text: [Themes: horror]
  
  You sense ahead as the convoy approaches the turning and see that the horde is still in place, there is also another mind there, different from the others. It seem brighter but tainted like a deep red sun that you can't, and don't, try to affect. "So the other harbinger is there himself waiting" you think to yourself as the Jeep swings wide round the corner and heads South along with the survivors. "But I got away with it, they might chase us but they listened and we avoided the trap!" You turn the corner yourself, still jogging near the tailgate of the jeep when you feel something slam into your head, You realize instantly that it's not a physical pain as a headache worse than anything else you have felt before stabs into your mind. You feel anger, cold and almost feral along with the pain.
  
  You try to block the pain out and realize that this is an attack, something is trying to force its way into your mind the way you force yourself into the mind of the infected, and it is succeeding. You barely act in time and try your best to force up barricades against the attack, visualizing everything you can think of to try and block, what must be the other harbinger, out. You feel the attack lessen for a moment but then you feel the pressure intensify against your makeshift mental defenses and you immediately know that they are much stronger than you. Your defenses are going to fail soon.
  
  You're jolted back to reality for a moment as you feel yourself being lifted and opening your eyes you realize that two soldiers are carrying you, one on each arm. You must have stumbled to a standstill. You also feel blood pouring down your chin; you must have the worst nosebleed in history.
  
  You feel your defenses failing and you close your eyes again to concentrate better, you just about feel yourself being thrown onto the tailgate and held in place as the soldiers joke a little too loudly about you trying to show off and pushing it too hard.
  
  You have no more time to think about just how hard they are pinning you to the jeep as your defenses crumble further and the pain threatens to knock you out. You know you have gotten the convoy away but on the periphery you can feel the enemy horde beginning to move after them.
  
  Use the last of your energy holding out. The Jeep should carry you out of the other harbingers range soon and you can recover enough to fend the infected off. It might be the only way to survive.
  
  Your defenses are failing and fast, split your concentration and send your horde to intercept the enemy one. You might have your mind broken right away but it might stop the harbinger following.
  
  > send the infected as the last gambit
  You know your defenses won't hold out long enough to get away from the other harbinger so you quickly reach out to your horde and direct them in a full attack on the enemy horde which is now moving South. You keep control of them just long enough to issue the command and leave a lingering protection over them but even in those few seconds of divided attention you feel your defenses reach their breaking point.
  
  You switch near full concentration back to keeping the other harbinger out, leaving the least possible thoughts on your horde but the pain gets worse and you feel the defenses fall one by one.
  
  You know it is over and your defenses will fail any second, you feel your hordes front runners reach the enemy horde though and the fighting begins "At least that should ensure the convoy gets away right?" You think as you accept your fate.
  
  Then the pressure and pain lifts a little, before it suddenly reduces a lot, it's still there but it's manageable now. You quickly slam new defenses into place as best as you can and realize that you can hold out against this level of attack, barely, but you can do it.
  
  You carefully try and view your horde and find that they are in a full battle with the larger enemy horde. Your own infected are losing badly as they blindly charge while the enemy is moving in squads and flanking them, and using actual tactics. You realize that the other harbinger has devoted a lot of his attention to controlling his horde to preserve their numbers.
  
  You suddenly feel the pressure lift even more as you see a group of your infected vanish from your control. "SO he is giving up on me to steal my horde..." You think as more and more small groups of your old horde are taken over.
  
  You finally start getting out of range of your sensing abilities and feel the other harbinger's attack on you end. You let out a sigh of relief and collapse against the jeep. Remaining conscious just long enough to register that you were still pinned in place by surrounding soldiers.
  
  > A strange way to wake up
  You slowly wake to the feeling of the jeep rumbling under you and carefully try to sit up, the headache from the night before lingering at the back of your head as a dull throb that worsens anytime the jeep bounces or your hear a loud noise.
  
  "Welcome back to the living, didn't think you'd make it there for a while. Good to see you still moving though." You hear beside you, you finish sitting up and open your eyes to look around.
  
  You are sitting in the back of the Jeep with the Doctor beside you, he has an odd smile on his face but you dismiss it and go for the most obvious question first.
  
  "So you didn't kill me then?"
  
