The night hung heavy over the ruined cityscape, thick with the scent of ash and cold metal. Evan leaned against the broken frame of a half-collapsed skyscraper, arms crossed, watching the skyline as if it might suddenly rearrange itself into something familiar.
Beside him, Aidan sat cross-legged, methodically tightening the cracked straps of his battered armor. The boy's resilience was surprising, even to Evan — though he would never admit it out loud.
For now, there was an uneasy calm. No Hunters. No Enforcers. No Academy agents.
Just the wind and the low hum of the world trying to heal from wounds too deep to scab over.
> "You ever gonna tell me why you retired?" Aidan asked without looking up.
Evan didn't respond immediately. His mind drifted back — to bloodied corridors, to screams drowned out by the roaring inside his skull, to the title they had once whispered in terror:
Psychic Reaper.
He closed his eyes briefly.
> "Tired of cleaning up other people's messes," Evan said finally. "Tired of being a tool they pointed at problems too big for them to solve."
Aidan nodded slowly, absorbing the weight behind the words.
> "And now?"
> "Now," Evan said, pushing off the wall, "I clean up my own messes."
The distant howl of an energy siren broke the stillness, a low pulse that vibrated through the bones of the ruined city. Evan stiffened, immediately scanning the horizon with sharpened senses.
Something was coming.
Something Gravemind had stirred.
---
The two moved quickly through the remains of the urban sprawl, Evan's telekinesis subtly bending the shadows around them, cloaking their presence from the distant drones sweeping the skies.
Aidan marveled at how easy Evan made it look. Every thread of reality seemed to yield to him — masking their heat signatures, scattering their psychic trails, even bending broken structures out of sight to hide their movement.
> "You're really good at this," Aidan muttered as they ducked into the shell of an abandoned rail station.
> "Occupational hazard," Evan said dryly.
Inside, the cracked walls and rusted rails were covered with graffiti — old slogans from rebel cells long dead or forgotten.
"Freedom Is A Lie."
"The Academy Knows No Mercy."
"The Reaper Is Watching."
Evan scowled at that last one.
Even now, his ghost lingered in places he had tried to forget.
---
As they made camp, Evan carefully layered psychic barriers around them — subtle, delicate weaves of telekinetic force that would confuse any scanner or hunter that passed nearby.
For the first time in what felt like days, they had room to breathe.
Aidan stretched out on his bedroll, staring up at the cracked ceiling.
> "You ever think about... doing something else?" he asked quietly. "Like... just disappearing?"
Evan was silent for a long moment.
> "I did," he said eventually. "Tried it, even."
> "What happened?"
> "Gravemind," Evan said simply. "They wouldn't let me go."
Aidan frowned.
> "They? You mean the Academy?"
> "No," Evan said. "The world."
Outside, the sirens faded into nothingness.
The world, for now, slept.
And in the quiet, Evan allowed himself — for just a moment — to wonder what it might be like to truly be free.
---
End of Chapter 6.