Ellie closed her eyes and let the map become her entire universe. The pin marking the UK didn’t feel like a dot of ink anymore; it felt like a magnet, a hum vibrating against the center of her chest. She leaned into that vibration, letting go of the sensation of the bed beneath her, and suddenly the room in Byron’s house vanished.
The world rushed past her in a smear of grey and green until the “pull” snapped her into place.
She was in Shadstone. The air tasted saltier and heavier here. She found herself hovering on a quiet, residential street lined with terraced houses and overgrown hedges.
The feeling was strongest here.
It was a pulse, rhythmic and steady.
Then she saw him.
He was jogging down the center of the pavement, his breath huffing out in pale plumes of mist.
He was a young man, likely in his early twenties, with a powerful, husky build that suggested he was more of a rugby player than a long-distance runner. His skin was a deep, rich brown, and his black hair was cropped into short, tight curls that glistened with a fine sheen of sweat. He was clean-shaven, his jawline strong.
Ellie found herself gliding alongside him, effortless and invisible. As he passed under the glow of a streetlamp, she caught a clear view of his face. Around the bridge of his nose and blooming outward under his left eye was a patch of distinct scar tissue. The skin there was a pale, fleshy pink, the texture slightly puckered and smooth compared to the rest of his complexion. They looked like old burn marks—small enough to be missed from a distance, but vivid from her spectral vantage point.
He didn’t seem to feel her presence, yet she felt a strange, magnetic kinship to him. She hovered there, a ghost in his wake, watching the rhythmic swing of his arms and wondering why, out of everyone in the world, her mind had anchored itself to him.
And then, just as suddenly as she snapped into place, she snapped herself back to Byron’s living room and the warmth of the room flooded her again.
“Are you alright?” Byron asked.
“Yeah, I’m OK…” Ellie replied, softly.
“That was weird… it was like, you were in some kind of trance,” Byron informed her.
“Yeah…” Ellie replied, remembering the first time she saw herself while projecting.
“So, what happened?” Byron asked.
“I went to a place called… Shadstone. I found the person I was looking for, but he was just jogging.”
“Maybe he has super speed.”
Ellie resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
“Anyway… I found him, but he’s in Shadstone. Somewhere in England. I don’t even know where that is, exactly. But I don’t know who he is or even why I found him.”
Byron nodded, “Yeah, true… but maybe you could just do this now and again. I’ll give you this map, I have another one. I dunno, maybe you’ll find someone at the right time and the right place and get some answers.”
“A better plan than ‘do nothing’, I suppose,” Ellie shrugged.
She leaned forward and concentrated on the map again.
“I’m going to try another one,” she announced, now half-knowing what to expect.
“Which one?” Byron asked, and the excitement in his voice was not well hidden.
“Think I’ll go to… California,” Ellie grinned.
Cities, forests and oceans blurred by as Ellie soared for hundreds of miles. Within a few minutes, she felt close to her destination and the world around her slowed to a halt.
She was in what she imagined was a typical Californian suburb. The house in front of her looked like a family home; but it had the air of a home that has been abandoned or been left in disrepair.
Wondering whether she was in the right place, she drifted through the door and into the house. Without paying much attention to the mostly-wooden decor, she moved down the hallway and through a side door, into an office.
A man was sitting at his desk in the darkened room. His greying but full hair was illuminated by the computer screen in front of him. Ellie could see the frame and leg of his glasses on one side of his face. Wanting to get a better look, she drifted across the room so that she was facing him.
He was scrolling down the computer screen with his mouse, which Ellie knew because she could see the cascading screen reflecting in the lenses of his glasses.
His dark hair was grown long and his beard unkempt. The deep lines under both his eyes told Ellie he spent many hours staring at that screen, and little time sleeping.
“Who are you?” Ellie whispered to herself out loud.
A wave of terror washed over her when the man snapped his head in her direction, staring directly at her. His expression had changed from focused reading to confused shock. He was frowning, but there was something hopeful in his eyes.
Ellie moved away from him so that she was standing behind him again and to her relief, he had not followed her. Had he somehow sensed her, like she had him? Or was it merely a coincidence that something caught his attention exactly as she spoke?