  The Doc carries on putting his equipment away without the slightest pause or flinch "No, but I can understand why that's your first question. You're safe in the back of the Jeep although you've been out for over a day now. Shortly before lunch yesterday we took the detour and it's nearly dinner time now." He pauses looking to the front of the Jeep. "Ah but the Capt. wants to talk to you first." You watch him slide forward then hope out of the side door of the jeep to be replaced by a tired looking soldier who ignores your existence in favor of trying to sleep.
  
  You turn your attention to the front of the Jeep when you see the Capt. turn to look at you. "Excellent, you are awake now." You are about to reply and try and explain things but he simply raises a hand to silence you. "Of course we do know what you are. You're a harbinger. I have suspected for some time and was testing you as you may have noticed. I have a fair idea about some of your abilities too as I have had dealings with your kind before and had access to reports before we lost our relays." He pauses to make a quick order out the window before turning back to you.
  
  "Your actions sent us South and let us avoid what would have been a very nasty ambush; I assume that we all would have died. I sent several of my fastest scouts back up to verify your story after you collapsed and the ones that survived reported an extremely large horde of infected coming after us until another horde attacked them from the West, effectively blocking them from pursuing us. I presume that was your doing?" You barely manage to nod before he continues. "Good. Following that we headed some distance South before Pushing East at an increased pace and finally cutting North East again to put some distance between us and the city center as we had been too close to it for a time. We took several rests overnight and this morning but haven't seen any sign of the horde since then so it appears that we are clear for now."
  
  There is some silence and you finally realise that despite him not looking at you, he is waiting for your response. "But now you know what I am, why did you let me live? I thought Harbingers were under a kill on sight and burn the corpse order?"
  
  The Capt. looks back and you see him smiling for the first time. "Because you are an asset. You are a harbinger, which gives you control over infected amongst other things, and I never lose an asset unless I am forced too. You chose to help us and protect us instead of attacking us, so I will use you." The Capt. turns back to his window and appears to be finished with you for now so you relax back before suddenly realizing that you weren't sensing anything. You immediately reach out in a panic and feel your senses answering you. Your headache starts to throb a little harder but your abilities are still intact at least.
  
  > Checking everything is intact
  You quickly try to scan the area and find that you can easily do so, at least at close range, you are too weary to push your limits right now so you relax it back to be a passive awareness of infected and normal minds in the area like before. You consider lying back down and sleeping again to let the headache pass when you notice something and call ahead.
  
  "Erm, Capt.?"
  
  He turns to look at you, giving no emotion away whatsoever on his face.
  
  You think carefully about what you are going to say before remembering that every soldier on the jeep, including the one trying to sleep beside you, heard everything the Capt. said and didn't react at all, so they already knew. "You may want to be careful about the alleyway 3 blocks ahead on the left."
  
  He stares at you for a moment before turning back around and making a quick hand signal out his window. You see one of the soldiers running out ahead of the convoy. "Maybe more than one?" You say after a moment and another hand signal sends two more men to join the first.
  
  You watch them lightly running out ahead of the convoy, making a show of checking alleyways before coming to the one you mentioned. As they reach it you immediately see the fast type infected you had sensed rush out at them and watch them work as a team to beat it round the head until it stopped moving.
  
  The Capt. watches for a second more before turning back to you with a raised eyebrow. "Erm, yep that's all" You finally say. He turns back and signals the men who relax and wait for the convoy to catch up with them. You hear him call back to you "Good work, next time more concise and specific with the information."
  
  You wait for more but there is none so you rest back and fall into a light sleep again.
  
  > Waking for dinner
  You are roused around dinner time and finally get out of the Jeep. The headache is still there but only as the faintest ache at the back of your head so you flex your abilities a little and find that you can easily get your senses out to where you used to without much effort and you can take control of the single infected you sense to the North without any difficulty before sending it North and releasing your grip on it again.
  
  You head over to the fire to join the other members of the convoy around the fire at the center of the walled park. You immediately notice that while the soldiers don't interfere with you in any way, there are always two or three of them in very close proximity to do, seemingly doing other things, but you know they are your shadows.
  
  You reach the fireplace and find yourself immediately greeted by some good natured bantering from the other survivors there; luckily the doctor appears at around the same moment to field the questions, which he does concisely with the reply. "Yes, he over did it trying to show how fit he was and no he didn't nearly die from a nose-bleed, although he did need to rest till he got over the blood loss." He then turns to you. "Now get some food in you and don't mind the jokes, even if it looked liked you blew up an entire bottle of ketchup on yourself." He walks away smiling.
  
