Chapter 2 Aura

  I stare at the phone. It’s ringing.

  I don’t know if calling this number is the right call. Honestly, I don’t know if anything I’m doing right now is the right thing to do. But I need answers. Clarity. A thread to pull, even if it unravels everything.

  The name on the screen, Diane, feels familiar and foreign all at once. The longer I look at it, the heavier it gets. Like it’s daring me to remember something I can’t.

  Finally, the ringing cuts off, and the line clicks.

  I bring the phone to my ear.

  “Hello?” a woman’s voice snaps. “Who is this?”

  I pause for a second too long, and then say it. “It’s… Gavin.”

  For a short second, there’s silence… and then an explosion.

  “Oh, now you decide to call? Now?!” Her voice is sharp, furious, and piercing through the speaker like broken glass. “Where the hell have you been? You dropped off the face of the planet! I’ve been calling you for days, Gavin. Days! I thought you were… God, I don’t know what I thought! Dead? Lost? Or just being your usual reckless ass…”

  I pull the phone a few inches away from my ear.

  She keeps going, her voice climbing over itself, laced with something more than anger. It’s panic. Full blown panic!

  “You’ve been missing for over a week! A week, Gavin! Do you have any idea what that’s done to me?”

  I don’t. I really don’t. Because I’m not the person she’s yelling at. Not exactly. I don’t know who I am to her. But she sounds like someone who cared. Someone who maybe still does.

  “I’m sorry,” I manage.

  “Where are you right now?” she snaps.

  I glance around the room again. Same as before: dust-covered desk, cracked vinyl floor, a flickering light that buzzes overhead like an irritated wasp. The plastic plant to my left still hasn’t moved… of course it hasn’t. And on the desk, the photo: me, lips pressed against a blonde woman’s cheek, her smile caught in the flash. I wonder if that’s her.

  I hesitate. I have to choose my words carefully.

  “I… I woke up in this room. Small place. Dusty desk, fake plant next to me. There’s a photo on the desk… me, kissing a woman. Blonde hair. Looks like… it might be you? Just a wild guess. I don’t know… My memory has not been reliable lately.”

  There's a pause. I hear a sharp inhale from the other end.

  “What do you mean you woke up there?” she says slowly, voice colder now. “Gavin, what are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know how to explain it. I just… I woke up here. Like I lost time or something. Like everything before now is… foggy.”

  Another silence. Then:

  “Oh my God,” she breathes. “It’s the thing. It’s finally happening.”

  “What thing?” I ask, trying to keep my voice calm, but it comes out shaky.

  “Is it amnesia?” she asks. Then more urgently, “Wait right there. Don’t move. I’m coming to get you.”

  The line goes dead.

  I lower the phone slowly.

  My pulse is drumming in my ears. I feel like I just stepped onto a train that was already moving: no idea where it’s headed, only that it’s too late to jump off.

  Whatever this is, Diane thinks she knows something. Something I don’t.

  And apparently… it’s finally happening.

  Whatever it is.

  I sit there, staring at the photo.

  It’s me: my face and my smile, but I don’t feel like the guy in the picture. And the woman—blonde hair, radiant eyes, mid-laugh as I kiss her cheek—it tugs at something inside me. Not quite memory. Just... pressure. Like my mind’s trying to cough something up, but it won’t come.

  I reach out, pick up the frame. There’s a layer of dust on it, as if no one’s touched it in years. Carefully, I pop the back open, sliding the photo out. I lay it gently on my leather jacket like it’s some kind of clue in a puzzle I don’t understand yet.

  Time to move.

  I stand, legs stiff, the air stale and still. My boots creak against the cracked vinyl floor as I scan the rest of the room. It’s bare bones: old desk, torn curtains, and a single flickering bulb overhead. Then something catches my eye in the corner of the desk drawer.

  A matchbox.

  I pick it up, thumbing the edge. It’s half-empty, and something inside me shifts… an impulse, like a whisper from the version of me I don’t remember being.

  “Burn it.”

  I glance at the files. Now, suddenly, I know what I’m supposed to do. Or at least, what the other me wanted me to do.