“Lila?” The man called out. It was almost a gasp.
Was Lila someone else who lived in the house? She had not noticed anyone else as she entered.
The man was looking around now, as if trying to relocate a fly that had zoomed past his head.
Feeling too uncomfortable to continue, she pulled herself back from her surroundings and found herself back in Byron’s house moments later.
Ellie turned to look at Byron, who was still staring at her in wonder.
“Well?” He asked, expectantly.
Ellie cleared her throat.
“I – uh – well, that was weird.” Ellie replied.
“What was?” Byron pressed eagerly.
“I – maybe I was just imagining it – but I swear he sensed me.”
Byron smiled.
“Very interesting. I mean, it would make sense if he did.”
“Would it?” Ellie asked.
“Sure,” Byron nodded, “We know we can sense others like us nearby and you can do it on a global scale. I would guess that whatever we can sense is also part of your astral projection… so when you got there, maybe that feeling surged. Maybe he even recognised what it was. We don’t know if he knows he’s one of us.”
“He called someone’s name.” I replied.
“He did?”
“Yeah… Lila, I think…”
“Very interesting,” Byron said again.
“Interesting or not, I think I’m done for now.” Ellie took a deep breath, sliding her chair a few inches away from the table and brushing her hands through her hair.
Ellie registered the disappointment in Byron’s face, but he didn’t argue.
“Alright, no problem. We’ve got all the time in the world to explore the map.”
“So, what now?” Ellie asked.
Byron shrugged, “Fuck it, we’ll worry about it tomorrow. I think I’m going to watch a movie on Netflix. Wanna join?”
Ellie grinned.
“What?” Byron asked, confused.
“Are you suggesting we Netflix and Chill?”
It took Byron a moment to get the joke. When he did, he averted his eyes and stumbled a reply out.
“I – what, no – I told you, I’m not trying anything funny. Just thought it might be a good way to kill time, I – “
Ellie was laughing out loud at this point.
“Calm down, Byron. I’m just winding you up.”
Byron frowned.
“Not cool,” he replied, but she could tell by his tone he wasn’t really upset.
“Come on, then. Let’s see what’s on the flicks,” Ellie said.
Byron had a large flatscreen TV that Ellie had never seen in any house she’d been in. She knew it was pretty commonplace these days, but she had never had the luxury of owning one, or knowing someone who had.
They scrolled through the Netflix listings of movies and eventually settled on Superman 4: The Quest For Peace. Despite the subject material, Ellie quite enjoyed how bad it was. When it was over, she yawned and glanced at her phone. It was eleven pm.
Byron led her to her room and gave her a quick rundown of the house layout before bidding her goodnight and leaving her to go to his own room.
Ellie had had such a bizarre and eventful day that she found herself fast asleep moments after laying on the bed, not even having got under the covers.
Her first awareness that she was dreaming came when she found herself soaring through the streets of London. It was night time, and the city was littered with lights and glows from all directions.
She had no idea where she was going, but she knew that wherever she was going was where she wanted to go. She was drawn and pulled along by an indescribable feeling.
She travelled faster and faster until her surroundings became a blur; eventually she stopped at a run-down apartment complex in a dead-end district of Shadstone. She moved almost autonomously as she raised herself up to the second level of the complex and moved through a blue door marked 23.
She found the man she had seen earlier, jogging with a burn on his face, now sleeping on the sofa, wearing the same hoodie.
Then she realised that she wasn’t dreaming at all. She was astral projecting in her sleep.
It felt so much easier to do in her sleep; more instinctual and subconscious. After a few moments of looking at the man sleeping and realising how weird it was, she left and travelled quickly into a blur again.
When she stopped again, she was back in London. There was a small park which led into a wooded trail in the distance, but her focus was on the husky, bald man sitting on the park bench. He had his head in his hands and was staring at the ground.
His eyes were red; he had clearly been crying.
She had not seen this man before but she had a good idea of who it was: Lee Hooper.
He looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders and had no idea how to handle it. He was slouched hopelessly.
She had only seen that kind of depression in her father’s face before.
