by Blair Drake
“You made your choice. Now, show me how much you really want to get out of this city. Because there is a ticking clock that seals your fate if you don’t make it to the portal in time. And I’m not talking about the watch on your wrist.”
Chapter 4
Endel walked into the center of the room and stood close to the large column. “Do you hear that humming?”
Reese shook his head. He glanced at Raven who did the same.
“That’s because you aren’t doing anything to energize it? The air isn’t energized.”
“How am I supposed to do that? You just hit all the switches on the wall and nothing happened.”
“I just made it possible. You can do it if you can control it. Close your eyes. Go ahead, don’t fight me on this. Just do as I say.”
Reluctantly, Reese closed his eyes and suddenly felt a cold chill race through his body. He wasn’t exactly sure why he hadn’t felt it when they came into the room. But he felt it now. Goosebumps raised on his arms even though he still wore his blazer.
“I want you to breathe easy,” Endel said in a voice that suddenly sounded much further away than it had a second ago.
“What, like meditate?”
“Quiet. Follow directions.”
Reese kept his eyes closed, but muttered to Raven, “Do I look ridiculous?”
The deep voice that answered wasn’t who he had expected. “Only if you think you do.”
Raven remained silent.
“With each breath, I want you to breathe deeper. And then the next breath is deeper. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
Reese was a runner. He knew how to breathe and make his breath last. He pictured his legs moving and envisioned a track ahead of him in his mind. But instead of it being a looped track like school, he pictured an open road, one that went on endlessly and Reese had to make it to its end.
“That’s right,” Endel said, his tone showing his satisfaction. “Now I want you to be hyperaware of what’s around you, but don’t open your eyes. Keep them close.”
“Aware of what?”
“That’s up to you. I don’t want you to tell me anything just yet. I just want you to feel and then remember what you’re feeling so you can duplicate it again if you need to. Keep at this. Breathe deeper.”
Reese continue to breathe deeply. With each breath, he envisioned the long stretch of track in front of him. His legs weren’t moving. But in his mind, he could feel them moving. He pushed himself until his heart rate picked up speed and he could see himself moving fast.
It was an odd feeling. He was running. But he wasn’t. He knew he wasn’t. But his body felt as if he were moving fast. He was breathing steady, pacing himself, pushing and pushing further down the long stretch ahead. Except the track in front of him had no end.
He kept going because it felt good. It was familiar and real even though logically he knew it wasn’t. He ran past the trees that he hadn’t noticed were there before and were a blur. But he saw the vivid green color and the smelled the sap coming off the leaves as if he were standing right next to them.
He saw a large rock in the middle of the track about thirty feet away. It wasn’t a hurdle like the ones he jumped at practice after school. As he got closer, the boulder grew in size. He could take it. He knew we could. It was shorter than the hurdles they used during practice, and he had a long stride.
Reese pushed himself forward so he had enough energy to clear the length of the boulder which now seemed much wider than he originally judged it to be. His breathing increased and mixed with fear and anxiety that he wouldn’t be able to make the jump without falling. If he felt, he’d feel the pain of it, maybe even break a bone.
He got himself lined up with the boulder and got ready to make the leap. Just as Reese was about to clear the boulder, it disappeared beneath him. The space where the boulder had been became a great void where he could see nothing at all. Just blackness. His heart hammered in his chest as panic gripped him. He breathed harder and used all his energy to stretch his legs until he finally reached the other side of the track and felt his foot touch the ground.
Relief filled him, even though knew he was in no danger of falling. The void hadn’t really been there. It was in his mind. He knew he was still sitting in the same place in that big room with Endel and Raven, just as he’d been before they’d started this ridiculous game.
Reese kept running because it was familiar and comforting and drowned out all the doubt he had about himself and why he’d been forced to go to the Cliffs. He felt his body sweating and yet he knew it wasn’t real. The warmth he felt building inside him wasn’t because he was exerting himself. It was the oddest feeling. But he didn’t care. He kept running down the track with no end in sight until a bridge came into view. The way to the bridge veered off the track. He could couldn’t easily run up the ramp and head somewhere else. Somewhere he wasn’t a prisoner of the Cliffs and everything his stepdad forced him to do. He’d dreamed of doing it for so long. But something told Reese to stay the course.
He breathed deeply, and he ran past the bridge, wanting to turn back. But then the vibration in his pocket ate into his concentration and pulled his focus away from the track ahead of him and the missed opportunity to escape. Reese tried to ignore it and kept running. But the vibration grew stronger until an audible hum cut through all the noise in his head. It was so loud and the energy inside him was so strong that Reese felt as if he could shatter into a million pieces like glass.
A small whimper beside him startled him. Raven. He couldn’t see her. But he heard her quiet cry of distress. She was there in his mind, curled into a ball on the side of the track. He slowed down as he approached her.
“Keep going. Don’t stop for anything or anyone,” Endel said as he got closer to Raven. She lifted her face to him. The sun glistened off the tears on her cheeks as she cried.
“She needs me.”
