White Soul

by G L Rathweg

  An image came to me then and in my mind, I saw me doing the forms on top of the egg. Could I do that? Was it even safe? When we had met, the being had almost sucked all the Ki out of me and I could have died.

  Just as these thoughts crossed my mind, I sensed annoyance from the being and then another image of me doing the forms on top of it appeared. This time there was Ki energy coming from and going into the egg at the same time another stream of Ki energy was flowing out of the egg and into me.

  I studied the image for a moment and saw that it made a complete circuit and the energy flowed with neither the egg being or myself running low on Ki energy at any time. Another emotion from the egg hit me. It was more of an ‘are you satisfied now?’ feeling. The question was, did I trust this thing inside the Kaiju egg?

  A hurt emotion hit me like a ton of bricks and I immediately started to feel bad. This was just a baby even if it was a Kaiju baby. I didn’t know what the future had instore for our relationship, but I was not going to start it off by being a fucking asshole.

  “Ok buddy, I hear you and I’m sorry. Let’s do this.” I said, feeling a little silly talking to an egg, but fuck it when in Rome you know?

  I headed over to the egg starting at a regular walk but with each successive step more and more of my Ki was getting sucked into the egg. By the time I was halfway there my Ki bar was down to less than half. I kept going though projecting complete confidence in my new friend even as my Ki shrank rapidly.

  Suddenly, I hit the quarter distance mark and Ki energy shot out of the egg hitting me in the chest like a bolt. The Kaiju baby’s Ki energy filled me and my Ki bar filled up in seconds. The tentative connection that we had changed into something more tangible, something more intimate. Both our life histories rocketed into each other and we each lived the birth and life of the other simultaneously.

  Even though the Kaiju was a baby, it had already lived as many years as I had, even a few more. The being had been alive for just over a quarter of a century. It would need to be incubated for another seventy-five years until it hit a century before it would hatch. For the last twenty-five years it had been sitting in this cavern, so it didn’t really have much to show me. On the other hand, my life was a veritable action flick in comparison to the Kaiju baby.

  We finished experiencing each other’s emotions and memories, then it hit me like machine gun fire. Out of all of his, and it was a him, emotions, the most repeated one was one of sadness. Anguish at having to be stuck here in this place, in this egg, for another seventy-five years. The Kaiju baby was already bored out of his mind and now it had quintupled that by a factor of a metric fuck ton. His sadness began to affect me and I began thinking of ways that we could fix this. None came to me, but he sent me an emotional thanks. I sent one back and then asked if he was ready for me to get on top. He emoted yes and I jumped up and clambered on to the top of the egg.

  Once there I took the first position of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. I fell into extreme focus while I reviewed my entire situation. The Kaiju baby’s presence was next to me and intently studying everything that was going on in my mind’s eye. I only had five days left before I needed to head to the mountain trial. That meant I needed to finish my training in this underground cavern and get going. I figured that mastering the Hatha Yoga Pradipika would help me think.

  I began the first form, Svastikasana, and dropped into the modified Lotus position. I cleared my mind with my Extreme Focus going into The Zone. Sometimes by having your mind and thoughts concentrate on one thing it goes blank and in turn helps your creativity, or so I’ve heard.

  The forms came easy to me and in my current mental state I felt like I could complete each successive pose with ease. Even though I felt that way I still took my time, performing each pose individually and making sure I had thoroughly mastered it before moving on to the next. I was taking so long that I could begin to feel the Kaiju baby’s restlessness. Instead of it being distracting it was amusing. It also let me know that I was ready to continue to the next step of my training.

  Now feeling that I’d mastered each form, I began doing them in the same flowing manner that Sin Seonbi had demonstrated. I moved from one pose to the next in a graceful manner, not stopping between poses. The steam in the cavern started to grow thicker and thicker as I trained but it didn’t affect me or the egg in any discernable way, so I ignored it and focused on my asanas.

