Christofer clenched his large fist tightly and then relaxed it. As the blood rushed back into his hand, he flicked his wrist and a similar faint light crackled through. The color of his right hand turned a few shades paler. A swirling, glowing red mist around a red circle instantly flashed into existence in front of his hand.

  “Erm, good. Now, let your arcane energy wander and collect in the center. Instead of igniting the blood, ignite the energy by transforming it. Imagine lighting a candle.”

  The capillaries under his skin flashed briefly, a warm red glow formed and flowed into the circle.

  “Exori Flam” Gerard spoke while looking at his floating red circle.

  A small flame formed in the red circle. Something clacked into the floor at the back of the room and soon they could hear someone carefully writing with chalk. There were murmuring and the occasional clink of a coin into a coin pouch.

  “Exori Flam” Christofer felt cold sweat forming on his neck while he repeated the phrase.

  The red mist got sucked into the center of his circle. Seconds later, the shockwave knocked him back into the bed as a large bright green explosion shattered his circle.

  “Ohoh! Most interesting,” Gerard said, “I am forming a hypothesis. Would you like to hear it?”

  “That depends,” Christofer said before asking, “Would I ever be able to sleep at night again?”

  “That depends,” Gerard replied as he once again rose from the rocking chair.

  “Depends on what?” Christofer asked.

  Gerard forcefully closed his hand and the red circle compressed into the center. The enclosing red circle stretched the fire into a longer thin strand of light as it quickly dissipated along with the circle.

  “On whether the light is on or not,” Gerard replied.

  Christofer frowned. He considered his options, nodded and gestured for Gerard to continue. Gerard hesitated for a moment then his eyes lit up.

  “Well, you see. It has long been theorized that Initial elemental perception for warlocks is largely an emotional response. Adrenaline, self preservation, anger, fear... Would you consider yourself a spiritual person? It can help you define the elements within your grasp.”

  A flicker of light moved to Christofer’s shoulder. He looked over at what moved more silent than a whisper. Two big gecko eyes looked back at him. Gerard continued to talk as Christofer started to tune. He felt his stomach turn and blew out a deep breath to steel his mind, but felt it slipping. The gecko spoke.

  “Rest now… Imagine yourself floating in a beautiful sky, the aggressive badgers of the land do not bother you here at all. Todd from HR doesn't try to make small talk with you in this place, nor does he try to invite you to his kid's wrestling tournament that is being held at a school ninety minutes away. The coyote-lizards of your night terrors do not roam here, and you can clearly read the expiration dates on all your packages. Notably the apple juice, but even the hand soap. Why does the hand soap have an expiration date? It matters not.”

  Christofer’s eyelids became heavy. Closing. He felt how he sank deeper into his subconscious and he no longer paid any mind to sounds of the outside.

  * * *

  However, trying to focus on a particular event made him realize that he had zero control over his mind. When he tried to focus on his breath, he noted that the sensation of pain was still clear and thought about how clear the sensations of pain were, particularly from his chest. His mind drifted once more, he pondered how long this session had been, then he wonderedthought about if everyone waswere okay at home. Soon he realized that he had spent the last ten minutes not focusing on his breath, and just got pulled in whatever direction the mind wanted to go.

  The eerie voice of the gecko rippled through the void.,

  “This ritual seems to pave new roads in your mind, to connect and heal, forming new neural pathways when the mind is healing, all with the hope of forming connections without going gallagher on your grey matter. I will be your ward to prevent that from happening.”

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Christofer grimaced a bit, then slowly tried to focus once more. As he breathed, he focused on the blood flowing through his legs. Looking downwards in the darkness, he noticed his legs formed beneath him in the void as a result. Following the sensations as the blood flowed, more of his body formed in his mind. He felt how it ran through his spine, through the back of the head and flashed his face with warmth. Once the eyes formed, he found himself keenly aware that he was staring through the wibbly wobbly dark grey caused by neural static. It felt like he stood in a narrow and dark mine tunnel.

  Tendrils shot out from the walls In the darkness, forming a mass that turned into the gecko.

