by C. S. Wilde
“Wait, you want me to do this while holding the beast?”
“Yes.” He taps his chin twice. “When you use your eyes, you still move and speak and think, correct? Same principle.”
“Well yeah, but this is harder. And multitasking isn’t one of my fortes.”
A laugh rumbles in his chest. “Your mind multitasks all the time: it makes your lungs breathe, your heart beat, it reminds you of that appointment you had, and it regenerates your skin, rules your bowel movements, and makes you wonder about events that happened, or will happen, and it burns your calories, coordinates your senses—”
“Fine, I get it.”
My jaw clenches and a soft headache spreads from behind my eyes. Holding the beast is getting harder. It tries to break free, but I keep its body tightly trapped midair.
Chuck glances back at the creature, then watches me for a moment, a hint of worry on his face. “You’ve made remarkable progress today. If the circumstances were different, I’d tell you to get some rest and continue tomorrow.”
“But you won’t.”
And we both know why. It’s been almost a week since Miriam vanished. Every minute that passes increases the odds we won’t be able to help her. Sling-shooting us to the cavern is the quickest way to reach Werhn-za’har.
Sweat coats my skin, and the exertion of lifting a beast that weighs a ton with my mind starts to press upon my head. But I won’t stop.
I focus on Miriam; the little freckles over her nose, the thin yellow rivers inside her green irises, the sweet scent at the curve of her neck. I’m getting you back,baby, I promise.
Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes. The pressure wave that flows inside and around me spreads across the forest floor like an invisible veil. It shows me animals eating, plants rustling against the wind, rivers splashing, and then the ground going up and up into an endless climb.
The mountain.
Wind gusts blast against the rocky wall, roaring against it, and I take a step back, even though I stand miles away and safely on the ground. My mental blanket starts blinking out.
I have to hurry.
Not far down the mountain’s peak, I find a clearance peppered with vegetation. A few miles above, a tunnel cuts through stone, its rocky walls like veins coursing through the mountain.
The cave Chuck mentioned.
“Remarkable,” he mutters, having ventured inside my mind to feel what I feel. “Your power is so much greater than…” He clears his throat and silences for a moment. Then he continues, “The clearance is a little far from the cave, but it’s our best option.”
I open my eyes and Chuck nods.
I gather the pressure wave of power into a whirling impulse that concentrates beneath the giant, hairless, tiger-monkey. I strengthen the cocoon that traps the beast, only because it needs protection from the ravenous flows of power beneath it.
The creature yelps and shrieks in fear, its pleading eyes begging me to let it go. A threatening predator just moments ago, now a scared, helpless animal.
Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.
The creature can’t understand me, so it keeps shaking and whining as I lift it up and through the tree crowns.
Beyond the treetops, wind blasts against the cocoon. The mind blanket, my radar, shows me the mountain in the distance, standing in a silent challenge.
The flows of the cocoon and the gathering blast beneath it clash for a moment, and I buckle a few steps back.
“We should stop,” Chuck’s voice comes from behind.
“I’m fine,” I grumble between hushed intakes of air.
My arms shake, legs too. I don’t have much time. The power of a thunderstorm gathers beneath the beast, ready to burst at my command—or even before that.
Release.
The blast flings the creature toward the mountain at high-speed, smashing the transparent cocoon into trillions of pieces. The wind slams against the beast’s face so hard that one of its canines almost snaps. It whimpers, but no sound comes out. I try to reshape the cocoon around the beast, but I’m too weak.
It’ll be over soon, I promise.
The beast’s yelps ring in my mind as we cut through the air, the animal physically and me through my radar.
There’s something wrong. The angle is too low!
“Chuck!”
“Push the beast up!” he orders. “I’m not strong enough to intervene!”
I try, urging my power to lift the beast toward the clearance. That’s when I realize that the only thing moving the creature is pure physics. The pressure wave has completely disappeared, my radar is all that’s left of it.
I can only watch.