“No. Keep breathing. Breathe deeply and drink it in.”
The sound of Raven’s cries weren’t in his head. They were real. He could feel her fear as if it was tangible. Suddenly she was no longer sitting on the track. She was sitting right next to him on that crate curled into a ball.
Reese opened his eyes and reared back in his seat so far he nearly fell off the stool. Light assaulted his eyes making him squint from its brightness. The room was aglow, completely illuminated up to the ceiling that towered above him. The center column was like a tornado of fire, swirling around the center and continuing up to the bulbs. One by one the bulbs exploded into a spray or sparks that rained down into the room.
Raven crouched down under the table. “Make it stop!”
“How?” Reese asked. He flew off the chair and backed against the wall. Endel stood by the column as if he were completely unaffected by the heat.
A memory that had been lost in the recesses of his mind suddenly came back with glaring clarity. He’d been in the kitchen of the small house he lived in with his parents. They’d still been together then. He didn’t remember how it started. But he remembered the electrical sockets in the kitchen sizzling and then burning. Then the toaster blew up and caught on fire. He’d been a young boy then. He remembered his father coming into the kitchen and yelling at him, while his mother was trying to calm him down, telling his dad that he didn’t know what he was doing.
Reese blinked his eyes to clear the memory and the pain of remembering it caused. He ran to the table and found Raven just as she’d been in his vision, curled up in a ball crying. She looked up at him with wide eyes as he held a hand out to her.
As his breathing calmed, the light in the room began to fade. Not completely. It was still bright enough to see far more than he’d been able to see when they’d first come into the room.
“Jeez, that was intense. Are you okay?” Reese asked, crouching down next to her when she didn’t take his offer of helping her to her feet.
Raven pointed to the cylinder in the center of the room. “
You did that, Reese.”
He blinked hard and tried to focus on the bright ball in the center of the room until it dimmed enough for him to really look at it. “That thing? No way.”
She nodded.
“Can’t be. How could anyone do something like that?” Reese looked at Endel who seemed unaffected by what they’d experienced. Fear clutched him, making it hard to breathe. The lights flickered and then dimmed more.
The cylinder that had been cold and lifeless earlier was no longer the ball of fire it was when he’d opened his eyes. But it was still humming and alive with bright colors and sparks.
“I don’t know what did whatever that was, but it wasn’t me. When I opened my eyes, I thought the room was going to blow up. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“Nor should you have,” Endel said. “It’s not a natural thing. All living things have energy. We have many more abilities than we ever attempt to utilize, which is a shame. We are all powerful creatures. Some people have gifts. What you just witnessed, yungin’, was a gift.”
“You mean I almost blew this room up?” Reese looked around as the room slowly returned to normal. “That’s freaking awesome!”
Endel grunted. “Obviously for some people with attitude, it may be a curse. I’m still deciding which it is for you.”
“I really did that, huh? I have no idea how that’s even possible.”
“Congratulations. You just passed your second test,” Endel said, walking over to the wall again and pushing random switches.
“What was the first?”
“Keeping your mouth shut long enough to do the test. So congratulations for that, too.”
“Stop congratulating me. You know what the hell you’re doing. And you know what the hell I’m doing. I’m the one who doesn’t have a clue. How is all this supposed to help me get out of here?”
“You just utilized the very essence of who you are,” Endel said as if he were telling Reese something random, like he had brown eyes or he was six feet tall. “The problem is you now need to learn how to harness it. That’s the lesson that will keep you alive.
“There will be times during your travels when you’re going to need to remember how you did this. You’re going to have to feel these feelings before they hit you and are uncontrollable. And they will be. You’ll be in situations you’ve never encountered before. And you’ll need to learn how to prevent yourself from turning into a time bomb in the middle of the city square if you’re out in the open.”
“Okay.”
“For the most part, you’ll be hidden by these concrete walls. That’s your protection. There are tunnels throughout the city. Raven knows the way. She’s traveled some of them.”
He turned to Raven. “You have? Why didn’t you ever use them to escape? If you knew they were there, you could have gone to the portal long ago.”
“The portal isn’t always open,” she said, climbing out from under the table.
“That’s right. Think about polarity.”
“Polarity like with magnets?”
Endel smiled. “You paid attention to something in science. That’s right. When someone comes through a portal on the south end of the city, like you just did, there is only a small window of opportunity to get to the north end and find the coordinating portal before it closes.”
“How come I can’t go back to the portal I came through?”
“Because the energy doesn’t flow that way. It flows in through the south portal and flows out through the north. But it’s only possible to do it for a short time.”
“How long do we have?”
“Less time than you know. So let’s get to work.” He pointed to the map on the table again. “As I said, the tunnels will get you far. But there will also be times when you need to be out in the open. It is too dangerous for you to be exposed for too long. But it’s necessary. Those are the times you’ll need to harness this energy and keep it contained in a box. Figuratively.
“Let’s try it again. This time, I want you to keep your eyes open while increasing the energy inside you and then quieting it down.”
