Majgen Ch. 002

Copyright of Nanna Marker (lit ID ellynei)

----=(Femaron Braygen)=----

Student Majgen Rahan sat at her desk, intently observing the teacher - Femaron Braygen, desperately trying to understand what he was saying. This was at the beginning of her second year at the Mentariata - she was fourteen. At this time she was following several rank eight student courses, even though she was only a rank ten student.

Femaron Braygen's course caused her immense worries. This was the third of his classes Majgen attended, and she still didn't understand the topics he had been lecturing the first two times. In spite of her desperate desire to learn faster Majgen was severely behind the other students; she hardly understood a word Braygen said.

'This is an empath school,' thought Majgen.'Maybe things will make more sense if I listen empathically? Things might be more clear if I listen with my empathic senses as well as my ears.' Other teachers had encouraged such attempts.

Majgen could not have foreseen what this innocent idea would lead to. Everything she had been told in her first year had convinced her that she -- a mere Tenth Ranked Student -- could not obtain private information from a Femaron, like Braygen, without his consent. After only one year at the Mentariata, neither Majgen nor anyone else knew there was something unusual about how much she could read from mental emanations -- how much she could sense in spite of mind shields.

Femaron Braygen appreciated his privacy as much as any graduated mentarion. To block his thoughts from the students he kept a mind shield up while lecturing. Normal rank eight -- or rank ten -- students wouldn't have been able to sense that the topic of this lesson wasn't at the top of his mind.

During his years as a teacher, Braygen had used this exact lecture many times, and needed not spare much thought on what to say. While lecturing the youngsters in basic mentarion matters, Femaron Braygen's mind was occupied by memories.

'His emotions doesn't match his words,' perceived Majgen. Though, she didn't feel confident about this conclusion; after only one year of living as an empath Majgen didn't really feel confident about anything empathic. Focusing harder, she tried to make sense of what she sensed. Soon, she forgot to listen to his words -- which she couldn't make sense of in the first place -- and instead listened only to his emanations.

If Majgen had been well-trained in the mentarion ways she might not have done this. Very early in the mentarion education, empaths were taught that basic emanations from other empaths would only imply the emotional state of the one transmitting them. They were taught that attempting to analyse emanations for further information would always be futile. Untrained as she was Majgen did not attempt to analyse. Opening her senses as best she knew how, she listened with her feelings only.

Majgen did not know that others would consider it impossible to read anything other than pure emotion that way, she also did not know they were wrong.

At first Majgen felt a muddy emotional blur, but suddenly images and sounds came. The feelings became organised as Majgen entered one of Braygen's memories.

(o)

'This was a great idea,' thought Braygen, enjoying his daughter's happy emotions.

The little girl was practically squealing with delight, excitedly staring at her birthday present. A little puppy which Braygen still held in his arms.

"Happy birthday." Braygen smiled. He had wanted to make her birthday special, ten was after all a round year, and he had succeeded to excess.

(o)

It was an overwhelmingly happy memory. In it Majgen felt the emotions of both Braygen, his daughter, and the puppy. Braygen was a Femaron, a well-trained mentarion. When he used his empathic abilities the emotions of those he sensed were vivid and clear. Many of his memories were emotional from two or three ways, because of emotions sensed from those around him.

After the first memory, more came to her. The uneducated student experienced a stream of Braygen's memories from the duration of the dog's life.

She saw the pet die too.

(o)

"Those lungs won't bother you much longer," whispered Braygen, petting the old dog as she dozed off. "You go to sleep now."

She had lived a long life for a dog, but now her lungs had become too age torn for her to live well. Braygen had given her an overdose of sleeping pills meant for humans. He petted her old fur, waiting for the pills to work.

The animal went unconscious and Braygen started crying. Tears rolled down his cheeks, as he was filled with an immense feeling of loss. After the dog died he kept petting her fur for more than an hour. He had loved her, especially because she had loved him back, unconditionally.