The mountain’s wall looms over the beast. This poor animal will smash against it with the strength of a bug hitting a moving car’s window.
“Soften the landing!” Chuck shouts.
I stretch my mind blanket, focusing on the crash area and summoning a pressure wave between the beast and the wall. If the beast hits the cushioned spot and falls a few meters down, there will be a small stretch of land with fluffy, growing moss waiting for it.
This has to work.
I pull the pressure wave from my gut, and it growls at my commands, fighting against me. Still, I push it toward the crash site, shaping a cushion of power that will save the beast.
The cushion blinks in and out. I’m too weak to control the pressure wave, and I fall to my knees as I keep forcing my mind to the edge. In…out…. My head spins and the urge to vomit takes over, but I need to focus.
In, out.
The beast’s shrieks echo in my mind as the wall approaches. In, out, in.
Out.
Flesh rips, bones crash, and my connection to the beast breaks into a million pieces.
28
-James-
“We’ll die today,” Zed states as if it’s a simple fact.
“We’ll soften the landing,” Chuck counters, his fierce glare aimed at his new disciple. Zed shifts his attention to the ground. “The beast didn’t have telekinetic abilities, but we do, all three of us. It should be more than enough to help James.” Chuck taps my arm and looks up to me in a supportive way. “This will work boy, I’m certain.”
I’m having a hard time believing him. Their combined telekinesis is still incredibly weak, which means that I’ll have three lives in my hands. The sonar-like sensations of the beast turning into a splat against the mountain burst in my mind, and the urge to hurl simmers at the back of my throat.
“If you fear, you will fail,” Sol’ut-eh says.
She’s leaning over the giant log with her arms crossed in that “I know it all” way that’s typical of her brother.
“So I just need to believe I’ll do it and that’s it?”
“Thoughts work in strange ways, James Bauman.” She shrugs. “Positive thinking doesn’t work in all instances, but it certainly increases the odds in your favor.”
This might sound like bogus new-age nonsense, but I’ll take it. So I give her a thankful nod.
She winks at me. “Besides, if brother dear thinks you can do it, then you probably can.”
Chuck claps his hands together. “Well, then. Time to find Werhn-za’har.”
And bring Miriam home.
The trio surrounds me in a triangle, showing me their backs. Our rucksacks form a lump at my feet.
Without turning back to me, Chuck asks, “Ready?”
No, but it’s not like I’ll ever be.
I close my eyes and feel the pressure spiraling inside my chest, going all the way down my stomach and then back up. A tiny cyclone dancing inside me. When I will it to lift us in the air, the raw power purrs softly, and, as easily as lifting a feather, the backpacks rise to my eye level. Then our feet leave the ground.
Our combined weight is a pebble pressing on the back of my neck, nothing I can’t handle.
The power flows from me to the space around us, forming a shield. I know it’s too early to celebrate, but this is a
much better start than I had envisioned.
The tree tops approach, a tangle of giant branches and navy leaves that almost entirely block the sun. Chuck’s a child, it was easier sending him through this mess, but now there’s four of us and Sol’ut-eh isn’t exactly small.
The heavy leaves and branches push down the shield, and I push back, the weight on the nape of my neck increasing.
“This will drain you,” Chuck remarks. “Perhaps it’d be easier to weave through the foliage.”
I pull more power from my core. With teeth clenched and brain thumping from the exertion, I grunt, “Mazing through the branches will take longer.”
Besides I can’t, won’t, spend another day without my wife.
A few branches snap. Wood cracks and splinters as I push our shield up, covering us in a rain of wooden shards that fall toward the glade. From here, it looks like a tiny coin of grass, the giant log no thicker than a hair string.
I keep pushing until we break out into a carrot orange sky mingled with bright pink. Kind of like a permanent sunset.
The sun on the left shines brightly, covering the land in an orange glow. I know the sun’s actually blue, I’ve seen it from the base, but the atmosphere’s refraction turns the sky yellow—according to Zed.