If I can find people without the map, people who I didn’t even find on the map, while dreaming…
She moved back into a blur now letting her subconscious mind do all the work for her, and only really actively paying attention when she stopped in a new area. She found a young, Chinese girl with short black hair and large brown eyes featuring on her rounded face. She was dressed very smartly, in a black blouse and white undershirt and tights, with black shoes. She was sitting at a piano with an older man, his bowl-cut hair flecked with grey. Dawn had broken and the sun cast the room with warm, yellow hues. The girl was playing the piano like a fifty-year expert, providing a beautiful melody Ellie recognised but did not know the name of.
She blurred again until she appeared at the foot of a gigantic mountain, covered in snow. The sky was the shade of blue it usually was just before dawn breaks. She drifted upwards as she saw a woman, dressed in a lot of layers to protect from the cold, namely a large, fluffy blue jacket with a hood. She was hiking up the trail not far from the start of the incline.
It was fascinating to Ellie, being drawn to and finding these people; but it also left her confused and frustrated. She could only guess at their locations and she had no idea who they were. She hadn’t even seen any of them actually use any unique abilities.
Well, that girl was playing the piano pretty fantastically.
Yeah, but that’s not exactly a superpower, is it?
Don’t call it that. Byron’s rubbing off on you.
And just like that, like nearly all dreams, it was inexplicably over and she had opened her eyes to the morning sun. Frustrated, she got up and closed the curtains tight, before heading back to the bed and laying down this time getting under the covers. She fell back asleep, but the lucid dreaming did not return. Instead she dreamt about mundane things, like fighting ninjas and doing Matrix-style swerves and dives to destroy them.
Ellie woke up again at 10.30am, to a knock on the bedroom door.
Groggily rubbing her eyes, she sat up.
“Come in.”
The door opened and Byron stumbled through.
“Got some breakfast,” he beamed, carrying two paper bags from McDonalds.
“Wow, thanks,” Ellie replied, gratefully.
“I’ll go serve it up,” Byron said and headed out of the room again.
A few minutes later, after Ellie had washed her face and brushed her teeth (Byron had instructed her to find an unopened pack of toothbrushes in the bathroom cabinet), she headed into the kitchen and sat at the table where Byron handed her pancakes with sausage.
“I’ve got coffee and coke, because I didn’t know what you’d want.”
“Coffee is great, thanks.”
Byron nodded and handed her a white coffee.
“Sleep well?” Byron asked.
“Slept… interesting.”
“Oh?” Byron asked, with a curious frown, thrusting the straw into the coke and taking a sip.
“Yeah, I … well, I was astral projecting in my sleep. It was weird – much easier than doing it awake. I saw people that weren’t on the map.”
“Really?” Byron’s eyes lit up.
“Yeah, it’s a bit foggy now… but I’m sure I saw Lee Hooper last night.”
“That’s really impressive,” Byron said, “Think about what you could achieve when you get used to your powers. Lee Hooper is -“
“Let’s not get into that discussion again. It’s way too early.”
Byron sighed lightly, “Alright, no worries. So what are you planning to do today?”
“I should probably find somewhere to live,” Ellie said, “As grateful as I am, I can’t just take your spare bedroom forever.”
Byron nodded, “I don’t mind, but I’ll help you look later. I just have to run a couple of errands first.”
Morning quickly became afternoon as Ellie started to feel awake. She checked her phone, but had no new messages or calls. She had thought her Dad would perhaps try and contact her, but he hadn’t. It seemed she really had scared him.
Serves him right, Ellie thought, though she knew she didn’t mean it. She didn’t want to see or hear from her father but she still felt uncomfortable at the pure terror she saw in his eyes.
A little past one o’clock, there was a knock on the door. Byron had just come back from the supermarket and was unpacking the groceries.
“Could you get that for me? It’s probably just a delivery.”
“Sure.”
Ellie headed to the front door and opened it. The man standing in front of her she recognised instantly,though she did not know his name. A cold jolt ran through her veins. It was the man she had seen the night before from California.
© 2026 Rhys Clark. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form, including scraping for AI training or large language models, without the prior written permission of the author.
Writing by Rhys Clark 