(o)

The sorrow surrounding the dog's death struck Majgen hard. Far sooner than she could adapt to her own emotional response to that memory, Braygen switched to thinking of earlier memories of time spent with the dog. Emotions of remembered happiness swept over Majgen as he did this. Along with this happier memories, of his, began bombarding her mind too. Braygen's feelings, the ones he had in the past and the ones he were having now when thinking of the past, swam freely and uncontrolled in Majgen's head - affecting her emotions.

Like most Femarons teaching the younger classes, Braygen had a teacher's aide. A higher ranked student who could manage simple tasks for the teacher, such as keeping track of how attentive the students were.

Femaron Braygen's aide noticed Majgen's mixed emotions. The current subject was of a rather dry nature; the Tenth Ranked Student's emotional state was in stark contrast to that of the other students present. That alone was plenty reason for him to suspect she was not focusing on the lecture.

He walked to her. Placing his hands on her student desk, he bent over it to look straight into her eyes. Majgen, lost in Femaron Braygen's memories, didn't even notice the aide's face right in front of her own.

"What are you thinking about, Student?" asked the aide, with a commanding tone, waking Majgen back to the present.

Speechless, Majgen stared back at the aide. She had not been thinking, she had been intensely watching memories. The experience had had a profound impact on her, for a few moments she had even forgotten who and where she was. Driven by an anxiety she couldn't place in her dazed state, Majgen desperately tried to catch up to the present, to give a proper answer.

She was too slow.

The teacher's aide waited about three seconds for a reply, when he didn't get one he brutally invaded her mind. His entry so sudden and forceful that Majgen rocked back in her chair from pain and surprise.

"Puppy!" the aide exclaimed with a sarcastic imitation of a small girl's happy whine. He continued to inform the whole class exactly what he saw in her mind, misinterpreting the images in Majgen's mind to be samples of her own memories.

"You were thinking about the cutest, little adorable puppy. An animal! That you loved soooo much. You cried like a baby when it died, because you had loved it more freely than you loved anyone else. An animal!" Theatrically, he turned to the whole class with his arms spread out.

"Can anyone believe that? She loved an animal more than she loved people."

Except for Majgen, all the students laughed at that notion. The initial pain from the aide's violent intrusion on her mind abated; once again Majgen could sense empathically. She felt how most of the students were humoured by what they thought was her ridicule. Her senses also told her that, in spite of his broad smile, the aide was not emotionally involved in the ridicule. Ridiculing students who were not paying attention to class was normal procedure, just another tool to enforce strict discipline in the Mentariata. Most importantly, however, Majgen also felt Femaron Braygen's emotions. Right then, those were very strong.

Shock, disbelief and pure burning rage.

The aide bent over Majgen's desk again to scan her further.

"You really, really loved that dog. You especially felt a craving for the animal's love because your..." The aide halted mid-sentence as he realised his mistake. He had been about to say 'wife'. Majgen was a fourteen year old girl, she could never have had a wife. The aide's eyes widened and he scanned her more closely for a second, then abruptly left her mind.

In complete silence, the aide raised a mind shield, took his hands off Majgen's table, and straightened himself. Then, very slowly, he turned round to face Femaron Braygen.

"Class dismissed," Braygen hissed through his teeth.

Quickly, the students rose to scurry out of the room. They didn't understand what was happening, but they were rank eight students their sensing abilities were sufficiently developed to detect trouble. Majgen started to get up from her seat too, but Femaron Braygen pushed her back down with a heavy downwards shove on her shoulder. She was terrified. Even the teacher's aide was scared. He was a student too, the second highest rank - rank two, but no student could be safe from a teacher's wrath.

As soon as the classroom door closed behind the last pupil the teacher's aide started talking.

"Im sorry, I..." He was interrupted by a hard blow to his right cheek from Femaron Braygen's clenched fist.

"Open your mind," Braygen hissed to him.