We land on a huge navy leaf that can easily take our weight. My brain bashes against my skull and I break into a cold sweat. As soon as I make sure everyone is safe, I fall to my knees. I guess that’s the after effect of pushing my body to an edge it’s never been accustomed to. Worst of all, the power now thrashes inside me, demanding, roaring to come out.
“James!” Zed cries, but Chuck takes his arm and leads him further from me. Sol’ut-eh follows them.
“He needs space,” he says, and I wonder if he has read my mind.
The power spins and pushes, trying to break the control I have over it.
No, I think to myself. I control you, not the other way around.
Breathing becomes easier, and my muscles relax a little. The beast has been appeased.
For now.
A soft wind swirls around us, the air here fresh and cool. It’s soothing, if anything in this wretched planet can be called that. Slowly, my heartbeat steadies.
A mountain of faded grey looms in the distance, so giant that it seems disproportional to the land surrounding it. Almost as if someone just dropped it on this planet. It hadn’t felt so big when I scanned it with my mind blanket…
“Different ways of perceiving reality, that’s all,” Chuck says, having known exactly what I was thinking. He nods toward the mountain. “It’s about a thousand times higher and larger than the Everest.”
We’d have never made it on foot, so I see why sling-shooting was his plan all along. I bet that when he came down to this planet with Miriam, he was expecting her to do the same.
Sol’ut-eh watches the clear orange sky, not a cloud up above. “We need to hurry.”
Tiny figures circle us from high up. At first they resemble oversized seagulls, but when they dive, one after the other, I realize they’re the love child of a pterodactyl and a shark, all dead eyes and sharp teeth inside gaping beaks.
The leaf we’re standing on might as well be a platter.
I stand up and the group surrounds me in a triangle once again. Shit, I haven’t recovered fully yet. I can see the yellow dots peppering the first pterodactyl’s rubbery skin, its sharp beak aimed at us.
“I don’t mean to hurry you,” Zed’s brittle tone wavers. “But we might turn into lunch very soon.”
“Concentrate, Zed’phir-lack,” Chuck orders and Zed straightens his stance. “We need to form a barrier.”
“No,” I say. “You need to use all you’ve got to cushion the landing.”
I forget about the creatures diving toward us and concentrate on the power thrashing inside me. I force it to flow below us, spinning at high speed, the force of hurricanes concentrated in an invisible circle. I strengthen the shield around and below. If I don’t, the blast alone will blow us into a million pieces.
Taking a deep breath, I force a quick impulse to spread over the land, showing me everything between us and the mountain, mapping the distances in my mind. The blanket reveals the familiar clearance midway up the rocky surface, telling me where to land.
“James!” Zed yelps, because a gaping maw has covered the sky, big enough to engulf us in one bite, each sharp tooth the size of Sol’ut-eh, drops of drool raining on us.
You want out? I ask the power, but it doesn’t reply, because I’m the power and the power is me. We’re the same, and we are free.
We shoot up inside the pterodactyl’s mouth, flying up its throat, breaking the thin layer of its stomach, then bones, muscles and finally skin, until we exit in a mess of purple blood and guts that splatter in the sky.
“Disgusting,” Sol’ut-eh says.
Zed laughs maniacally. “Remarkable!”
“Focus!” Chuck scolds Zed. “Our trajectory is wrong. James needs to fix it, so you and I will take over the shield. Sol’ut-eh, you’ll focus entirely on cushioning the landing. If we still have strength, we’ll help you.”
She nods to Zed and says, “See, youngling? Now it’s the time to say we’ll die.”
What happened to positive thinking?
“Zed, in three…” Chuck bellows, and their postures straighten, their arms clench. Zed’s red nails bite into his palm. “Two…” I feel a force pushing my barrier down, taking over the space it used to fill. “One!”
They take over completely. I inhale a ragged breath, then another. My lungs feel so heavy, I don’t think I’ve breathed since we shot through that pterodactyl.