  “I’ve traveled across the neural storms in the cerebellum, flowed into the cerebrum where you’ve once again given me form. It seems you’ve begun to recognize the art of feeling your thoughts spatially.”

  ‘I have? Isn’t this because of the hyperconnectivity thing?‘ Christofer’s thoughts echoed.

  “Half-true. You’ve delved deeper, relatively unhindered by the neural static and perceived an approximation of yourself, within yourself without being anchored to a memory. Now we need to solidify the spiritual tether.“

  ‘...and how do I do that? Wait, if you’re me, and you know; How do I know how to do this?‘

  “What is a mind, but two systems working in tandem? A soul and a spirit. You are the soul, the upper levels of conscious thought, your voice in your head, who you think you are. You are the conduit of new information, while I as a spirit is the ward of the library of experiences that you’ve built up over your lifetime.”

  “As I previously stated, you know more than you see and you see more than you know. Don’t think about what you know, trust your instincts.” The gecko climbed up Christofer’s shadowy leg and up to his shoulder.. “Do not think. Feel.”

  ‘Feel what? Emotions?‘

  “Sensations. Follow the sensations to where you need to go. You might not be aware, but in this space, your focus does not determine just my reality, but your reality. You have more power in here than you realize.”

  Clenching his eyes shut even tighter, Christofer felt buzzing sensations in his temples and the building sensation of a headache. He stubbornly steeled his mind and pushed the difficult sensations deeper. TheyIt left him alone, for the time being.

  “It takes great effort for the soul to do anything, and it is slow. The soul’s capacity to hold and manipulate novel information is incredibly limited. However, as the conduit of new information, you must internalize what you know.”

  Instead of focusing on a memory, he focused on the structure of this space. He imagined himself sitting down cross legged. The ground rushed up to meet him. Tendrils pierced the dark and formed the rough shape of a table in front of him, mirroring the environment roughly in reality. Christofer realized something, the environment in this space was malleable.

  “Your understanding deepens, well done.”

  Christofer smiled at the gecko’s comment, then focused on the sensation of the blood flowing into his right hand. He felt the throbbing sensation from his shoulder and followed the path of the blood down to the tingling sensation in his hand. He raised his left arm facing the wall, it warped and reformed. The rounded cave walls formed into a black outline of a neat hallway. He raised his right hand in front of his face, the tingling followed and the space at the end of the hallway warped, swelled and sank down, transforming into jet black circular stairs.

  The space shook and uninitiated something formed. Thin tendrils shot out of the walls, bending and twisting with intricate movements into words in front of Christofer’s dark shadowy approximation of self. It was a surreal sight as the words lit up with a green light.

  ‘Insight has been successfully internalized as Void Manipulation mastery.’

  “What was that!?” Christofer blurted out, realizing only after that he spoke out loud instead of thinking it and dismissively added, “Uh, nevermind?”

  Shortly after, the letters crumbled into nothing. Christofer placed each hand on his crossed legs. Following a tingling sensation in both hands, the ground receded and he found himself standing again.

  “Symbolism, possibly?” The gecko answered and curiously observed the walls. “The only insight I can provide is an approximation of where we must form the main seal”

  “Could it be the drugs in my system?”

  “That too.”

  Christofer stood there in the darkness for several minutes trying to figure out how to move in this dark space. It was not normal movement, but movement of the mind. Focusing on the blood rushing through his body, he eventually followed the sensations as it flowed down to his right leg. He felt a tingling sensation in his right foot and pushed the foot forward.

  The surroundings lurched backward in a jerking motion as if the environment moved instead of him. Christofer paused and looked around due to the strange sensation, shrugged and focused on the tingling sensation in his left foot. He pushed it forward. Each movement forwards tugged back at him with the same strange sensation.

  He focused on the right foot, then the left, the right, the left. Difficult memories of the past kept bubbling up in his mind while the process of walking that normally was so automatic was uncomfortably manual. He finally arrived in front of the stairs and following a tingling in his right arm, carefully grabbed the handrail and glanced down the steps leading into the dark.

  ‘Hey there, demons. It’s me, ya boy.’ Christofer thought as he looked down the spiral.