  I strike a match. The sulfuric spark flares to life. One by one, I feed the files to the flame, watching names, dates, strange diagrams and scribbled annotations curl into ash. I drop the burning pages into a dented metal bin, stepping back as the fire dances orange and angry.

  There’s a strange relief in it. Like cutting a cord I didn’t know was strangling me.

  Once the last page blackens and collapses in on itself, I move on.

  The rest of the house is just as dead as the room. Peeling wallpaper, busted furniture, air thick with mildew. I search every drawer, every closet, hoping for a notebook, a journal… something left behind by the Gavin that came before me. Something to help me figure out what the hell is going on.

  But there's nothing.

  Not even a scribble. It’s like he—I—never existed here at all.

  Then…

  “Don’t move,” a voice says.

  Female. Firm. No tremor, no hesitation.

  I freeze.

  “Slowly,” she continues, “turn around with your hands behind your head.”

  I obey. Step by step, I pivot. Hands behind my head. Palms open.

  And then I see her.

  A young woman, maybe mid-twenties. Brunette, sharp-featured, eyes clear like polished glass. She’s dressed in a sleek black-and-white suit that looks too clean, too official for this forgotten place.

  She stares at me like she’s been waiting a long time.

  Then, suddenly, her face changes. It softens. Breaks into a grin.

  “Brother!” she gasps, tucking in her handgun behind her waist. “You are alive!

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  Before I can say a word, she launches forward and throws her arms around me, pulling me into a tight hug. I’m stiff at first, caught between instinct and confusion, but she doesn’t seem to care. She squeezes like I’m real. Like I matter.

  Like she knows me.

  Her arms are still around me when I feel the sudden thud, her fist slamming into my gut.

  “Oof…” I double over, the breath sucked out of me, pain blooming just below my ribs.

  “Don’t ghost me again, you stupid big brother!” she snaps, glaring down at me while I’m still catching my breath. Her voice is sharp, but there’s something else beneath it: relief, worry, maybe both.

  I straighten up slowly, hands on my knees, wheezing a little. “Nice to see you too.”

  She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. “What the hell are you doing here? In your old house, of all places. Isn’t this, like… way too reckless? Even for you?”

  I glance around the dead room again, at the ashes still smoldering faintly in the trash bin. “I… wasn’t really thinking about that.”

  “No kidding,” she mutters, pacing now. “You do realize the organization could’ve tracked you here, right? I thought they nabbed you. You’ve only been out a month, Gavin. One month! And now you’re just… what? Wandering around memory lane?”

  I rub the back of my neck. I’m not sure how to answer. Hell, I’m not even sure what I can say without sounding like a lunatic.

  She stops, squints at me. “What’s going on with you? You’re acting… off. Is something wrong?”

  I hesitate.

  I think of the file. The strange notes. The picture. The burning.

  And I make a decision… I play the card I’ve been holding onto since I woke up in that chair.

  “I… I don’t even remember how I got here,” I say quietly.

  She blinks. “What?”

  “I woke up in the room. The desk. The photo. No clue how I got here. But there was a file, something left by the other me. It mentioned memory lockdown procedures being initiated.”

  “Memory lockdown?” she echoes, frowning. Her tone shifts, like gears turning in her head. “Wait… so you’re saying… like… like amnesia?”

  I nod slowly. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. I don’t remember escaping. I don’t remember this place. I don’t remember… you.”

  That last part stings coming out, but it’s the truth… or close enough to it.

  She’s quiet for a moment, staring at me with a thousand thoughts flickering behind her eyes.

  “Where are the files?” she asks suddenly, sharp again. “Let me see them.”

  I shift my gaze toward the trash bin.

  “I… burned them,” I say.

  Her mouth drops open. “You what?”

  “They told me to,” I mutter. “Not in so many words, but it was implied. The past me, I think… I think he wanted to erase whatever trail there was. Said I’d know what to do when I saw them.”

  It’s a flat out lie, but… I rather cling to paranoia than risk recklessness.

  She groans, throwing her hands in the air. “You burned the only thing that could’ve told us what’s going on?”

  “I didn’t exactly have a lot to go on!”