The teacher's aide obeyed instantly and the Femaron entered his mind with a violence that nearly caused the aide to faint. The young man managed to stay conscious, but staggered back and had to sit on Majgen's desk to not fall to the floor. Within moments Braygen found that the Second Ranked Student had gained the information about his dog solely from the Tenth Ranked Student's mind.

Femaron Braygen pulled the teacher's aide off Majgen's desk with force. As the adult student fell to the floor, the respected teacher turned his full attention to Majgen.

While entering her mind, he walked behind her. Grabbing her head between his hands, he pressed his palms against her ears and spread his fingers out on her face. In his emanations, Majgen clearly felt the Femaron's rage. With him so close the impact of feeling that rage was immense. Her own fear was equally strong. On top of all this, Majgen suffered a severe headache from Braygen's violent entry to her mind. Through all this, she barely felt his hard physical hold on her.

While the Femaron scanned Majgen's mind to see which of his memories she had accessed, the teacher's aide crawled to the wall. Staying on the floor, he leaned his upper body towards the wall for comfort. The extreme outburst of rage which the respected Femaron Braygen displayed had shocked the older student and left him trembling with fear.

To spare himself from sensing more of the teacher's emotions, the aide turned his empathic senses off. Not wanting to know what Femaron Braygen was doing to the teenage girl, the aide closed his eyes too.

The teacher's rage intensified upon seeing how many of his memories the girl had caught. Other than himself, nobody had ever known of his special relationship with the dog. Not even his family. Mentarions were not supposed to bond mentally with animals at all, it was frowned upon. Now suddenly two students knew, one of them of the lowest possible rank.

'That cursed girl,' thought Braygen.'Of course it has to be the student whose mind gets scanned more frequently than any other in the recent history of the Mentariata.'

He knew at once that within days every single teacher at the Mentariata would have those memories, most likely half the student population too. The professional respect he had gained from colleagues and students through thirty years of teaching at the Mentariata would be gone in a matter of days.

'All because of one unbelievably troublesome snotty girl!' he raved silently.

At this moment Femaron Braygen did not care how she had gained his memories, he did not bother thinking of why either.

"Do you realise what you have done girl?" he snarled.

As soon as he said it she knew; she knew because he knew. Majgen saw it swiftly and clearly. She had ruined his career. In few days everyone at the Mentariata would know of his shame. Braygen would have to travel to a remote section of human-controlled part of space to escape it. Relocating to a distant space station or something similar would soon be the only way to escape the daily humiliation of facing mentarions who knew his secret. The knowledge made Majgen feel guilty, extremely guilty.

'It's my fault, it's my fault, it was me who did this,' she thought.

While submerging in her own guilt and shame Majgen unknowingly began to transmit self-destructive subconscious emanations. Similar to the ones that had so strongly affected twenty-three freshly hatched rank one mentarion students one year earlier.

If the Femaron had not been so angry he might have noticed. He might have taken measures to not be affected by it. In his enraged condition, however, he didn't notice. As Majgen's emanations started affecting him, Braygen lost himself completely in rage.

"So you like memories, do you!"

To the adult student at the wall the Femaron's words sounded like a growl. The aide was too terrified to be affected by Majgen's self-destructive emanations. Also, because he had shut his empathic senses off her emanations didn't reach his mind with full power.

"I will show you how to see memories!"

After screaming those words Femaron Braygen pulled Majgen through her own mind. He forced her directly into her memories of a dreadful day she had experienced one year earlier. He took Majgen to her memory of the day her empathic abilities had been discovered. He made her relive it, every moment of it, made her relive it much faster than it had happened.

One year ago her ordeal had lasted hours, Femaron Braygen made her experience it all over again over a time span of less than fifteen minutes. When he finally allowed her to wake from those memories she tried to fight him; she tried to push him out of her mind, but had no chance of success. Majgen had almost no training in the Mentarion Ways, Braygen was an experienced Femaron.

