“Play it again,” Dr. Ross said through gritted teeth as he hovered over the security panel screens of the dark room.

Violet crouched in the hall as he and the guards approached from around the corner.

First, she was there, and just as they turned the corner, she vanished from sight.

“No electromagnetic glitch in the footage here, though,” Dr. Ross thought aloud as he leaned over and took the clicker away from the increasingly sweating security guard in the seat.

“But when she cut the power 3.16 minutes earlier,” he frantically scrolled back to the location.

Violet was restrained in her hospital bed, aided by the rogue nurse, who has since been questioned and dealt with.

“She sticks the needle in him, grabs his security badge, and here,” he continued to fast forward slowly in the footage, “as she cuts the power, it’s clear she uses some type of EM pulse.”

The cameras go black and turn back on 2.04 minutes later, with Violet in the hall.

“At this point, she’s…hesitating. As if she knew the way out before this moment. And then…the power comes back to full function.” Dr. Ross trailed off in his thoughts.

“Are the girl’s powers growing already? Or do you think she had help?” asked the guard, turning around to see Dr. Ross already on his way out the door.

“What a dick,” he muttered after the door slammed behind the doctor.

Room 749, Ward 0082

“I need you to find her again, my boy,” Dr. Ross said as he held Violet’s headshot in front of the boy’s face.

The boy squirmed against his restraints and reluctantly opened his eyes to the bright blaring lights of the small cell.

“I told you. It doesn’t work like that,” the boy known as Ward 0082, once as Jamie, pleaded.

Dr. Ross leaned in closer, his rage igniting in his eyes with a look that the boy knew only led to pain.

“Please! The dreams only show me what they want me to see. I can’t control them!”

“Well, you better make them.” Dr. Ross stood to leave, turning off the light as he did, as the boy screamed in terror.

“Please, no! They show me the worst things in the dark!” the boy sobbed as the doctor looked back from the door.

“Maybe it’s time you learn to embrace the pain, my boy. Let the cameras know when you find her again.”

“Please!!” the boy shouted as the door hissed shut and clicked with several locks.