My mind was barely coherent, and I was struggling to keep my thoughts in order. It took far too long for me to regain control over my Spatial Awareness ability and retrain it on my environment. Like wearing your glasses on your head, but not over your eyes.
Spatial Awareness is an interesting ability. It’s not like it grants me sight. It’s more like a sense of what is there occupying the space, a dimensional sense, you might say. I’ve read about humans having more than the five senses we’re normally attributed -sight, sound, touch, taste, smell- there’s always that elusive sixth sense.
Then I discovered the idea of perceptics and how it is theorized that there are well over fifty of them: gravity, time sense (and the passage of time), the ability to feel emotions. You can literally tell when someone is looking at you. All those subtle perceptions get wrapped up in the catch-all that is the sixth sense.
Ever wonder if a bee or another animal is angry at you? Yeah, you can sense that too. But all of that woo-woo stuff is paranormal to say the least. Scientists can only believe what they can read in another scientist’s doctoral thesis. And they don’t even realize that is an exercise in faith. The deeper you dive, the closer you get to the truth.
I found a book on it. It was a good read -if you like the super existential- and I didn’t understand half of it, but I did get that when people say we only use ten percent of our brains, they’re selling themselves short by large margins. We’re not even using a quarter of a percent of our minds.
Spatial Awareness gave me a rough guide, and through human imagination, I filled in the gaps. It really only let me know that there were things in my environment and their rough dimensions. It was pretty on the nose with its title -Spatial Awareness. I was aware of space.
Long story short, I activated it, clenched my cheeks, and squinted a bit. And there it was.
I like to describe it in ways that can be translated via text, because you’re basically reading my memoirs, my journal. I fancy myself a writer, a fictional enthusiast, so it felt apropos to record my life and experiences. If it seems disjointed or rambling, I apologize, but sometimes you do what you’ve got to do when you’re writing. While I might not know what everyone is thinking all the time, I am pretty omniscient, if I do say so myself.
Back to the story. Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. I woke up, turned on my Spatial Awareness, and got a lay of the land. My little mini-map popped into existence in my field of view, and I glanced at it. Obviously, I’m not seeing in the traditional sense, but name one ophthalmologist who really knows how eyes work, just running theories.
I sensed the map and the system’s messages as mental impressions. How do you describe something so existential?
My mind ran in loops and dips, like a Mad Hatter’s game of Chutes and Ladders. I needed clarity. And I needed it fast.
Because remember those footsteps I mentioned? Yeah, they were getting closer.
A strangled gurgle of my stomach reminded me that I hadn’t had a proper meal -of the sanguine variety- since that brief bite during my travels when I drained that shadow entity out of Jinx.
Which was unfortunate, perhaps fortunate: from what Father Ben said, partaking of human blood would lock me in as a vampire forevermore.
I made a mental note to research this place -labs, libraries, museums, anything that tells the histories of the supernatural Warehouse 13 I found myself in.
From what I had gleaned during Lily’s cosmic mental adventure down the rabbit hole, there was far more to vampirism than I once believed. My mom -now that I know more about this world- was likely a Seer, because believe me, she has the evil eye. And yet, after all I had been through, I still didn’t quite believe it.
Think about it: Uncle Joe claims he ran into a UFO, got probed, and saw cow mutilators -nobody believes that. Except children. Because kids believe -rightfully so, IMO- fairytale monsters live under their beds, and Ole Saint Nick brings toys to the Easter Bunny.
But I digress.
My Spatial Awareness revealed that I was alert, sort of. Which was a blessing. But that just meant I was painfully aware of every step as the mysterious person wearing hard-soled shoes, or heels, if my ears weren’t deceiving me, as they approached the room I was held prisoner within.
I counted the steps as they drew near. I could see the dark figure standing outside of the lab with instruments of torture in hand, ready to dissect the pitiful fledgling vampire, for posterity, of course.
Frantically, I cast my senses around the room, desperate to escape the encroaching threat.
There were three cold-metal tables or gurneys, straps to bind someone, namely me. Using my not-unprodigious strength (double negative, yes, but you get my point), once more I tried to tear free myself, and yet again I fell short of said freedom.
I’m stronger than the average man, and the more I struggled, the faster the living chains threatened to amputate me, so I quickly desisted.
