched right away."

Richard yawned as he stretched out his arm to pass it to Sicarius.

Sicarius heightened his hyperfocus and reached out his hand to get the notes, his hand brushing against Richard.

Then he stilled.

Sicarius stretched out his arms and smiled. The sound of snoring followed as Richard fell asleep, the notes in his hand fell to the floor.

"This child's body feels quite wonderful. "

Knowing that the boy was mentally unstable meant that the chance of maintaining a possession was increased.

Richard relished in the feeling of his temporary body, not noticing Sicarius's consciousness hidden within. Not overpowered, not locked away, but was simply observing Richard's tiny consciousness manipulate his body.

He observed as Richard used his body to take out a radio from a drawer and speak,

"I'm taking the boy to base, notify everyone of my current body."