Mana Dissociation

by Christopher George

  I glanced around the bathroom hoping for a window or something that I might be able to slip out of, but this really was the most unaccommodating bathroom. There was a window, but I wouldn’t have been able to get through it. A four-year-old may have been able to get through it, but, even then, they probably only would have had a fifty/fifty chance.

  I sighed as my head spun again. I made my way back into the main room. Aiden looked much more alert now and was gesturing towards a glass of water and a pack of pills on the table.

  “I’m sorry I fell asleep,” he murmured, “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m supposed to be protecting you. It won’t happen again.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, mainly just to shut him up. I took a swig of the water and put the pills in my mouth. I hate swallowing pills. They always seem to get stuck in my throat.

  “Are you feeling any better?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I scowled, “I feel great.”

  “You need to be calm.”

  “Yeah? Is that all I need to do?” I snapped.

  “Maybe if we try a breathing exercise. That always helps me,” Aiden began.

  “I don’t want to fucking breathe. I want to go home!”

  “No, you don’t,” Aiden replied grimly, “that’s the first place they’ll look for you.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “You will.” Aiden promised, “Look, let me try to help you. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  I could die? Wasn’t that what May said? If I were being honest with myself though, I was interested in learning about the mana. Maybe I could use it to help me escape.

  “Fine!” I stormed, “What do I do?”

  “Sit on the bed,” Aiden instructed, “facing me.”

  He pulled his chair around so that we would be facing each other, “Okay, take a deep breath.”

  I dutifully took a deep breath and surprisingly I did feel a little better.

  “Okay, now hold one of your hands in front of you. Palm facing outwards.” Aiden continued as he did the same, “Do you see the mana in your body?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You need to make it go to your hand.”

  “How?”

  “Wish it.”

  Wish it? What kind of hippy shit was this? Very well, if that’s what he wanted, maybe it was some incantation or something.

  “I wish…” I began, but was cut off.

  “No.” Aiden smiled with a wry grin, “Will it. Think it.”

  I immediately stopped talking and resumed staring at my hand. My arm was starting to get sore.

  “Picture it.” Aiden urged, “Imagine the particles running down your arm towards your hand.”

  I couldn’t help but be distracted as I saw the mana on his arm slowly move towards his wrist and then into his hand. I tried to picture the same thing on my own hand, but I just couldn’t get the particles to move. They just kept moving along their path across my body undisturbed by my will.

  “You need to calm down.” Aiden rebuked softly.

  Easy for him to say. I had no idea how to go about that. I took another deep breath and tried again. At first nothing happened, but then one of the particles took an immediate swerve towards my wrist. Unfortunately, I was so surprised by the movement that I lost focus and the particle returned to its original course. I tried again, but couldn’t immediately duplicate the process, but I was getting closer. It took me a good fifteen minutes before I was able to alter the course of one of the mana particles.

  “Calm, you need to be calmer!” Aiden snapped.

  “Stop saying that!” I snapped, losing my temper, “I can’t get any calmer with you yelling at me.”

  Aiden sighed, “No. You’re right. I’ll leave you to it.”

  That was good, because I had no intention of continuing tonight. The focus that I’d been placing on my hands hadn’t done good things for my headache. I tried several more times, for the sake of appearances more than anything else, then I turned, swore to myself, and lay back down on the bed.

  “You can do this,” Aiden smiled as he turned away.

  I wasn’t so sure. I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to. What was I even doing here? I should just get up and walk out. How could he stop me? I almost did it. I really did. Instead, I simply rolled over, looked again at my hand and tried to move the mana to my fingers again.

  * * * * * *

  When I woke up, I felt like I’d had the mother of all benders the night before and was still mostly drunk. My head swam as I sat up and my mouth tasted like vomit. I rose with a groan and saw that my head had been placed on a towel. There were vomit stains on the towel.

  “How long have I been sleeping?”

  “Two days,” came the answer, “more or less.”

  I glanced at Aaron in shock. No wonder I felt like I’d been chewed up and spat out. My clothes stuck to me like cling wrap and it hurt to move.

  “You were feverish for the most part,” Aaron continued, “I was forced to feed you water and make sure you were clean.”

  I shuddered as I attempted to make my way over to the bathroom for a shower. Walking was a challenge; I was just so damned weak.

  “You need to calm down your mana,” Aaron said softly. I scowled. If I knew how to do that I would have done it already! Stripping off my clothes proved to be an unpleasant experience as they were almost plastered to my skin with a thin sheen of sweat and sickness. As disgusting as it was, I was a little relieved as it meant that Aaron hadn’t taken the liberty of showering me. I don’t think I could have lived with that.

  The hot water cascading down across me did help, but I had to lean myself against the shower wall for support. My legs were rubbery and weak, and I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that they were completely on board with walking around. I finished my shower and moved over to the mirror. I looked like crap. The mana particles on my flesh were so frantic that, in a moment of panic, I thought that they might explode.

  “I’ve bought some clothes!” Aaron called in, “I’ve left them by the door.”