Mentally tearing my hair out, I tried to use what I assumed to be a pretty decent Mind stat, I mean, I had a damn 14. And that was at least 3 to 4 over a common human. Then again, come to think of it, that wasn’t very impressive. In fact, that wasn’t even genius level.
Damn it.
There was a time I thought dying was the worst thing that could happen to me. Turns out, waking up blind, strapped down, and half-naked in a glowing tech-lab full of ominous tubes? Yeah. That edges it out.
My fingers twitched against the damn restraints. Still no give. Just the smug pressure of living reinforced carbon weave bands biting into my wrists. Maybe Magitek. Designed to hold something stronger than your average frat bro after leg day. My nearly amputated state had even started my blood to begin dripping wastefully to the gurney I was lying upon.
“Okay,” I whispered to no one. “New plan. Bleed on things until something comes to eat me.”
My thoughts turned dark as I lay there. But then a vibration coming up through the table beneath me got me thinking. I looked down at it, and was able to make out the flat and rectangular shape of something I was surprised to see.
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The University datapad. My useless, inert, and expensive-looking paperweight. A gift from the school for new students was lying discarded just out of reach. My assailants, whoever they were -though I had my suspicions- had forgotten, or not cared enough to, remove my personal effects after they strapped me down.
It wasn’t close enough to do anything with, but it was close enough to bleed on.
A flash of inspiration and hope flooded through me as I made a mental leap of faith.
I twisted my hand enough to catch in my open palm the tiny amount of blood that was leaking from my wrist. I pumped my muscles like I was at the Red Cross, and was rewarded with an increase in the trickle. Blood welled up, thick and dark, and as soon as I had enough, I flicked it across to the device.
The screen flickered. I nearly whooped in glee as I watched with my expanded Veil Sight as the semi-familiar aurora of lights played over its no longer inert screen. Turns out that you don't have to be dead to have an out-of-body experience.
Maybe I was a genius after all.
Then it chimed.
I mentally screamed at it to shut up, and to my relief, it did.
A message hovered over the screen, and thankfully, I was able to see it, despite my ocularly impaired state.
Biometric Signature Accepted. Welcome, Student: Mor, Declan.
Excelsior! I thought in triumph, doing mental backflips and high-fives with myself for a job well done.
The screen flared to life with a soft glow. A new chime. Then:
Would you like to enable Enhanced Accessibility Protocols?
Sure, I thought. Let’s make this nightmare easier to navigate.
A wave of heat rippled through the air around me as the interface adjusted -standard visuals swapped out for enhanced auditory pulses and sensory echoes. I didn’t see the changes, per se, but I still felt them -like Veil Sight enhanced sonar layering over my existing sightless Spatial Awareness.
My datapad -my glorified brick- was now an extension of my senses
Now we’re talking.
Thank god I didn’t have to be physically touching the damn thing to operate it. This fact firmly moved Magitek onto my favorites list.
A new window opened. Dozens of system logs poured in. Then another chime.
Network Detected: Do you wish to connect to the local system?
I hesitated. Just a beat. Then:
Do it.
The datapad pulsed. Then came a surprise.
A message from my previously quiescent, ever-lurking companion, the system.
System: Quest Unlocked
Escape the Mad Labs:
Objectives:
Break containment.
Rescue student captives.
Uncover the secrets of the laboratory.
Escape.
Reward: Class Options Expansion, XP, Skill Points
Threat Tier: Variable / Adaptive
“Yeah,” I muttered, already working my fingers against the now partially distracted restraints. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”
Then I heard a different sort of noise. The footsteps had retreated without entering the room, and of that I was grateful. But the noises I heard next set my skin to crawling, and my teeth on edge, like I was chewing aluminum foil.
Time to go full jailbreak. Starting now.
Please hurry up and unlock these restraints, I demanded of the device, more than a hint of desperation in my mental tone.
Feel free to judge all you like. But the next time you're in a similar situation and something strange and scary as hell starts to make noises like it's looking for its next meal and you're on the menu, come back and tell me to keep my cool.
Unable to process command. Please clarify.
