Somnia Online by K.T. Hanna (reading strategies book txt) 📕

out here? What if she could do what she’d almost done to her friends in the game…what if she could inflict pain like that on anyone?

No, out here she had to be even more careful. These weren’t just gaming husks. Everything around her was filled with real people. She owed them all a duty of care, all of them. Including herself.

Wren paused when she realized her hands were shaking, and that’s where her mom found her. Standing in front of the coffee machine trying desperately not to have the breakdown she could feel just around the corner. From her overachieving study fanatic self in high school, to this. She’d never imagined it. Would never have realized how far she could fall.

She had to get it together, because she wasn’t alone anymore. Her mother was about to come into the condo, and Wren knew that because she could sense her, through her damned abilities.

There was no controlling this. No control over this. But she had to. If it had really leaked into her body, and through her mind, she needed control now more than ever.

“Wrenny?” Laria’s tone was soft, like she was scared to hug her daughter because she might just break if she did so. Her mother had never dealt well with any form of fragility. She was too exuberant for that.

“Mom. I…” Wren gulped down a sob she hadn’t realized was brewing. “I think I can use my abilities here.”

She ended up whispering the last bit of what she said, hoping that maybe if she didn’t speak it out loud then it wouldn’t be true. And while she might wish that was the way things worked, she knew it wasn’t.

“Wren…but didn’t we already have an inkling of this? Wasn’t it like a parlor trick? Is it worse than making your hand disappear now?” Laria, to her credit, wasn’t panicking visibly, and Wren couldn’t sense any hidden elements of it either.

That in itself helped calm Wren down. “I know I can use my sensing nets. I knew you were coming; I could feel you half a block away. I know that Harlow is still asleep but just rolled over upstairs because she sensed I wasn’t next to her anymore.”

Wren paused and closed her eyes, turning to face her mother with the counter behind her back so she could lean against it while her legs felt so weak. When she opened them, she’d managed to keep the tears at bay. “And I know that Dad isn’t doing as well as he’s portraying. I just can’t tell more because he’s too far away.”

Laria enveloped Wren in a fierce hug. “It’s okay, love. We will get through this.” Wren could almost hear the frantic calculations in her mother’s head as she tried to figure things out, but the hug was still calming.

“You say that, but I could push you away right now without moving a muscle other than my brain.” Just saying it out loud made it far too real and Wren fought to retain control of her emotions. Losing that control right now wasn’t going to help anyone. Blanketing her neighborhood in a huge wave of wallowing despair wasn’t going to win her any favors. She was like a barely controlled empath in the real world.

“How do you mean?” Laria let her hands fall till they loosely gripped Wren’s. “Explain it like I’m five.”

At least that made Wren laugh, and a tiny bit of tension fled with the sound. “Thanks, Mom. I guess. I really only thought it was parlor tricks, but my connection in game made me think of some things, and now in Somnia I have some abilities that are kinetic in nature, so I can use the force of my mind to create force from my mind. If that makes sense.

“One of my abilities is my kinetic shield. It’s something that I can push out from myself, creating a barrier of sorts. Or I can surround people…” Wren’s face lit up as an idea came to her. “Oh, that’s it. I’ve got it. Here.”

She reached over and turned the hot water on, and then coated herself in her Kinetic Shielding she’d used so often it was second nature. Holding her hand under the water, she didn’t even flinch when it hit her barrier. Steam rose up toward the ceiling, but Wren only felt warmth. No scalding involved. She frowned a bit. Perhaps there was a difference. She wouldn’t have felt any alteration in Somnia.

Laria watched in amazement. “Wait. What? But our hot water is ridiculously hot.” She stated the obvious as if she was trying to ground herself. Then, like she was trying to downplay excitement, she asked, “Can I try?”

Wren nodded, hoping against hope that she could do what she thought she could, otherwise her mom was going to be in a lot of pain. But after making sure her mom was covered, the test worked. She looked at Laria’s hand, free of burns and not even wet when she removed the shielding.

In fact…she wasn’t really certain how to react to it. This was undeniable proof that she’d brought her abilities back into the real world with her, that her brain was forever irrevocably altered. Not that she hadn’t had proof before, but it had been far easier to ignore when things only happened to her.

Laria for her part was dealing with this emergence of potential superpowers far better than Wren expected. Her mother stood there, looking at her hand and frowning. She turned it this way and that, like she was seeking out any and every possible explanation for why her hand not only wasn’t burned, but also why it wasn’t wet. Shouldn’t matter what the temperature was, her hand should have been wet.

Wren felt her knees weaken, and a mild panic attack approached. She let herself practically fall into one of the kitchen chairs, and the sound made Laria turn to her daughter.

“It’s okay, Wrenny. We will figure this out. It could just be residual.” Which