to climb out of the seat and across the aisle. Two bodies – two girls – best friends. Kiss one, put her fingers into the "Sub-dimensional storage" purse – she disappears, kiss the next, guide her fingers into the purse – she follows her friend. Energy indicator popped slightly above ZERO but is going down again. I need to move to the next seats. The eyes aren't seeing well – tears running down, pain in the entire body, learning for the first time what "head-splitting headache" means. Moving on. One row back. Locating the head by touch, kissing it, can't find the fingers to put into the bag, trying to put the bag over the head – worked, the body is inside. The next body in the window seat – too painful to bend down to kiss; located the head, putting my palm on the forehead as if feeling the fever, making a kissing sound with my lips – worked! I got the energy, the bag got another one of my poor classmates. Keep moving. PAIN.... Felt around, found the next body, not looking for the forehead – I think it's the elbow. Trying to do the kissing / through the straw sucking movement with my lips – WORKED – I got the energy in and it was used up almost immediately. Bringing over the "bottomless bag" – worked again. Next row – the pain got even worse, as the toothache joined in with the mega-migraine. Keep moving. Keep moving… I can't miss anyone. Next row. Feel around, find the body, suck the energy, bag the body. Don't think who was it, don't recall names, group projects, answering homework questions. Keep moving. "CLICK" in the ears, floating text before the eyes visible even with my eyes closed – "Level 2". Now I notice more souls are entering me – can't stop can't re-access, can't ponder. "Level 7" was selected and something tells me if I can't gather enough energy to make it all the way there, the upgrade process will eat me up inside and all of the souls including mine will go toward the Cloud. Keep moving. Suddenly I notice I don't need to feel around for bodies in the seats – I seem to feel a direction, I extend my palm there and suck in the energy. I just follow it with a bag transfer. Next row, Next row.. This one doesn't feel the same. I got just a little bit of energy and the bag doesn't allow it inside. OK, skipping it. Next row, Next row… Again a strange "specimen" – getting a bit of energy and moving on. "CLICK" – "Level 3". More souls getting in, pain is slightly less horrible – either I'm learning how to work around it – just like the Shaolin monks I've read about – or Levels bring some kind of resistance. With my eyes still closed now, I see the little dark energy balls floating above the seats and some are starting to move toward the Cloud. I stretch my hands: "Get over here!" and some obey flowing into me – "CLICK!" – "Level 4". I see some of the balls still getting sucked into the Cloud and with a new-found self-confidence I demand "GET OVER HERE!" – they obey. Every single one. "CLICK!" – "Level 5". I can actually open my eyes and quickly go from through the bus putting all of the bodies into the bag. The Ghosts are not seen – either they are all inside me or some gotten into the Cloud. I'll figure it out later. Finding several bodies that I wasn't able to put into the bag. Looking at one – the boy was number one in sports – tall, muscular, smart and not a jerk at all. His name was Dimitry. I'm looking at him and noticing that there is no "Corpse" text hanging over him. There are 9 people left out of 54 – I can't see them breathing but they are not recognized as dead so I'm leaving them alone. The "energy indicator" shows up again – about a fifth and falling. I need energy… Darn… Should have picked "promotion to Level 5" but somehow I'm sure it wasn't a wrong choice. Probably whoever is in-charge of this whole thing is giving out a "beginner special" – I just suspect that going from Level to Level would take a lot more than 3000 units to reach the Seventh. Still where do I get the energy? Looking around – there's the Cloud, still hanging… Waiting for me, aren't you? With all the pain I just went through? I wonder if it collected the "Pain" energy the way I gather the "Necro". You'd like me to drop down and burn up inside while you mop up the souls including mine, wouldn't you? YOU! Just hanging there, probably smirking at me… I stretch out my hands at the Cloud – "GET IN HERE!". The Cloud seems shocked as it starts moving toward me and then trying to break off. I'm seeing my energy level slowly going up and the Cloud trying to move out of the bus. The tunnel is still dark around us – I spread my hands and keeping in mind the tunnel and the darkness outside I command with never-before felt surety – "GET IN HERE!". The energy flows in. I get a "Level 6" notification and the bus shakes. I think the Tunnel or someone controlling it is upset and hurt – it probably has been transporting these busses in a calm and orderly fashion for a while and suddenly the tiger shark has swallowed a small blender that's hurting it inside. It can't be that way. It was never that way. Food can't object to being eaten. The bus accelerates, the Cloud shrinks and hides and I walk over to the one person I've overlooked so far – the bus driver.