All right, the angle.
I will the pressure that pushes us toward the mountain to move up slightly when a thousand crows’ rackets ring from behind.
One of the pterodactyls is chasing us with ravenous fury. Sunlight pours through its leathery wings, revealing a network of veins, highlighting the creature’s sharp talons ready to rip us into pieces.
“It’s too fast!” Zed shouts.
“Focus on the barrier,” Chuck counters, his tone peppered with worry.
“Our shield can’t withstand that mouth!”
I concentrate on willing the power to fix the angle. Almost there.
I can see the wrinkles on the mountain rock and the peppered vegetation covering its outer wall. But my mind blanket shows the pterodactyl coming from behind, and now it’s only an inch from us. A clawed hand runs down my spine, making my skin tingle and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
“Prepare for impact!” Chuck yells, his voice followed by a squawk, and then the pressure of a bite pushes against their barrier.
The pterodactyl thrashes us left and right with its sharp-toothed beak while diminishing our speed and screwing up our angles.
“I can’t fix this!” I yell, an edge of desperation in my voice.
“You have to!” Chuck’s body trembles. His hands are raised up as if he were holding a wall of concrete. “Fix the angle and keep boosting forward!”
Their shield wavers at the front, because Zed and Chuck have to focus on the back, where the pterodactyl tries to swallow us. Piercing wind gusts shoot at Sol’ut-eh, and she bends over as if hit by multiple punches, but she doesn’t move back an inch. Zed shouts a war cry and lifts his arms toward the front, re-building half of the shield.
My mind spins, knees shake, and I break into a cold sweat. I force the power to propel us forward and out of the creature’s grip, but it’s tired. I’m tired. Even though I push with all my strength, I get nothing. The power strolls sluggishly back inside me, sometimes blinking in, sometimes out.
We’ll either crash against the mountain or be eaten alive, whichever comes first.
Nausea takes over and brightness surrounds me. Chuck, Zed and Sol’ut-eh disappear, replaced by a summer day back on Earth.
I’m swimming in a dark blue ocean. Miriam drifts just ahead, obviously using her t
elekinesis. No one can swim that quickly without moving their arms or legs.
“It’s not fair if you’re using telekinesis,” I shout, heart beating frantically as I push my head above water. I must’ve been out of my mind when I decided to try and keep up with her.
Miriam turns back and smiles, then swims back to me. She splashes water toward my face. “I can’t believe you made it this far, actually.”
I can say the same. The shore is nothing but a line at the distance, the water here quite colder than near the land. The dark blue below shows nothing of what lurks beneath.
Miriam laughs. “Afraid of a shark attack, Mr. Bauman?”
I manage a wink before saying, “Maybe just a little.”
She pecks a wet kiss on my lips. “You’re capable of wonders, did you know that?”
“James!” Chuck’s voice wakes me from my daze and my heart aches. I wish I could go back.
Images come to focus. Beyond Sol’ut-eh, there’s a rocky mountain, and I can’t see the sky anymore. We’ll crash way too soon.
Finding the power deep in my core, I push it out. It wants to sleep, it begs me, drags me along, it will all be okay if we just sleep… so I push it harder.
Now!
We rise with one boost, sucker punching the pterodactyl’s beak and breaking most of its teeth. The creature whimpers and flies away, soon becoming a dot in the distance.
My mind blanket tells me that the new angle has shot us past the outer wall and straight into the clearing, as planned, but we’re travelling at jet speed now.
We’re too fast. They can’t cushion the fall.
I’m so tired, so weak. Sleep, the power begs, we need to sleep.
We shoot past the outer wall of the mountain which is smudged by a stain of purple blood. A pang of guilt overcomes me as I remember the beast from yesterday, part of it imprinted on the rock.
We cross through a canopy of trees, breaking branches and leaves, but I can’t focus anymore, only spot blurred yellow and blue beyond the shape of Sol’ut-eh, who stands in front of me. She shouts and my ears sting.
