Keep to the schedule! Get ready!

FOREWORD: No spicy scenes in this chapter, just LOOOORE. Next one will be spicy though.

=======================

With the strange message still embedded in his mind, Aaron decided to get up and get going.

After throwing on some sweats and a plain t-shirt, he exits his room and immediately runs into one of his stepsisters. And it wasn't the nice one.

"What the shit?!" Mary shouts at him, as Aaron stumbles backwards from their collision. She continues, "Watch where you're going... ugh..." before she gives him a dirty look, and twists away, marching towards the shared kitchen.

"What a bitch." Aaron grumbles in frustration before following her into the kitchen to grab a bite to eat.

His other step sister is already there before the two join her. Her eyes are bright, and she has a smile plastered across her face. Rose was always the sweetest of the 3 siblings. Mary was older than Aaron, and she had never really warmed up to him. But with Rose being the youngest, she had cemented the others in her mind as siblings, and treated them both as such.

"Good morning!" Rose beams as she greets the two grumpy roommates. She has a quick omelet breakfast prepared, with enough for them all to eat. She quickly dishes it out, before serving herself and joining them at the small table that constituted their "dining room."

Rose immediately launches into a tirade of random thoughts and comments, while the other two bury themselves in their food and their own thoughts.

Aaron pulls out his phone and decides he might as well look up this weird phrase stuck in his mind. While 'Psionic Pressure' didn't exactly yield any helpful results, searching similar statements and synonyms quickly brought him down a rabbit hole of brainwashing, mind control, gaslighting, persuasion, and a bunch of other random fantasy-style topics.

"Are you listening, dork?" Aaron's head shoots up from his phone to see Mary snapping at him, while Rose was gathering up their dishes. "Sorry, what's up?" Aaron stumbles to recover from his apparent mental lapse into hyperfocus.

"Don't you have classes soon? Whatever, nevermind, I don't care." Mary returns to her indifferent and aloof attitude as she walked off to her room.

Aaron glances at his watch and discovers he is about to be late if he doesn't get going. He jumps up from his chair, shouting a quick 'thank you' and 'goodbye' to Rose, before taking off to college.

6 HOURS LATER...

Aaron stumbles back into the apartment, which is blissfully quiet after another day of cramming lessons. His professors had pushed off exams, so he could get away with skimping on the whole 'studying' thing again.

Traveling to his entirely-too-far-away bedroom 10 feet down the hall, he collapses on his bed.

After a moment of recovery, his mind is suddenly tugged back towards the weird internet rampage he went on earlier. He decides to keep reading about it, and see what comes to his mind.

1 HOUR LATER...

Aaron had changed positions, now sitting as his desk writing notes and cross references in one of his notebooks that found its physics content being quickly replaced and superseded by rants and rambling about 'The power of the mind' and some such.

He hears a door open and then slam shut, which snaps him out of his stupor. That was the sound of Mary getting home, and based on the **** she exerted on the door, she was mad.

Aaron tried scrambling to close his door, dreading the inevitable, but is just a moment too late as Mary throws it open. Fury is written across her face, with her hands now placed on her hips.

"There's no fucking way. You seriously replaced my pens with CRAYONS?" Mary fumes. Aaron nearly chokes on a laugh, remembering the prank he had planned the night before. He quickly tries recovering, but the damage is clearly done.

"I have no idea what you mean, Mary. Shouldn't a kid like you be using crayons anyways?" Aaron smirks, as Mary's face fires up even hotter than before.

"You're dead." Mary coils for a fraction of a second before her lithe frame leaps towards Aaron.