  You turn to the others and take the seat you are offered along with the plate of food. "Well like the Doc says, seems that all the running along with the adrenalin and stress and things got my blood pressure too high and er, you saw the result."
  
  You get a few more laughs but the main thing you notice is that people are still accepting you as before, a few of the soldiers even join you at dinner, never your shadows though who simply stay close by as you eat.
  
  You begin thinking as the banter dies down and you hear about the trip while you were unconscious. The Capt. pushed them all a lot harder than expected after the detour and they lost two survivors to random attacks but they got through the danger areas. They were very close to the city center for an hour or so while heading East but they got out without any mutant sightings. They arrived here and you can see them all gearing up for some sleep, clearly exhausted.
  
  "Well they know what I am now and I even saved them all, sure all the normal don't know but the Capt. and the soldiers all seem too and they were the dangerous ones anyway. I gave information and they acted on it right away. They do still have shadows on me though." As you think, you come to your decision about how to react to the change in the situation.
  
  "They know what I am and they accepted me, sure there are still guards following me but that's just procedure and the second I mentioned trouble they move instantly, no questions asked. My role is to be their guardian and when they reach the Eastern settlement, I can protect that too."
  
  "They know what I am and they are using my information willingly enough however they are still setting armed guards to follow me everywhere and clearly don't trust me fully. For now I have to still be careful with them. They don't trust me fully and I can't trust them fully yet either. I will protect them, I'll just do it wearily."
  
  > To protect and serve?
  You have thought about it and it's clear to you that you made the right choice. They might not trust you completely yet but who would? You'll earn their trust by your actions.
  
  Having made your decision you relax a little inside. Sure you had decided to be their secret protector before but always with some fear and reservation. Now you simply know it's the right choice and truly believe that. You've chosen a side and it's the normals you've chosen to go with for good or for ill.
  
  You start to take another bite of your food when you feel your mind changing, as if it was clarifying everything for you. The last remnants of the headache fade away and your senses, in their fully relaxed state, seem to stretch further, showing more details of those around you and making everything less hazy when you look at minds. As if you had been walking on a frozen lake covered with snow before and suddenly the snow was brushed aside to reveal the solid clear ice underneath.
  
  You quickly test a few other metal exercises and find that before your mental defenses were like random planks nailed over a window and mostly held in place by you pushing on them constantly whereas now the moment you try to put up a defense it's like a thick wall of pure blue ice forms around your mind, shielding you from all sides.
  
  You take this as a sign of you making the right decision as you finish your meal, enjoying the taste more than you have in many years. You finish eating as the others around you try and have a quick sleep.
  
  You are all only left an hour before you are roused again and start moving again. You jog behind the jeep under the watchful eyes of the soldiers around you but you have no more issues and the way seems clear for the rest of the evening.
  
  As night falls the Capt. directs everyone into an old multi-story parking structure and everyone sets up camp one floor below the top. The Capt. stands on the jeeps tailgate to address everyone. "We pushed harder than expected due to some infected sightings on our route but this should be a proper break, we have some scouts out not checking that we will be secure for the night, we will let you know shortly. If you see lots of soldiers heading up to the roof, they are trying to recover some of the old relay gear we had stationed here, it is unlikely to be in working condition though." He steps down and you realize several of your shadows are closer than normal.
  
  You think for a moment then carefully push your senses out, from this nice elevated position without walls in the way you can sense a long distance, further than before without having to strain yourself. You only find a handful of infected and quickly send them out in other directions before relaxing again.
  
  You give a big stretch and a yawn before turning to the survivor standing beside you and loudly say. "Looks like it's going to be a quiet night tonight, it'll be nice to rest easy up here for a change." Out of the corner of your eye you see one of your shadows giving you a raised eyebrow look and when you nod to him, he slips away in the captain's direction. The survivor beside you turns to you and responds "Yeh, says the guy who got a nose bleed and rode in the jeep for an entire day!" He elbows you lightly in the ribs as he continues. "Come on, let's see if they're giving out snacks before we sleep."
  
  Several of you find the people in charge of the supplies and get thrown some ration bars to eat when the announcement is passed around that it seems safe and looks like you'll get the entire night sleeping here unless an alarm is raised.
  
