Emotional Radar

This one is a bit of a time skip ahead (Only a few hours) Next chapter goes over that, Enjoy.

9:35 pm - Prescott Dormitory

Kate was sat at her desk in her dorm room, surrounded by a mountain of books and papers as she tried to push through her English homework. Her room was her sanctuary from the emotional onslaught constantly radiating from the other students. Not that there was anything special about her room say for its other inhabitant, her pet rabbit, Alice. Being this close to Alice, Kate found it easy to just focus on her, thus using her as an emotional barricade from everyone else. It wasn't perfect by any means. If Alice was spooked Kate felt it. Luckily enough for her, Alice was getting used to the random noises that came from the corridor and other various dorm rooms. Resting her elbow on her desk and her head on her hand, she glanced over at her pet as she peacefully gnawed on a carrot.

Smiling to herself, Kate turned her attention back to her work, abruptly stopping mid-sentence as she was hit by a wave of panic emanating from Alice that sent a shudder down the blonde's spine. Focusing on Alice and reaching out to find the source of the rabbit's worry, Kate was immediately hit with several dozen emotions from every direction. Most were generally content, happy or just worried, probably about some classwork Kate thought to herself, as well as a few emotions that made the blonde blush. The only issue being an empath, sometimes you got far more information than you wanted and it felt like intruding, but it was difficult to filter out when people were so open about it.

Quickly filtering out the obvious distractions, Kate almost doubled over in her seat as she was hit with a torrent of strong, conflicting emotions all emanating from the same person… or was it people? Anger, fear, hatred, sorrow, aggression and most of all regret. That one emotion appeared to override all others. Amongst the chaos, Kate recognized the aura almost instantly. There was only one person she had met with that much internal conflict.

"Sophie," Kate gasped as she felt her eyes well up at the young girl's emotional torrent. Grabbing her phone, she got to her feet and left her homework unfinished as she made her way out of the dorm building into the night, using her ability like an emotional radar to home in on Sophie.

It wasn't long before Kate found herself following Sophie's emotional distress call into the woods behind Blackwell Academy. Using her phone's flashlight to light her way, she made every attempt not to end up on her ass as she narrowly avoided tripping over several exposed tree roots. The clear night sky and crescent moon were blotted out by the ever-reaching canopy of the trees until she came face to face with a sheer cliff, wet boggy mud at the base. Kate could feel she was close. Sophie had long stopped moving. It had crossed her mind that the other girl might not want to be found, but it wasn't in Kate's nature to sit back and do nothing when someone was hurting. If she was feeling like this, she would want someone to come after her. The intensity of the second-hand emotions she was feeling from the young girl only made her more certain of that.

Examining the cliff face, Kate looked to the left and right, trying to decide which way to go. She eventually decided on using meany miny mo to choose and started walking along the cliff face to the right.

"I guess right is right... so punny," she chuckled to herself as she trudged through the soggy mud.

After some time, she came upon a small cave entrance. The roof of the cave was only two feet or so higher than herself and even with her phones light, it barely lit up the entrance. Feeling a little nervous, she took a few experimental steps inside, sensing the pull of Sophie's emotions coming from within.

"Sophie, you in here?" she called out into the depths of the cave, her voice echoing off the cave walls several times.

The feeling of apprehension Kate felt from Sophie told her she was deeper inside. Taking a deep breath she pushed on deeper, shining her phone's light on the floor as she went. As the light passed across the ground, Kate made a worrying discovery. She stopped for a moment when she spotted what looked like the paw print of either a large dog or wolf. Neither of those possibilities was good.

"Umm, Sophie, this might not be the best place to hide. I think either a large dog or wolf comes in here," Kate said out loud, feeling a little anxious at the recent discovery. She instantly sensed Sophie's amusement at her statement.

"Glad I amuse you," Kate mumbled as she worked her way over a few slippery flat rocks, tripping over a loose stone as she cleared them. One misstep and she came tumbling to the ground, her phone smashing as it hit the cave wall. "Dammit," she moaned as she got back up. "I'm ok… Nothing's broken… well, except my phone," she called out after sensing Sophie's concern at her outburst, "which means I can't see… don't suppose you could turn your phone's light on if you have it?" Kate asked hopefully.

After a few moments with no reply, Kate let out a sigh as she slowly started making her way once again, feeling her way along the damp cave wall as her nose picked up the faint scent of freshly cooked toffee. Putting it down to skipping dinner yet again she continued on, stopping as she noticed a dim blue orb making its way towards her. The orb halted and hovered a few feet in front of her. It really didn't do anything for the lighting situation, but at least it was something. Kate was about to say something when the blue light turned to a brilliant white, causing the blonde to shut her eyes and shield them with her hand at its intensity. A few seconds later, the light dimmed and Kate opened her eyes to see the orb emitting a more pleasant glow lighting up the cave in every direction a good twenty to thirty feet.

"Are you doing that?" Kate asked as she started confidently following the white orb deeper into the cave. "You know, being able to do that, I wouldn't call you boring," she said with a small chuckle as she recalled Sophie's introduction earlier that day in class.

Turning a bend in the cave the orb zipped ahead a few feet, lighting up a large cavern some fifteen feet high carved out in an almost perfect semicircle. The walls glistened with water and patches of algae. Kate's gaze, however, was transfixed towards the center as her eyes went wide. "And I DEFINITELY wouldn't say you're a boring human," she muttered in disbelief.

And that's it for this week, Please leave a comment, I...no WE would love to hear your thoughts on this, Me and Olivia have been working on this for the last two months, with a lot of back and fourth (As well as hardships of having to write with a pen and paper *Shudder* and type up stuff on tablets because neither of us had access to our computers lol.

See you all next week,

Stay frosty