When we were getting on the bus, the driver looked like a man in his forties sloppily dressed with a growing beer belly. What I saw now making my way to him was a large figure in a hooded robe that was hiding his face. I approached and closed my eyes noticing a large ball of energy on the seat. For some reason I felt confident yanking that robe off and what I saw underneath was a large bone laying on the seat and nothing else. The coat was basically suspended in the air on the energy emanating from that bone. My energy indicator was going really close to ZERO and I knew I might as well take all the risks. So with the bone in my hands I felt the energy and ordered it to enter me. The energy flooded in. The robe fell onto the seat and I picked it up and put it on. For some reason it felt right to do so. I got behind the steering wheel of the bus and closed my eyes. OK, now – let me look around. So… I got this Necromancer power. There were 54 of us, 9 are still on the seats in some kind of a non-dead state. My "Sub-dimensional storage" purse reads now "level 20, filled – 44" – everybody's body is accounted for. "Everybody, go, get your body," I hummed and then added "Offer gold or threaten force, I will not release your corpse". My life-impaired audience responded with dead silence… Looking inside myself (I can't explain it better – that's exactly what it is) I saw these souls floating around. There were also 44 but some – probably those who got in first – were shiny and active actually talking to each other while several – probably the later arrivals – seemed paler with a few basically a barely visible outline. I've focused on one of them and a text came up "De-energized soul" with several options available near it including "re-energize". Definitely not now – I'm still draining that "driver illusion" bone and sucking in power from the tunnel, but the upgrade process is consuming the energy as fast. The pain I've felt at the beginning subsided a lot, it went from an incapacitating to a level of a bee sting – where I can walk around and react to things reasonably.
Somehow my temporary resident souls realized I'm looking at them and turned their faces to me. A girl whom we all knew as a rather difficult person looked me in the eye and stated "You have touched me inappropriately. I'll tell the principal, the teachers and I'll file a complaint!". As everyone else stared at her, the soul of the class short jerk jumped up and screamed – "Yes, Yes, he did, I saw it!!!" with so much excitement that I think if he still had his body he'd probably wet his pants. After all dogs sometimes do it and at this time I was pondering if he was meant to be an angry chihuahua and became a human by mistake. Yes, an old me would have gone pale and shaky and would probably even be convinced to turn over lunch money to prevent the accusations from reaching the school authorities and my parents. So there was a long silence. They were looking at me waiting to shake and squirm… I didn't. The silence continued… and continued… and continued… Until the Short Jerk lost interest and ran off to pester people around him and another girl probably thinking I can't hear them whispered to the first one – "What are you doing? You know he did no such thing and if it wasn't for him, you'd go into the Cloud and your body would rot. Besides how are you going to file anything – you are inside of him and chances are there are no principals or teachers where we're going". The first one replied – "Don't spoil my game – I don't need to file anything, I need him to apologize. When he does, I'll forgive him but he'd be afraid of me. I can get him to buy me dinners and stuff and then I'd bring him to marry me". Another girl listening to this wondered, "Marry him? He's a nerd! Look at how he's treated in class! He's a pushover – your relatives will laugh at you and him!". "That's why I want him," stated the first, "I'll do anything I want with him and he'll be polite and never hit me and never leave me and my kids. I don't want to bring my kids up alone like my Mom. I'll even be a good wife and I'll teach our kids not to be pushovers".
The boys were listening attentively looking at the first girl and then the others. One said "Marry? She's scary". The others laughed and warily looked at the other girls. "We are not all like that" said one,