  You all happily settle in for a proper nights rest.
  
  > A restful nights sleep.
  You are woken in the night by a sudden pain in your mind. You immediately recognize it as an attack like before and slam your defenses into place. You have time to examine the incoming attack and find that while the last one came with strong emotions of anger and hatred, this one was nearly emotionless, simply the attack itself.
  
  You prepare for the pain to worsen and the headache to start but you quickly realize that it's simply not that bad. Your new defenses are immeasurably stronger than before, protecting you with much less effort than before and you find that you can easily block the attack without a single crack forming in your protective shell.
  
  You start to look out through your defensive ice wall and feel like you can see the source of your attack, its faint and you have to stretch your senses far out but even with your concentration split you think you can manage it. You sense a powerful mind, like a green sun burning at the center of the city, you sense something beside it, something very similar but not so bright. "Can there be two of them there?" You think.
  
  You begin wondering what to do, unlike before, you are easily handling the attack and have concentration to spare so you decide to see what you can do, you begin pushing back against the attack through your defenses and feel it being moved back a little. You feel surprise through the attack now. "Hah, didn't expect that." You feel it slamming back against the wall in your mind stronger than before but still causing you no difficulty until suddenly you sense the second mind you had spotted flare up and you feel a second attacker on your mind.
  
  With two of them attacking you feel the pressure against your wall build and cracks begin to form so you revert all your attention to shoring it up and manage to keep any more damage from being done, however the headache and pressure is growing and you know that eventually you'll have to rest or pass out like before.
  
  You decide to try your new move again and concentrate on suddenly pushing back against both attacks as hard as you can. You are rewarded by them being pushed away from your defenses and feel the surprise again but you can now feel the pain getting worse and you know you have a nose bleed.
  
  You are sure you can beat one of them, concentrate on a sudden attack against the first one that attacked you.
  
  They are surprised and wavering, hold out but keep concentrating on your defense.
  
  > Sudden attack
  They are surprised and you can use that to your advantage. You immediately visualize a spear formed in your mind and launch it at the mind of the first one to attack you. If they are busy with attack and able to be so easily surprised then you were going to show them what you could really do.
  
  You feel your attack slam into the mind and immediately you feel its attack on you stop, you didn't breech its defenses but you felt them buckle and so you press the assault, feeling it give way little by little. The second mind seems to only be registering shock and isn't attacking so hard, "Probably too shocked to respond right away." You think.
  
  You feel your attack getting close to breaking through when suddenly the defense becomes a lot stronger and you begin to be repelled, finally realizing that somehow the enemy had gained more power and could easily hold you to a stalemate.
  
  That's also the moment the second mind attacks again much stronger than before and breaks through your defenses while you were too busy concentrating on your attack.
  
  The pain suddenly vanishes and you are unsure what happened when you hear two voices speaking to each other inside your head. You can't tell them apart though and it seems all like a single fuzzy sentence to you with bits missing here and there.
  
  "Yes, somewhat more difficult than expected after all. Sadly I think that and the colour means you were right. Indeed. Oh look. Ah that confirms it then. Yes sadly it does. Well it can't be helped; we had to do it for the humans he was with. True, can't trust him. Hmm ... .. Really... Ah dear. Yes.. shattered though I recovered some.. A guardian then, unfortunate. Very. Well the damage is done now.
  
  There is a pause and you try to reach out with your senses of anything but find that there is no response. You suddenly hear one of the voices again, much clearer now and you can tell that it is speaking to you. "Well then, assuming you can still hear us, sorry about this but we thought you were someone else. We have an old enemy to the West you see and thought it was him testing our borders again since we had sensed him rebuilding his horde but you just got mixed up in the middle. The bad news is that we lobotomized you in a way when we got inside your head and that can't really be fixed now but don't worry; in exchange we are going to make sure your humans get to the bridge safely. Least we can do, sorry again old chap but these little mistakes happen you know."
  
  The voice vanishes and you hear the fuzzy talking again. "Well we should be going then. Yes I'll finish him off, poor guy would be a walking vegetable anyway and I'm pretty sure we caused a couple of strokes too, ah well. Oh don't forget to put the coffee on..."
  
  The voices fade out as it you were falling asleep. You never wake up.