Nyssa:

Nyssa had been at the compound for over a week and she had achieved exactly nothing. She was beginning to see why Del was so stuffy. Her time was spent in endless loops of filling out reports and meeting with various officials to talk about what she had written in her reports. Nyssa had met dozens of psychiatrists, doctors, experts and endless amounts of Caul bureaucrats, all wanting to know about her gifts and all dismissing her abilities out of hand. Riordan was the worst of the lot. He refused to believe that she could do what she said she could.

Impossible, they said. Nyssa would just roll her eyes and accuse them of lacking imagination. It was only impossible because they had spent generations telling themselves it was. Nyssa broke rules all the time, simply because she was never told that there were any rules.

But she had a plan to convince them. She needed more information about the approaching threat and the only way to do that was to have another vision. The only problem was that her visions weren’t coming. The blandness of the compound and its rigid routine sucked the creativity out of her. She hadn’t so much as predicted the weather since she arrived at the compound.

It was terribly inconvenient.

Nyssa paced around her room. A steaming pot of coffee was bubbling away merrily on her desk. She was weighing the pros and cons of forcing a vision with an excessive amount of caffeine. Coffee would increase her concentration, but it also increases the risk that she might miss something. The extra kick to her system meant that Nyssa could take a closer look at whatever she wanted, but that didn’t necessarily mean that she knew what to look for.

Plus, it would give her a wicked headache.

Ordinarily, Nyssa would just let her visions come organically, but this was an exception. She really wanted to tell Riordon ‘I told you so’ but she needed to know more about what was coming.

Guess this is happening, Nyssa thought to herself. She took a big gulp and let the caffeine surge through her system.

Three cups and a half hour later, Nyssa had settled comfortably onto her bed, pencil and drawing pad at the ready. She was an odd mix of intense concentration and hyperactive energy. And she really needed to pee. Just before she was about to give up and go to the bathroom, a huge pressure began building at the base of her spine. Her muscles clenched and the air was forced from her lungs. Coffee gurgled uncomfortably in her stomach, sloshing and churning. She should have eaten something.

Nyssa’s eyes snapped open. The notebook in her lap clattered to the floor and she discarded the pencil she’d poised over it. She needed more than just paper. She jerked herself off the bed, stumbling as her numb feet hit the hardwood floor. She shoved against the vision she could feel pushing against her skull. It was coming on too fast, she needed more time. She tore at the draw of her side table. It was empty except for odd bits of art supplies that rattled viciously when she all but yanked the draw from its cavity. Flashes of dark shapes flickered in front of her face. She swiped at them instinctively but they were only shadows.

The vision was coming on much too quickly.

She felt around the drawer, rifling through the junk more by feel than sight. Her vision was unreliable. Darkness was pressing down on her.

“Bugger it all!” She lurched towards her desk, clumsily decimating anything in her path. “Shite.”

She scooped up the lump of charcoal that lay there, abandoned. Not much more than a stub really, but it would do. Now she only needed a canvas. In her dimming vision, the stark white wall stood out, peeking out beneath the various pinned artworks and miscellaneous knickknacks she’d hung in an attempt to make the dull room homier.

There wasn’t enough white.

She swiped roughly at the wall, ripping the paper off and knocking a mirror the floor. It shattered by her bare feet but she didn’t notice. She brandished the charcoal, letting the dimness take over her vision.

“I hope Riordan does mind a little artistic expression all over his whitewash.”