  At that moment, everything could have been forgiven. I had no wish to slide myself back into my soiled clothes again. The thought made me shiver with revulsion. I reached out without opening to door too far and found a small pile of clothes on the floor.

  “I think I got your sizing okay,” Aaron continued.

  He’d bought sweat pants and a t-shirt. It wasn’t much, but it would do. It was certainly better than my old clothes, which, now that I was clean, I could smell from the corner of the bathroom where I’d left them in a small pile. I hurriedly bunched them into the bin and wrapped the bin liner around them. I’d throw them out later. They had been good clothes once, but now I doubted that I’d ever get them clean. Even if I did find the world’s greatest dry cleaner, I’d always know.

  I felt marginally better now that I was in a fresh set of clothes and a shower. I staggered over to the bed and looked down. I had no desire to get back into the bed. I could smell it from here and it almost made me gag.

  “You didn’t think to take me to a hospital?”

  “No, they’ll be expecting that.” Aiden replied.

  “What’s the plan then?” I asked, “Am I your prisoner? Am I going to spend the rest of my life in this hotel room?”

  “No, no, no, of course not,” Aiden stammered immediately.

  “Then I’m free to go. I can just walk out the door?”

  “No!” Aiden snapped, “I can’t protect you! We need to hide!”

  “I don’t need your protection!” I hissed.

  “You don’t understand,” he sighed. He looked genuinely sad.

  “What happened to you? What are you so scared of?” I blurted out before I thought about it.

  It took him several seconds to get his thoughts together sufficiently to begin telling me his story.

  “I was five when I first found out that I was a Mage.”

  “My father was American, but my mother was French. We lived in
Paris. I didn’t know it at the time, but my mother was a mage. She hadn’t hidden it or anything from my father or anything. I think he understood what she was, but I don’t think he ever liked it. He was right not to. She left us when I was very young, and Dad moved us back to the states.”

  “They just let him go?” I asked.

  “Apparently, relationships between our kind aren’t uncommon, but they never last for long. I don’t remember it well, but I remember getting visits from strange people at random times. They seemed awfully interested in me and they didn’t care much for my dad.”

  “…and your mother?”

  “My mother only became interested in me again when I manifested my power, but by that stage I barely remembered her. She called for me, and my father grudgingly sent me to France. I had only vague memories of the woman and she certainly didn’t seem that interested in me for who I was, but I how powerful I could become.”

  Aiden sighed and began to rub his hands across his face wearily.

  “She began my training at first, telling me to keep pushing myself, to make myself more powerful. I was only six at the time and I didn’t understand what was going on. All I knew was that I wasn’t as good as my mother expected of me. I’m not a very powerful mage, in the scheme of things. I just don’t have the potential.” Aiden murmured, “It’s all about potential. I spent my remaining childhood amongst my kind. I was never good enough. I was easily the weakest amongst my class.”

  I shook my head. So, he had a crappy childhood. Big deal. So had a lot of people and they didn’t all turn into murderers. I had to keep reminding myself of that fact. He’d killed people. The last thing I wanted to do was start sympathizing with him.

  “My Mother didn’t like that. She was one of the higher ranked members of our kind and I was an embarrassment to her. At first I was glad, I thought that once she lost interest in me that I could return home and live with my father.”

  “That didn’t happen I take it?” I prompted.

  “No.” he sighed, “She sent me to a regional Master for instruction. Master Forsyth. He specialised in increasing a mage’s potential.”

  “How?”

  “Pain and hard work,” Aiden admitted, “but mostly pain. It wasn’t pleasant.”

  “So you killed him?” I blurted out. I really shouldn’t have said anything. Aiden’s eyes narrowed and he stood up. He seemed larger than I remembered and was physically towering over me, almost blocking out the light from the window behind him. Any softness had disappeared from his face as it fell back into a mask of outrage. It was like his entire face had changed in seconds. Almost as if he had just been wearing a mask and had removed to reveal his true face beneath it.

  “Who have you been talking to?” he snarled, suddenly angry, “Who told you that?”

  I attempted to scoot away from him, but there was nowhere to go. His eyes flared wide and every hair on my neck rose as I saw the mana flow down to his hands. Was he about to attack me?

  “Wait! Calm down!” I tried, but I could tell that he wasn’t listening. I watched with terror as a ribbon of mana lanced out from his hand. I rolled to one side only seconds before the ribbon smacked into it. I scrambled across the floor as he sought to bring the thread back around. I shrieked as the ribbon sailed over my head and took out the window behind him, showering me with glass.

  “Who told you?” Aiden was screaming as he brought the thread around. I was perched on the carpet and my only escape was the door behind him. I saw his eyes narrow with rage as he raised the thread that would end my life. This didn’t look good. This was the end. There was no escape. He had me cornered.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Fortunately for me, the noise of Aiden smashing the window must have alerted someone that something was wrong, as the door burst in a few seconds later. Aiden shrieked as he turned in fury to see who had interrupted him and I took the opportunity to throw myself through the smashed window. The only problem with this was that I wasn’t wearing shoes, but I wasn’t thinking about that. I landed with a grunt on the glass laden concrete outside the window. I immediately tried to roll onto my feet, which led to several cuts across my feet and arms as I rolled over the glass.