"Un. Do. My. Restraints. The damn Magitek Chinese finger-trap bio chains that are keeping me secured to this fricking table," I was speaking out loud by this point, my frustration and the stranger in the hall having left, causing me to forget myself. I didn’t even think of possible surveillance devices, waiting to report on my awakened state.
Unable to process command. Please clarify.
Sonofabitch, I cursed silently. It seems the tablet was not going to be the get out of jail free deus ex machina to save my ass.
What else did I have at my disposal, you might ask? I'd be happy to tell you.
Nothing. Yup, nothing. I was screwed.
Thankfully, I wasn't the only one in the area. A flashing indicator above the screen drew my attention, and I zeroed in on it hungrily.
It showed several little dots in the room next to the one I currently found myself in. I knew with a visceral instinct that it was the missing students.
Using a combination of Veil Sight and Spatial Awareness, I scanned the Moreauvian parody of a mad lab further. I saw the two upright vats I had noticed before -classic comic-book sci-fi tanks with murky green liquid, tubes, electronics- like stasis pods on a generational starship.
Opposite them was the closed door -hinges visible but texture unknown. Maybe if I gained levels, poured points into perception, I could increase Spatial Awareness and Veil Sight detail or unlock a new ability -maybe even regain my damn sight.
The outlines I sensed painted a bleak, bizarre picture. I could have sworn I felt a Tesla ball hovering in the center of the room. I was shocked when a bolt of electricity leaped from it to another electrode located in the upper corner of the room. Pun intended. The electrode the arc of current connected to was some sort of crystalline-laden structure or device. Now that my attention was drawn to it, I saw that there were several of these things spread throughout the room. In the corner, there was some form of cage…Yeah, not good.
It’d be nice to be able to tell you what the colors of the walls were. I could tell you what it smelled like: formaldehyde and other chemicals I’ve never heard of.
With my Veil Sight, the pattern of the room became visible; I could tell which instruments and devices were magical in nature and which were mundane. And let me tell you, most of them were magical. Most had trace energies of an unearthly nature to them.
I didn’t know if that scalpel over there, for example, was a magical scalpel that could cut through anything, or if it just happened to have been around magic long enough that it absorbed the mana that was ambient around it.
Either way, there was a lot going on in this room. Among the vials and beakers, a whole alchemy set sat against the far wall, opposite me. It was as if I’d gone into a coroner’s office. The wall behind me was one wall filled with drawers I’d associate with a morgue. Now, perhaps they were entirely innocent, benign. Maybe they were filled with refrigerated goods, or more likely, they had corpses, yeah, that would be about my level of luck.
See, that’s the thing about my Spatial Awareness. Depending on the solidity of the materials I’m sensing -kind of like Superman’s X-ray vision- it gives me a sense of what’s there, maybe what’s in the next area over, but it doesn’t give me all the details. The doors on those drawers or cabinets, for example -the refrigerated units- were either dense enough, made of a material warded against sensory intrusion, meaning they might have been spelled against, or something else was going on. I didn’t know how it all worked, but I knew I couldn’t see into them, so I had no idea what was there.
Not even my Veil Sight could pierce them.
A sudden roar and fierce thud as something struck a neighboring wall drew my attention faster than a magnet on sand at the beach.
Not human. Not animal. Something wrong. Like a chorus of voices scraping out a snarl at the same time- too many vocal cords, not enough soul.
The wall across from me pulsed with motion. Veil Sight caught the distortion: something big, hunched, moving on all fours -or maybe sixes.
"Shit," I said with conviction.
Think fast, Declan. That thing wants out... and you’re the first thing between it and freedom, I thought.
I struggled futilely against my bonds, my fear rising to ever greater heights as I fought against them. "At least," I said through gritted teeth. "damn System, you could give me some sort of a clue."
One of the muted notifications popped into view, and I almost choked on my own ignorance.
System: Quest update. Escape the Vampire House, complete.
And that's when I remembered.
Yes, I am stupid sometimes. So what if I forgot that I have abilities that put the best escape magicians of history to shame? Like I said, it was a terrifying situation.
Next time you're being abducted by aliens, be sure to send pics -or it didn't happen. You have a phone, don't you? Yeah, that's what I thought.
Taking a breath, I activated my Veil Shift, and I was satisfied by the sudden release of tension.
"Eat your heart out, Houdini."
I phased through the gurney and fell.
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