  That same restless feeling from the Kaiju baby came again and I grinned agreeing with him that I had mastered the poses. My Vinyasa, a term I remembered from one yoga class in the Human Realm, was perfect. I flowed from one pose to the next just as Sin Seonbi had. Since I had mastered the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, I figured that my new Master would be here soon to guide me in my next part of training. With this decided I kept doing the forms so that he’d see me when he arrived. So, that’s what I did for the next hour while I waited, and waited, and waited…

  After the second hour went by and still no Sin Seonbi I decided to stop doing the forms and sat in Lotus while I tried to figure out what was going on. I was fairly sure that I had completed the training and the Kaiju baby agreed with me. The cavern had become completely obscured by the steam which had grown and grown in heat and intensity. From my position in the center of the cavern on the egg I should have been able to see the entire room, but I couldn’t see more than three feet.

  When I pointed this out to my new friend, he gave me a mental shrug and acted as if it wasn’t anything to think about. It was during this byplay that I noticed something new in our bond. I closed my eyes and entered my Ki Soul and inside it was the presence of the Kaiju baby. The two of us floated in the sea of energy that was my Ki as we finally met each other in an almost physical way for the first time.

  The baby and I just hovered across from each other in my Ki Soul for a while. We didn’t move, talk, or interact in any noticeable way. We just stared and got to know one another in the deafening silence. His form was that of a glowing orb of energy that resembled a ball of fire with it’s flames flicking out like the arms of a tiny sun. I reached my hand out tentatively and one of it’s flaming tendrils quested toward my proffered limb. When our two limbs tips touched the world exploded into a miniature supernova in my Ki Soul.

  Memories spiraled uncontrollably in a torrent of flashes in my mind. Some were mine, some were the Kaiju baby’s, and others were crazy amalgamations of both that were real yet unreal at the same time. Out of the millions of memories that skated to and fro and back and forth and over and over in my mind, one stood out in particular.

  I briefly had a kitten as a little kid. I found it walking home from school one day. It was a ragged haggard thing on the steps of death’s door. I took it home and nursed it back to health in secret. I had really loved that guy. He had a fun-loving wild personality and I think we had a special connection. I named him Freak. One day my stepbrother found him while I was gone at school, he got home earlier being a few grades higher than me. I’d rather save the gory details, but needless to say after I buried my little Freak and cleaned up the bloody mess, I never brought another pet home again.

  When I opened my eyes, tears were streaming uncontrollably from them as my heartache and sadness reopened the wound I’d received so long ago. I was about to drop into a cycle of inner fear, loss, and depression when a presence nudged me and kept nudging me. I looked up and saw that the Kaiju baby had changed. The glowing fireball of energy had formed into that of an extremely large catlike being.

  “Freak?” I said softly, then shook my head knowing it wasn’t my departed friend.

  But then it nodded in the affirmative. How was this possible? Instantly, Freak’s memories came to me and I watched the story unfold.

  Freak’s earliest memory was that of his mother and siblings, but they were so young that they were just flashes of chaotic happenings. They leveled out and I watched as his family was taken by animal control while he was left behind. I watched him try to survive alone as a baby and
begin to starve and fight for his life. Every single day was struggle and almost certain death. The other wildlife, cats, dogs, and humans were especially dangerous.

  Then the day came when I found him. He was almost starved to death, beat up, his body bruised from fighting for his life. If he hadn’t been so weak and close to death, he never would have let me take him he was so scared. By the time we met he was too tired and couldn’t fight anymore. When I came to him he sensed me and knew I was a kind soul, a kindred spirit. I had been beat up and abandoned as well, just in different ways.

  Next came the memories of me nursing him back to health and us bonding and realizing we were kindred spirits. The short period of joy I recalled of having the cat in my life was shared by him and it made me elated to know we both felt the same way. Then those memories were shattered as I watched the memory of my stepbrother end his life. It was so visceral and real that I began to weep from the depths of my soul by the time it was over. I wished again for my stepbrother to go to a special realm of hell.

