Surviving The Ending Handbook: Abilities: Coping

Dani's Eight-Step Program of How To Deal With Having An Ability

Note: This was a journal entry from the early days, while I was on the road, scared and feeling lost. Although we've come this far, most of these steps still apply.

Discovering (or even suspecting) that you have an extraordinary, virus-initiated Ability can be quite a shock. Remember, you're not the only one effected by this development. As much as it impacts you, you're Ability also effects the people who care about you. So, whether you can read minds, sense emotions, or manipulate other people's brain chemistry, it's important to have a plan for accepting your fate and telling your loved ones about your brand spanking new post-apocalyptic Ability. Here's the official Ending Survival Guide recommended eight-step program to accepting and controlling your Ability: 1. Admit that you have an Ability--that you have innate skills beyond those of the usual, pre-Ending human. 2. Believe that this evolution of humanity could restore the stability and sanity of the species. 3. Decide to use your life and your Ability to the survival of humanity. 4. Look inside yourself and see what character defects might force you to use your Ability to harm your fellow humans. 5. Admit to yourself and another human being the exact nature of your Ability. 6. Make a list of all people you care about and be willing to use your Ability to aid them. 7. Tell each of the people you listed about your Ability, wherever possible, except when doing so would injure them or others. 8. Take a personal inventory whenever possible, and when you find you've done wrong, promptly admit it. Above all else, having an Ability is far better that not having one...in the world of The Ending, if you're Ability-free, you belong to the sub-species, Crazies.