| The Real Illusion |
It was a wasteland, dust swept up at Lucas’ feet and harsh winds threatened to blind him. Every intake of breath he took would have choked him, the polluted air that was strung with the sickness filled his lungs, infecting everything that it touched. His skin should be hurting, should have been licking fire across his skin freely as he stood centrefold to what used to be his city.
This wasn’t Grimstone; it wasn’t even close, it was what was left of his former home. It was what every horror movie dreamed to capture on the screen; buildings had fallen to crumbling remnants of the monumental structures they once were. Vehicles were abandoned, hollowed out to metal shells and scattered haphazardly in the roads. There was no sign of life, no greenery; trees were gone, withered to dust and debris. Fires roared in the distance, capturing the last of the flammables in desolate structures.
It was Lucas’ definition of the apocalypse.
As his eyes moved, more chaos appeared, the dystopian ruin was littered in ashen bodies; disfigured; unrecognisable; dead. He hadn’t realised he’d been breathless, that panic had invaded every fibre of his being, it shouldn’t have been there either. None of it should have been, but even as he slowly turned to survey his surroundings, it was everywhere. The chaos and ruination of the place he’d once known so well - his vision was blurred, or perhaps it was the world that was, he couldn’t quite tell in his haze.
What he could figure out was that he’d heard the announcement. He’d seen the news and he’d been cut off from technology in the same instant. Much like this world that he was now gazing upon; everyone was gone. The shaking of Greenman’s body was a cross between fear and anger; two things that weren’t ever part of him, but what had just happened; the crushing disappointment, the pandemonium that it promised had made Lucas’ imagination, and ability flow into a state of overdrive. It was the feeling of hopelessness, grief and loss.
Hence why he was standing in the midst of the decimation of what the announcement promised the outside world would eventually look like. Grimstone had been the apparent safe haven and they were powerless - for the first time, to do anything about it. They were to hide and allow what Lucas’ illusions were speculating and he’d never lost the grip on his ability like he had now, he’d never taken images from the news reports, fictional movies and the town he was standing in and formed the terrifying false reality that was surrounding him right now. If he didn’t know better and he hadn’t spent years honing his ability to what it was, he’d say it was real. Real enough.
The only reminder that it wasn’t real was that he wasn’t choking on the sickening air that was floating poisonous particles past him, that the blood and dust weren’t staining his black boots and that he wasn’t able to truly touch the dead that covered the floor for miles. He couldn’t determine if they were strangers or his closest friends; he couldn’t do anything but stare at the powerful illusion that he’d formed for everyone in the nearby street he was standing in to be consumed in.
The pressure on his mind reminded him that there were limits to how far he could project the realistic portrayal of the future outside the walls and despite the silver lining that he was ‘safe’ within the walls of Grimstone, everyone outside wasn’t. Lucas wasn’t used to feeling the way he was but he couldn’t bring himself to stop crafting the false reality around him. He needed to do something and he already knew that if he’d heard the announcement, then so had everyone else.
And there were far more dangerous and unstable individuals in Grimstone than him; his own friends that had been thrilled to leave the place were likely taking it out somewhere - or on someone and instead of using rationality and forward-thinking when told that a superflu outbreak had plagued the outside. All that was likely running through their minds, was the same thoughts running through Lucas’; they were prisoners to Grimstone again.
“We can’t let this happen,” he murmured, crouching down to hide that his knees wanted to buckle at the sight of every new detail his mind had formed. He could feel a migraine pushing at his skull, warning him to lay off the complexity of the illusion he’d created. But he wasn’t ready to let it go yet, it wasn’t scorched into his mind enough yet that the consequence of ten years time if the superflu was left untreated. Grimstone could help; they were gifted, someone must be able to help whilst offering the freedom and transition back into the real world. “They’ll find a cure quickly, right?” he added with a little of his own venom; a little gravelly and uncaring for the ones suffering out there. He did care, a lot. But he also cared about the stability of his own friends at Grimstone.
Even if Greenman knew what fictional plain he’d surrounded himself with was farfetched, the result was just the same. If the superflu was fatal in all of its hosts, then the world would cease to function; there would be no one left for the residents at Grimstone to meet with. They would be as alone out there as they were now. “We cannot let this happen.” and this time, when he repeated the words, they were almost growled as his fists slammed into the ground beneath him, it didn’t kick at the dust that wasn’t there. It hurt like hitting concrete, but Lucas didn’t let himself feel it, he just stayed crouched, calming himself down enough so he could disassemble the illusion without damaging his mind in the process.