  The Kaiju baby comforted me and I pulled it together as we continued the trip through his memories. He had watched me come home from school and find him after he was killed. He had hung around as a ghost until I had buried him and then his soul went to the Spirit Realm where instead of going to the feline afterlife part he decided to reincarnate. After witnessing my emotion from his death, he resolved to meet me again. This is why his soul was being reborn into the Kaiju baby.

  This was why we had resonated so much with each other. It was also the reason we shared the same type of Ki and were able to cycle it between our spirits so easily.

  All that aside I couldn’t believe it was really him, really my Freak.

  “Is it really you, Freak?” I asked, tentatively reaching out a hand.

  In response, the massive Ki energy cat leaped onto me and began licking my face with his Ki energy tongue.

  “Ok, ok, ok, I get it, it’s you buddy!” I said, laughing in between licks of his sandpaper like tongue. That was interesting considering he was a being of glowing spirit energy.

  I pushed him playfully off me and sat back up. The two of us faced off again in my Ki Soul or I guess now it was our Ki Soul. That was the new feeling I got. Suddenly Freak, no longer the Kaiju baby to me, sensed danger. I left my mind’s eye and came back to my senses in the Spirit Realm.

  “You see Eopsin I was correct, wasn’t I? He has accelerated the growth of your child by decades.” Sin Seonbi’s voice said, echoing all throughout the steam filled cavern.

  I was still sitting atop the egg and the cavern was still filled with obscuring steam. The voice continued echoing through the steam, it’s viscosity making it impossible to tell where it was coming from.

  “Yes, Sin, you were right. The boy was excellent fodder for my offspring.” Eopsin said, the earlier playfulness in her tone gone, now replaced with sly accomplishment.

  Their laughter abounded and echoed around the cavern, amplified because of the steam like it was on a bullhorn. Their laughter came from in front of me, behind me, to the sides, then inside my head. Pain began to rise like a small headache at first but kept growing as the laughter intensified.

  “Master… what is going on?” I called, through gritted teeth because of the pain.

  “Thank you for feeding Eopsin’s offspring boy. I will let Dangun know that your training failed spectacularly.” Sin Seonbi said, laughter still echoing the whole while and the pain still growing.

  “But I mastered the Hatha Yoga Pradipika as you instructed. I need to go to the mountain trial.” I croaked out, voice cracking due to the intensifying pain.

  “Yes, yes, you did. And it only took you all of your remaining time. You should have left days ago to go to the trial. It is too late for you to make it back to the Human Realm. Do not fear though. Your sacrifice of Ki to the soon to be newborn Kaiju will be remembered.” Sin Seonbi replied, voice smug and sinister yet full of the humor of the victor.

  Laughter still echoed and my brain hurt so bad I couldn’t even think straight anymore. The only thing going through my mind was the pain and I knew right then it was over, I was about to die. Then I felt a draft. I know it sounds weird that I’m saying I was in so much pain that I couldn’t think and then a breeze blows and I feel it. Well, it was so fucking hot even in my debilitated state the air was like a breath of life in the middle of this sweltering hell.

  The draft began to grow stronger, slowly at first. As the pace quickened the room started to swirl with ebbs and flows. The laughter’s hold on me started to break and the pain slowly faded away. In a few moments, I was able to breathe regularly and sit up straight.

  I looked around and saw that the steam was now swirling like a miniature storm brewing, cooling the cavern down and letting me see the area around me. About twenty feet away were Sin Seonbi and Eopsin staring at me and Freak in surprise.

  “What have you done?” Sin Seonbi hissed, taking a step forward.

  “No stop!” Eopsin roared, halting the Sannin in his tracks.

  Sin Seonbi turned his head and glared up at the Kaiju snake and then followed the monster’s wide gaze. The Kaiju egg had sucked all the steam in the room up and it was now swirling around it and me like a tornado. The egg began to flash like a strobe light throwing blinding flashing light out across the cavern. Somehow, I was unaffected by the tornado or the light. It was what I assumed being inside the eye of a hurricane was like.

  “Eopsin what is your stupid child doing?” Sin Seonbi shouted, over the roar of the tornado.

