Nate DuFort

Flesh hung from the bones and ribbons of dissected brown and the socket stared empty back at me.

Its mouth opened and insects crawled out over its face, and it reached out through the mirror with cadaverous hands.

I stepped back, tripping over my laundry basket and fell to the floor.

The corpse crawled out over the sink and down the sink.

I couldn't move.

Fear had me anchored to the linoleum.

It put its putrid face in mine and whispered in a voice like gravel, I am coming for you.

I clamped my eyes shut and focused on my ragged breathing instead of her words.

Minutes passed before I opened them again, and she was gone.

I got up, shaky as a newborn deer, and my reflection, while no longer a corpse, didn't look good.

313 can't directly kill someone.

She can't stop a heart or cause an aneurysm, and while that is true, it's just nuance.

Even though she can't mentally crush a heart in spectral hands, she can create images so horrifying that a target's heart stops because of fear alone.

Or she can cause the person's perception to change so drastically that they walk into traffic or off cliffs.

terrible accidents happening to terrible people.

That was how we justified it.

Terrorists, enemies of the state, threats to our nation.

Dr. Isaac said we could have ended every war in history using her.

I wasn't sure if that was true, and I couldn't even be sure that the government would continue to use her powers in this way.

Now I was in her gaze, a target for her wrath, and I couldn't blame her.