  She stares at me, jaw tight, then exhales sharply and presses her fingers to her temples like she’s trying to hold her brain inside her skull.

  “God, you really are still you.”

  I don’t know what to say.

  Diane is pacing, mumbling things under her breath I can’t quite catch. The air feels heavier now, like it’s pressing in around us. Her eyes are darting, calculating. Like she’s trying to solve a problem with too many missing pieces… and I guess, in a way, I am the problem.

  I reach into my jacket and pull out the photo. The one I took from the frame in the dusty room. I hold it out between us. “Hey… who’s this?”

  She stops mid-step. Her gaze falls on the photo: me, smiling, and kissing a blonde woman’s cheek. It’s a good picture. I look happy and content.

  She doesn’t answer right away.

  “The blonde,” I press. “Who is she?”

  Diane's expression shifts. Not anger this time, but concern. Deeper than before. Her eyes flick up to meet mine, searching, like maybe the question is a test I’m failing.

  “So you really don’t remember anything,” she says softly.

  I shrug, uncomfortable. “Bits and pieces. A vibe, more than a memory. But I’m functional, at least. Common sense is intact. I can walk, talk, solve problems. I’m not helpless.”

  She raises an eyebrow. “That’s debatable.”

  I smirk faintly. “Okay, I might get lost in a train station, but I can hold a conversation.”

  She gives a short, dry laugh, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

  I hold up the photo again. “So… who is she?”

  Diane sighs, stepping closer. “That’s Dr. Page. Heather Page.”

  The name lands like a thud in my chest.

  “She’s your handler. Your doctor,” Diane continues. “And… apparently, your girlfriend. For the past two years.”

  I blink. “Two years?”

  She nods. “Ever since you volunteered for that awful organization.”

  My stomach turns. I look down at the photo again. Heather’s smile is genuine, the kind that says this isn’t just some professional relationship. I stare at my own face: how casual, how into it I look. The arm draped around her. The kiss.

  It doesn’t feel like me.

  Or maybe it’s a version of me I haven’t met yet.

  “Two years,” I murmur again.

  Diane folds her arms, watching me. “Do you remember her at all?”

  I shake my head. “Not a thing.”

  Her lips press into a thin line. “Then this is worse than I thought.”

  I look up at her. “What do you mean?”

  “If your memories of her are gone, Gavin… they might’ve gone deeper than we realized. Locking out just your episodic memories is one thing. But your emotional anchors? Your core relationships?”

  She trails off. I can tell she’s not saying everything. Maybe she doesn’t want to. Or maybe she’s trying to protect me from a truth I’m not ready to hear.

  Either way, this Dr. Heather Page just became a very big question mark in my already scrambled life. And something tells me I’m going to have to find her… whether I want to or not.

  “She’s dead,” Diane says suddenly.

  “…What?”

  The words hit me like a slap. I stop breathing for a second. It looks like I found her faster than I thought. But… I don’t know. A paranoid part of me tells me not to trust Diane, the letter addressed to me, and just about everything.

  “Is that all?” I ask.

  “A month ago,” she adds, voice flatter now. "Condolences, brother.”

  “I escaped… why?” I ask quietly. “Does it have a connection to her death?”

  Diane’s eyes meet mine. There’s a weight in them. “The organization killed her. Beyond that, I know nothing, Say, brother… What’s your next move from here?”

  My mouth goes dry. “What organization?” As for my next move? I have nothing. “Tell me about this organization. Help me to understand.”

  “Name?” She shakes her head. “No one knows. Not the real name, anyway. It’s just ‘the organization.’ Shadow government stuff. Off-the-books science. Psychic weaponry. You name it.”

  "And you?" I ask. My voice is colder now. Tighter. "What’s your stake in all this?"

  She doesn’t flinch.

  “I’m a member of the ESPer Association,” she says, chin up. “And I’m your sister. So of course I’m going to help you.”

  I narrow my eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

  Her brows knit. “Excuse me?”

  “Convince me.”

  Diane looks at me like I’ve just grown a second head. For a moment, she’s speechless, which is impressive, given what I’ve seen of her so far. Then something in her face twitches. Anger, maybe. Disbelief.