  “That is not my offspring! Something has happened. The boy has done something to my baby!” The Kaiju shrieked, her massive body making the screech a physical thing.

  I was safe in the cocoon of wind and Ki energy. Freak’s emotions kept me calm and I trusted him to continue what he was doing. The Celestial feline’s Ki continued to flash even faster. The tornado began to grow in strength and speed along with Freak, finally hitting a peak. The light flashed one last time and the tornado exploded outward, breaking open the egg’s shell and releasing the collected energy like a bomb.

  When the blinding light and steam cleared, I was sitting astride a ten foot tall smoke grey and pure white lion bursting with glowing white Ki energy.

  “How is this possible?” Sin Seonbi said, from the shelter of the Kaiju snake’s body where he had hidden from the explosion.

  “What have you done to my child?” Eopsin cried, staring at me and Freak in horror.

  “I didn’t really do much. But this is not your child. This is my buddy Freak and we are gonna get out of here now. Since there is nothing left you can teach me, Master. Let’s bounce Freak.” I said, throwing the last Master in there mockingly.

  The massive glowing lion roared so loud that the entire cavern reverberated and shook. He coiled his haunches and leaped up into the air heading straight toward the caverns rocky ceiling, before it had even stopping shaking.

  “Stupid boy! You are in the bowels of the Spirit Realm. You think you can leap through hundreds of feet of rock! Get him Eopsin!” Sin Seonbi roared in glee, sure that we were trapped by him and his pet Kaiju.

  I heard the man yelling but I was so focused on my situation that I couldn’t give them my full attention. Freak was flying full speed at the cavern’s roof and I thought we were going to pancake ourselves. At the last second, he spun hitting it with all four paws. He pushed off the roof like a coiled spring and flew by the giant striking Eopsin who was taken completely unawares by the move.

  My arms were squeezed around Freak’s neck holding on for dear life as we escaped, but I couldn’t control my joy and elation. I began to laugh and howl in delight as we hit the cavern floor and sprinted by Sin Seonbi towards the grand stairwell and our freedom.

  “Where do you think you’re going? There is no time for you! You cannot complete the mountain trial. You have failed and your friends and family will all die!” Sin Seonbi roared, to our swiftly retreating backs.

 
Freak hit the bottom of the stairwell and paused, letting my grip go and turning in my seat. I then raised both hands in the time-honored salute and held my middle figures up high for him to see.

  “In case you don’t know what these two fingers mean, basically Master, it means you and your giant fuckboy snake can go suck a bag of dicks! We out! Let’s get the fuck out of here Freak.” I said, waving my hands back and forth at the Kaiju and Sannin.

  My new old best friend roared again and coasted up the stairs ten at a time.

  MEANWHILE BACK IN THE HUMAN REALM…

  “Well Steve, looks like our time here is coming to an end. I can’t believe you’ve been going this whole time.” Dave said.

  “Mmhmm.” Steve replied, strain showing in his tone and had been for the past couple hours.

  “Yeah, I feel ya bro, I can tell your tired, me too, all this talking nonstop has been really tough. You are not an easy man to entertain.” Dave replied, earnestness plain in his voice.

  “Mmhmm.” Steve replied, somehow throwing a question in the reply.

  “Oy, what do you mean? You don’t think you could have done this without me keeping your spirits up and us on track? You just think you’re king-ding- a-ling don’t you?” Dave asked.

  “Mmhmm.” Steve replied, dropping into a set of mountain climbers.

  “You cocky son of a bitch. Well, we will see how you do with the next couple hours without me around to support you. I’m not talking to you anymore.” Dave said, huffily.

  “Mmhmm.” Steve grunted, in between each set of exercises but the hope evident in his tone as he popped up and began running again.

  For a few seconds there was nothing. Just blissful, blissful silence and Steve was almost moved to tears and then it all ended in one brief annoying moment.

  “See! I told you that you couldn’t make it! I was quiet for a whole minute and you almost gave up. Don’t try to deny it I heard you start to cry.” Dave called, his voice oozing self-righteousness.