Chapter 3: The First Push

Before the apocalypse, my life was already far from easy. I had left home at eighteen with nothing but a single bag and a stubborn refusal to look back, and in the years since I had worked whatever job would take me, cleaning tables, stocking shelves, standing behind counters until my feet went numb. This year had been the worst of them. I lost my waitressing job in the spring and could not find another one no matter how many doors I knocked on, and without an income, my rent had fallen behind.

I pulled my eyes away from the door and looked down at my phone instead. The moment I unlocked it, notifications poured across the screen, one after another, all of them demanding money I did not have. My palm turned damp and I set the phone on the bed beside me, wiping my hand against my jeans, and I drew in a slow breath that did nothing to steady the tightness in my chest.

Marie was not going to give up tonight. Her fist kept landing against the door, and with every strike my heart climbed a little higher into my throat.

"Open this door right now, or I will force it open myself," she shouted through the wood.

I curled my hand into a fist, my mind spinning through options that all led to the same dead end. Losing this apartment with the apocalypse only three months away was not something I could afford to imagine, not when I already knew exactly how unforgiving the world outside was about to become. I could not hide from her forever. Slowly I rose to my feet, biting down hard on my lip, feeling the whole apartment shudder with each knock while somewhere down the hall a neighbor called out for me to just open the door already so the noise would stop.

I crossed the room slowly, arranging my face into something tired and unbothered before I reached for the handle. My grip tightened as the door swung open, and I stepped into the hallway and pulled it shut behind me.

Marie stood there in her late forties, her hair combed back neatly, a bag hanging from one hand and impatience carved into every line of her face.

"Good evening, Marie," I said.

"What took you so long?" she snapped, her eyes raking over me. Around us, doors clicked shut one by one as the neighbors who had been listening pretended they had not heard a thing, and heat crept up my face knowing they had.

"I was trying to sleep. My head has been pounding for days and your knocking—"

"I did not come here for your excuses," she cut in. "I came for my rent." She had heard every version of my stories before, and none of them had ever moved her, so she held out her palm and said, "Go inside and bring me my money. You are not the first tenant without a family to fall back on."

Her words landed exactly where she meant them to, and I felt the crack forming in the calm I had been holding together. I scratched at the side of my nose, buying myself a second I did not really need.

"My money," she said again, sharper this time.

I stared at her open palm. I did not even have enough left for dinner, let alone three months of back rent, and a sharp sting rose behind my eyes as the weight of it pressed down on me.

Then I heard it. A soft chime rang out of nowhere.

Ding!

A familiar blue panel unfolded in the air between us, and I froze, my composure slipping as my eyes darted between Marie and the glowing screen hanging directly in her line of sight. If she could see this, what would she think of me? But her gaze never left my face, her mouth still moving through another round of threats, and it took me a moment to realize she had not reacted to the panel at all. Nobody could see it but me.

Target Detected. Name: Marie Lawson. Current Emotion: Irritated. Deepest Desire: Financial Security. Greatest Fear: Tenants who disappear without paying. Weakness: Mounting debt. Fatal Flaw: Impatience. Resistance: 1/5. Mind Push Available. Daily Uses Remaining: 2/2.

My breath caught somewhere in my throat as I read it. It was working. I could see straight through to the woman standing in front of me, and any doubt that this system was a strange dream evaporated on the spot. Maybe this was the world finally paying me back for everything I had survived, and I would be a fool to waste it.

My eyes lingered on one line in particular. Weakness, mounting debt. So Marie was drowning in her own money troubles, and that was exactly why she hounded me every single week like her life depended on it, because in a way it probably did.

Suggestion: Mind Push may now be activated, the screen offered.

How, I wondered, and the answer arrived a heartbeat later. Lock eyes with the target. Issue a short, clear command. A command that runs directly against the target's nature is likely to fail.

"I have been more than patient with you," Marie was saying, tapping her foot against the floor. "Ask anyone. No landlord would have tolerated what I have tolerated from you. Tonight I am done. Either you pay me, or I put you and everything you own out on that street. Choose."

I said nothing back, too busy fighting to catch her eyes and hold them.

"What are you staring at?" she barked when she noticed I had stopped arguing.

"Marie," I said, slow and deliberate.

The second her name left my mouth, a strange pressure built behind my eyes and the world around me seemed to slow down, as if my own thoughts had sped up while everything else dragged. Marie's blinking turned sluggish, her hand still frozen mid gesture, her pupils widening.

My pulse doubled. This was insane. She was different, caught somewhere between one second and the next.

I forced myself to breathe evenly and did not break eye contact even once.

"Give me one more week," I said, and the words left my mouth in a single wave that landed against her like a physical blow.

Marie blinked, her fingers tightening around the strap of her bag, and she nodded as though some invisible hand had tipped her head for her. "Fine," she said, and the strange pressure behind my eyes released all at once. "You have until next weekend," she added, and turned on her heel and walked away without another word.

A faint blue spark rippled through the panel before it winked out of sight.

I pressed my hand against my chest, my back sliding against the closed door once I heard it click shut. It had worked. It had actually worked.

Ding!

Congratulations, host. Your first use of Mind Push was successful.