  “Don’t make this hard for me, Gavin,” she says through gritted teeth. “Just cooperate, okay? And how am I supposed to convince you?”

  I lift the photo again, turning it toward her. “Your brother, the other me, left a letter. In it, he said there’s one person he trusts more than anyone in the world.”

  I pause, let that hang there.

  “That person was you.”

  She stares.

  “So if that’s true,” I continue, “then you’re the one who should be cooperating with me. Proving yourself. Because I don’t know who you are. I don’t even know who I am. So tell me, Diane… what’s it gonna be?”

  She glares at me.

  For a second, I think she might hit me again. Or scream. Or walk away.

  Instead, she exhales hard and laughs… just once. Bitter. Low.

  “The past you,” she says slowly, “was crazy. Brilliant, but reckless. Always leaping off cliffs just to see what was at the bottom. I’ve always idolized you, but then you went crazy just because the ESPer Academy kicked you off… and then you volunteered to be some lab rat?”

  She steps closer.

  “But this version of you? You’re more… grounded. Rational.” She smiles, crooked and strange. “I think I prefer it, even with the paranoia.”

  Then her hand moves quick as lightning.

  Suddenly, the cold press of a gun barrel is against my forehead.

  I don’t move. I don’t even blink.

  “You want proof?” she says, voice steady. “Here it is. You’re coming with me to the ESPer Association’s closest branch. They’ll put you in witness protection. New safehouse. New ID. Full psychic shielding. That’s the only way I can keep you safe.”

  I stare into her eyes.

  They’re not cruel.

  Just tired… and determined.

  “…So this is how you convince people?” I say, calm despite the steel against my skull.

  “Only the ones I care about,” she answers.

  And for some reason… I believe her.

  The problem is, I don’t like a gun being pointed at my head.

  Something shifts inside me. Quiet. Clean. Like a switch flipping. No hesitation. No second-guessing.

  I move.

  My hand snakes up, knocks her wrist sideways. The gun veers. My other hand snaps the slide clean off, the motion so fluid it feels rehearsed, like muscle memory I didn’t know I had. The round pops free from the chamber and clinks to the floor.

  She gasps, unable to react,

  “Too slow.”

  I close in fast. With cold, mechanical precision, I press the stripped gun, just the jagged edge of metal now, hard against her throat.

  Her eyes go wide. I can see her pulse hammering just under the skin.

  “Don’t move an inch,” I say, voice low and even. “Or there’ll be a hole in your neck.”

  Her breath catches. She doesn’t blink. Neither do I.

  In the corner of my vision, I see it… small wisps of energy.

  [Aura: 2%]

  There’s a subtle shimmer around the edges of the room. Like heatwaves off asphalt. Something under my skin stirs: coiled energy, untapped, and dormant. But present.

  Waiting.

  She’s frozen, hands lifted in cautious surrender, eyes flicking between my face and the twisted metal pressed to her neck.

  “Okay,” she breathes. “You’re still in there. I was starting to worry.”

  “I don’t know what’s in me,” I reply, pressing a little harder, “but I know I don’t appreciate threats. Even from family.”

  “Noted,” she says, her voice tight. “But if you think I’m scared of you, Gavin… you’re not the only one who’s changed.”

  We stare at each other for another beat. The air between us sizzles, charged and dangerous.

  Then I pull the metal away from her throat and take a single step back.

  She exhales hard, rubbing her neck. “Next time,” she mutters, “I’ll skip the dramatics.”

  “Next time, I might not.”

  She shoots me a sideways look. “You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?”

  I toss the dismantled pieces of her gun onto the floor between us.

  “You said the old me was reckless,” I say. “Looks like some things don’t change.”

  And there it is again, just for a split second: a strange feeling rising deep within me.

  [Aura: 8%]

  For some reason, I want to hurt someone.

  Mob Psycho 100—a series I love and took inspiration from. That rising tension, the slow buildup, the anticipation of a breakthrough... it just felt right to use something similar here.

  Aura Farming follows Gavin Goodman as his Aura rises, step by step. And yes, this novel really is about farming aura—seriously.