text: [Themes: horror, post-apocalyptic]
  
  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."
  
  > protect but keep being weary of them for now just in case
  Having made your decision you enjoy the rest of your meal. The normal food tastes better than ever and you enjoy the chatting with the others around the fire until they all fall asleep.
  
  You are all only left an hour before you are roused again and all start the jog 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 night 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 find quickly that your defenses are failing and the pain is increasing but you are more practiced at defending now and do everything you can you keep putting up defenses against the attack and hold them in place. You begin finding that this attack is clearly stronger than you, but not as strong as the one before. Added to the lack of emotion you think that this must be a different harbinger, unless the last one is attacking again and simply isn't as angry as before and is trying less to actually hurt you. You find that unlikely though.
  
  You even start to think that you might wear the attacker down to a stalemate as you begin holding them at bay; surely attacking must hurt nearly as much as defending? You almost get hopeful for a minute of two before you feel a second attack slam into your mind and you feel you defenses crumble instantly.
  
  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 easier than expected after all. Sadly I think that 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.