  I took a quick look around and saw several cars had pulled across the car park in front of the hotel room. One of them was obviously a police car. I made a bee line for it. I wasn’t sure if they were going to be able to help me or not. I could hear the sound of gunfire inside and a strangled scream. I could see several men hiding between the cars with their guns pointed at the door to the hotel room. One of them lowered his weapon and made a gesturing motion towards me.

  “Miss Wright?” He asked as I got closer. I nodded breathlessly in confirmation.

  “Good,” he nodded, “We’ll get you out of here.”

  There was a strangled scream and a thumping noise and one of the cops came flying out from the hotel room at great speed. He landed like a rag doll on the ground and didn’t move. His partner came running out of the door several seconds later.

  “You should leave,” the cop ordered as he pulled me to one side.

  “Yes,” I replied fervently. I wanted nothing more. “Take me to May.”

  “Who?” The cop asked with a strange look on his face. I couldn’t tell if he was being funny or if he genuinely didn’t know who I was going about. It didn’t matter much as Aiden emerged from the hotel room several seconds later. He looked like a crazy person. One of the cops must have got him it looked like he was bleeding from his arm.

  The cops opened fire on him, but I saw a small thin shell of mana appear around him deflecting the bullets. He was shouting my name as he lurched towards me. Fortunately, it was too late. I’d already been ushered into the backseat of a car and there was no chance that he could get to me in time to stop me escaping. At least that was what I had thought as the door slammed behind me and car took off towards the highway.

  With a lurch, the car shuddered and I saw Aiden behind us, shrugging off several cops who attempted to bring him down as he raised mana at the car. The back end of the car slowly lifted from the ground and I heard the sound of the wheels spinning in the air. And the car ever so slowly slid backwards at the command the deranged maniac behind me.

  I sagged in defeat, as hope left me. There was nothing I could do to get away from him. Just when I thought that it was over, however, I saw Aiden gasp and shudder as his mana failed him. The car immediately jerked forward again as the wheels hit the ground. I couldn’t see who was driving, but they must have had their feet firmly planted on the accelerator. As the wheels gained traction, the car immediately lurched forward and tore off out of the car park. I thought the driver had lost control of the car for a second and we were about to plow into the hotel itself, but after several skids he managed to get control of the car and get back onto the highway. I took a sigh of relief and nestled back into the cushion of the car. I was finally safe.

  Now that I had a chance to glance around, this car looked more like what would have expected a police car to look like. I could only see the driver through a small narrow window on the bars between the front and the back seats.

  “Are you okay, Miss Wright?” A voice came back.

  “Yes, I’m fine!”

  “Good, we’re going to take you someplace safe.”

  Fine, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that I trusted him. Everyone seemed to want to take me to a safe place and so far none of these places had proved very safe. I didn’t reply. I simply pulled my knees up onto the seat beside me and rested my head against the door. I couldn’t see any controls to lower the window, which was a shame as some fresh air would have been nice.

  It was a funny thing though. Given everything that had just happened to me, you’d think that my headache would have gone into overdrive. Instead, it was starting to lessen, making me think that perhaps my head wasn’t going to explode.

  I didn’t pay any attention to where I was being taken as there wasn’t a heck of a
lot I could do about it anyway. I assumed we were heading south again, but in all honesty it didn’t matter. Maybe these people could get me back home. I so desperately wanted this to be over. I didn’t care about work. I didn’t care about May or even Aiden. I simply wanted to curl up on my bed at home with the cat and for this to be all over. It must have been an hour or so before I slipped into sleep again. I didn’t wake up until we got to our destination.

  * * * * * *

  I had no idea where I was. The car had been taken into an underground carpark and I had been ushered into an elevator and taken into what I assumed was a police station. I had no idea which station though. I was led into one of those little concrete rooms with a window on one side and a loop on the desk for handcuffs. I was instructed to wait here.

  It was only a few minutes before the door opened again and a guard entered the room followed by a woman in a nurses outfit with a cart. She offered me a glass of water and some painkillers.

  “If you don’t mind, Miss Wright,” the nurse began, “We’d like to take a sample of your blood.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re very sick,” the nurse, “We need to know how to treat you.”

  I didn’t have much argument left in me, I should probably have demanded to see a lawyer or something, but I didn’t. I didn’t struggle as they pulled my t-shirt back, applied an alcohol swab and took some blood.

  I’ve never liked needles, but I find that if I don’t look at them whilst they’re actually taking the blood then I’m fine. The whole process was over in seconds and pretty soon the nurse instructed me to take the painkillers and drink the water and then they were gone.

  I sat down on the chair and looked around. I needn’t have bothered there was nothing to see. I’m not sure how long they kept me waiting, but it felt like an hour or so. Eventually, the door behind me opened and a small man with rounded glasses walked into the room.