“Increase and then decrease,” he said, trying to remember how he’d actually managed to light up the room at all. His eyes had been closed. He wasn’t sure he could do it again being distracted by everything around him.
The track. He needed to remember how it was running and how he felt in those moments he’d envisioned himself running in his mind.
But every time Reese began to see himself out there again, he wanted to close his eyes. Endel poked him with a finger.
“Owe. What did you do that for?” Reese asked, rubbing the spot on his upper arm where Endel had poked him.
“Eyes open. What are you going to do if something comes at you and you’re standing there with your eyes shut? You can’t run with your eyes shut. You can’t avoid a moving object or escape a citengam.”
“Citengam? What’s that?”
Endel ignored his question. “Again. This time I want you to do it.”
It felt as if they’d been working for hours. Reese concentrated and with complete amazement, he found himself dimming the lights and making them blaze all at will. But it wasn’t enough to satisfy Endel.
“No! You fool. You need to work harder!”
“I’m trying. If it’s so freaking easy, why can’t you do it?” Reese shot back. His stomach growled. It had to be way past lunch. He was sure that was part of the reason he was having trouble concentrating, but he’d be damned if he told Endel that.
Instead of biting back at Reese as he had for the past hour, Endel sighed and eased himself back down on the metal chair by the table. He ran his weathered hand over his gray hair and sighed. For some reason, he looked older, if that was even possible.
“This room we are in is where you need to learn how to control your impulses. There is no room for mistakes out there. I’d hoped you’d be able to learn to master this quickly. Your life and Raven’s life depends on it. I don’t think this will work. There isn’t enough time.”
Raven took a step forward. “Endel. He can’t stay here. He can’t.”
Endel’s face grew sad. “You can’t stay here forever either. But the others.” He sighed and shook his head. “They weren’t any better prepared than this yungin’ is.”
“But I’ll be with him,” Raven said.
Reese shook his head as the gravity of what was happening crashed around him. “What are you saying? I have to stay here?”
“You’re not ready,” Endel said.
Reese straightened his back and fisted his hands by his side. “I am!”
“You’re not!” Endel fumed. “You think you are but you’ll never be ready for this.” Endel sighed. “But the time for debate is over. We’re out of time. If you don’t leave soon, you’ll never make it to the north of the city before the portal closes.”
“How do you know that?” Reese challenged.
Endel squinted his eyes with anger. “Do you think I just sit here waiting for young fools like you to wander into my shop? I know. That’s all you need to know. And for some fool reason someone sent you here. Whoever gave you that talisman, gave it to you for a reason.”
“The pin?”
Endel rolled his eyes. “You wear a pin on the lapel of your blazer. That thing humming in your pocket is a communication device. Let me see that thing again.”
Reese took the pin with the stone out of his pocket and handed it to Endel.
Endel inspected it. “Whoever gave it to you was being kind. They were giving you a way to communicate. This doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to work. But you can make it work. You do have the power.”
“Who am I supposed to communicate with?”
“Me, I guess. I can’t think of anyone else around here who’d know how to communicate with you through it or would even want to risk it.”
“Why would you risk it?”
“Because you don’t have anyone else. Although I can’t
see how I can communicate with you with this device unless I… I may be able to tweak this and make it useful.” Endel dropped the talisman into his shirt pocket. “I’ll look at this back in my shop and see what we can do.”
Endel stared at him for a lingering moment. Reese couldn’t tell what was going through the old man’s mind. He just stared.
“Tell me what time it is,” Endel said. Reese lifted his gaze to the clock on the wall, but Endel stopped him. “No. Look at your watch.”
Reese frowned. “But my watch doesn’t work.”
“Check it. Go on,” he urged.
He wasn’t sure why he should humor the old man, but Reese glanced down at his watch anyway to keep Endel from barking at him. He’d expected the secondhand to be bobbing up and down on the seven like it always did. To his amazement, the secondhand moved past the four, and then the five, and then the six, without stopping. In all the time Reese had stared at the watch’s face, he’d never seen the secondhand move.
“What did you do?” he asked.
Endel chuckled low. “That was all you, my boy. I had no hand in it.”
“I’m…it’s amazing.”
“It’s a watch,” Endel said dryly. “Now you can look at the clock on the wall. Do you remember what time it was when we came in?”
Reese shook his head.
Endel hissed. “You need to start being more observant. You need to notice everything. Nothing is unimportant. It’s the only way you will know if you are somehow affecting the electronics or gadgetry around you, or if people are becoming aware of your mutant tendencies.”
“Excuse me? I’m not a mutant.”
“You have a problem with mutants?” Raven challenged.
He glanced at Raven who was peering up at him with suspicion in her eyes. He made a face of disgust. “Well, first, there aren’t any. They aren’t real, except in books about weird worlds and creatures.”
She lifted her chin. “And second?”
“Because…I’m not. Mutants are weird. They’re freaks. I’m not a freak.”
Endel harrumphed. “And yet you practically lit this room on fire. That doesn’t seem a little freaky to you?”