Thursday, June 27, 2019

Microstory 1134: Ellie Underhill

Eleanor Underhill was raised on a farm near Manhattan, Kansas, and led a very content and carefree young life. She did well enough in school, went to the town’s college, Kansas State University, and earned a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Communications and Journalism. She was always known to be so charming and well-spoken. She could articulate her point effortlessly, and make anyone feel safe and comfortable with nothing more than her words. She was such a great orator, that her school asked her to come back not one year after her own graduation to speak at the commencement for the graduating class. There were some technical difficulties which the technicians in charge of the event were unable to correct. Fortunately, Ellie’s time power presented itself at the perfect time. She attempted to project her voice as much as possible, to keep the ceremony moving, but soon discovered she did not have to try very hard. With no working speaker system of any kind people in the back could still hear her as well as they would if she were standing right next to them. She could tell that something strange was happening, but she didn’t miss a beat. She continued with her speech, through its completion, and then she went home to figure out what had happened on her own. She realized that she wasn’t somehow booming her voice, because that would make it painfully loud for people who were too close. She was actually teleporting her sound waves to hundreds of different locations at once. She could quite literally throw her voice. Over time, she started learning how to control this ability more precisely, increase her range, and even pull sound towards her, so that she could have a conversation with someone on the other side of the globe. And her strength didn’t stop there.

With even more practice, and greater concentration, she developed the ability to eavesdrop on any conversation in the world. She just couldn’t help herself. She never thought to be a spy, or a blackmailer, but she did often fantasize about being in the room where it happens. It was through these random invasions of privacy that she found out she was not alone. She was the only one apparently who could teleport sound, and sound alone, but there were others who had their own powers. She pushed herself into this underworld, and met these other people in person. She was soon abandoning her old life for the most part, and jet-setting all over time and space. She kept in contact with her family as she explored, but she shed her worldly possessions, and took on a nomadic lifestyle. And her powers grew still. She eventually came to be able to communicate with people in different points in the timestream. This was difficult, and fraught with paradoxical danger, so she didn’t do it often, but it was sometimes necessary when she found herself stuck in a time period without a nearby traveler to ferry her somewhen else. Ellie’s reputation spread as someone with a unique skill, so her services were occasionally commissioned to help cultivate communication amongst others. Her powers grew yet again, when she realized she could bestow this gift to other people temporarily, so that they could be the one to speak to the crowd, or a remote friend. As far as powers went, it wasn’t the most useful on a regular basis, so she spent most of her time not using it at all, but just enjoying her life, and seeing everything the universe had to offer. Her powers then grew once more, and she was able to use them to help people in the best way possible...through music.

No comments :

Post a Comment