"Do you still like memories?" he screamed at her. Majgen wanted to scream 'NO', but Braygen yanked her mind back into her inner self again before she could make a sound.

This time he took her further back. He knew she had a genuinely traumatic childhood memory; he had never seen it himself, but had been informed of it. Majgen realised what memory he was going for an instant before he plunged her into it.

It was the day her parents got killed.

In the real world Majgen started screaming and her hands clawed at Femaron Braygen's on her cheeks.

In her mind Majgen was five years old. Her mother held her tight. Her mother was carrying her and her father was next to them. Her parents were running in a desperate attempt at survival.

In the real world Majgen's body went limp as she was pushed fully into the memory.

(o)

She looked over her mother's shoulder while her parents ran. Suddenly she saw a yijejo coming round a corner. There was a flash of light and everything disappeared.

When the child woke, she thought her mum and dad were still with her; their bodies were right next to her. She thought they were still sleeping. Even when she couldn't wake them, she kept believing they were still sleeping.

'Why is there so much smoke? Why can't I see Mum's legs?' wondered the little girl.

Horror, like no fear Majgen had ever felt before, filled her as she realised why she couldn't see her mother's legs. The woman's legs were no longer attached to her body. It took far longer for the small child to realise her parents would not wake again.

(o)

Femaron Braygen forced her through the memories of the following days at hard speed. When they had been all the way through he started over with the memory of her parents running.

For more than an hour, Braygen tortured Majgen's mind without interruption. No teachers had noticed that his class had been dismissed early. No teachers outside the classroom knew anything was amiss until Femaron Katlin Putin entered the room.

Expecting some quiet time while preparing for her class, Putin merely felt slightly surprised when she saw a limp Tenth Ranked Student held in a scanning position by Femaron Braygen; she had expected the room to be empty. Femaron Putin became genuinely puzzled, however, when she noticed the teacher's aide on the floor. The young man was still leaning against the wall. Sooner than she analysed his emanations, Putin realised the aide was in a state of shock.

Intending to ask her colleague what was happening, the woman took a few steps toward Femaron Braygen and the Tenth Ranked Student. Putin opened her mouth to speak but before she got a word out she felt a lump of anger rise in her own throat.

'Why am I angry?' wondered Putin.

At that moment Femaron Putin realised the student at the desk was Majgen Rahan. With that in mind she turned and ran back out the door. As soon as it closed behind her she called security from her portable communicator. Her call came through instantly; security staff at the Mentariata was never undermanned and very rarely overworked.

"Security here," a male voice said.

"Emergency in Classroom 121," informed Putin, then paused a moment. She suddenly couldn't remember what she had planned to say.

"What's the nature of the emergency?" the male voice asked through her communicator.

"It's Majgen Rahan," began Putin, with an intention to elaborate as soon as words would come to her. It wasn't needed. Security was well aware of certain dangerous peculiarities of Student Majgen.

"How many are affected?" the security person immediately asked.

"There were two in the room with her - Femaron Braygen and his teaching aide." Femaron Putin paused again. Since she was a Femaron it would be degrading to air fears of having been influenced herself. Denying the possibility and being wrong could be far worse though. "I was in the room a moment too, I can't say for sure yet that I was not affected. If Student Majgen got to Femaron Braygen she is more dangerous than we thought."

"Stay where you are, help is coming."

For a short moment Femaron Putin heard no further from the voice, as the security person who had taken her call dispatched a security team. Then he spoke to her again.

"Would you like me to tell the team to sedate you too, Femaron Putin?"

He had initially guessed she was Femaron Putin, because her call came from a communicator assigned to Femaron Putin. He had chosen to use the computer to verify her identity by voice comparison, rather than distracting her by asking. Putin took a few seconds to consider his offer before replying.

"No, I think I got out in time. However, I would like some security personnel to stay with me a few minutes after Majgen is sedated. Just to be absolutely sure."

#

Copyright of Nanna Marker (lit ID ellynei)