Aaron grunted as the big man’s fist crashed into his stomach and drove the wind out of him. He caught a breath and then paid the man back with a fist to the teeth, which gave his thin friend time to grab Aaron from behind. Aaron brought his head back and felt the thin man’s nose break. The shortest man caught him in the ribs just as his friend let go. His foot met the short man’s knee with a sickening crunch and the man fell to the ground screaming. The big man was coming at him again, so he threw a punch. The big man ducked and it flew above the man’s head as he went low and caught Aaron around the waist.
For a second he saw the pregnant black storm clouds through the top of the alley. Aaron brought his elbow down on the back of the man’s head as they hit the ground. He hit the base of the man’s skull and felt the man’s arms loosen. The thin man with the broken nose caught him across the temple as he found my feet. Aaron’s vision shook for a second before he recovered and hit the man with a front kick to the chest. He closed in as the man hit the alley wall next to a large dumpster. He threw his weight into a gut punch before grabbing a fistful of the thin man’s hair and slamming his skull into the metal lid of the dumpster. Aaron lets him slump to the ground before walking over and curb stomping the temple of the short man with the broken knee. He checked that the large man was unconscious, pulling his head up by the hair and staring into his blank, concussed eyes before letting him drop.
Aaron felt the warmth of blood at his temple, so he got a cloth out of his jacket pocket. He pressed it to the wound as he looked at the collapsed forms that filled the alley. He walked to the mouth of the alley and looked around. The girls those men had been hassling had already run off. The throb in his temple and the ache in his ribs almost made him regret telling the big man to go fuck himself.
Almost.
Aaron continues walking down the street looking at the small storefronts. He felt a tingle at the base of his skull and a warmth just behind his navel. He stopped and looked at the antique store he was walking past, recognizing the sensation. The same feeling had led him to a number of items over the years, He had acquired most of them and now had quite a sizable collection. He put the now soaked cloth back into his pocket and entered the store. The bell rings and a deep male voice calls out in greeting. Aaron closes his eyes and feels the pull to his right, so he walks towards the jewelry section. His eyes lock onto a dull metal ring as he looks around. He picks up the ring and examines it. It appeared to be iron, dull but not damaged or rusty, with an intricate carving of a sun on the top. It had a comfortable weight in his palm as he walked towards the back counter.
As it came into view he saw an older man, maybe in his fifties or sixties, with a thick salt and pepper beard. He looked up at Aaron as he approached and his eyes widened slightly.
“You alright, son? You got a little something…” he motioned to his temple.
“Yeah, you should see the other guys,” Aaron said with a smirk. ”Anyway, how much for this?” He sets the ring on the counter.
The older man picks it up and examines it for a moment.
”25 bucks sounds about right” he says as he places it back.
Aaron pulled the money out of his wallet and placed it on the counter before grabbing the ring and putting it in his jacket pocket and stashing his wallet.
“Have a nice day” he says as he walks away, raising a hand over his shoulder.
“You too, try to stay out of trouble this time, eh?” Aaron can hear the smile in the man's voice and he chuckles as he exits the store.
It took Aaron 30 minutes to make it back to his car. He came out to Dallas to have lunch with his friend Jack, then he decided to walk around town for a few hours. Now he’s preparing for the near five-hour drive back home in the Texas heat. Aaron got into his car and kicked on the AC because it’s July and nearly 100 damn degrees outside just after noon. He pulled out onto the street and started the long drive home. Aaron thinks about the ring the whole drive home, wondering if this one will do anything. He had always felt some connection to the items he collected, but none of them seemed unique in any way. It was almost dinner time when he finally pulled up to his apartment complex.
The clomp of his boots echoed up the stairs as he walked out onto his floor. Aaron’s keys rattled in the door and he was finally home. First things first, he walked to the hallway closet and opened the door. He looked at his collection spread out across the shelves, taking up almost the entire closet. It was eclectic to look at; rings, bracelets, necklaces, robes, swords, gems, both cut and uncut of various sizes and colors, and even an old Yumi that was almost six feet long that stood along one wall. He reached into his jacket pocket for the ring and felt the blood-coated cloth.
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Shit, now I'm going to have to clean the damn thing. He walked into his kitchenette and pulled the ring out to clean it. He was surprised to see that the ring was immaculate, not a speck of blood on it. He turned the ring over in his palm. Maybe the blood was already dry? The thought struck him as untrue, but he had no better explanation. Aaron stuck the ring onto his right hand, marveling that it perfectly fit his ring finger. Then he went to make dinner, spaghetti, his mom’s recipe.
After eating Aaron realized he was too tired and ached too much to do any testing on the ring tonight. He took a quick shower, then laid down for the night.
Aaron woke to the sun striking his eyes, realizing he had forgotten to close the curtains the night before. He got out of bed, got dressed in simple workout gear, and ran through a simple stretching routine. Then he settled down to begin his morning meditation. Most people would have said he didn't look like the type for meditation. Six foot two and built like a professional fighter, with shoulder length black hair and almost teal blue eyes. Despite this image, meditation had really helped him get a grip on his temper in his early twenties, and he had kept it up in the decade that followed.
Aaron’s breathing settled into a familiar pattern, but he could instantly tell that something was different this time. The ring on his right hand, forgotten in his desire for sleep, heated up to a nearly painful degree. The air was thick, almost like humidity, but somehow more…violent. His breathing seemed to draw something out of the air. His body was slowly filled with a feeling of unrestrained, almost electric, energy. The space behind his navel began to heat in a way that was well familiar by now. He began to grimace as the sensation became more akin to a burning coal in his gut than a spreading warmth. His vision began to darken around the edges. Both the rampaging energy and the burning behind his navel worsened as something dragged down on his mind.
Then he “saw” a series of pathways weaving throughout his body. The paths all ended in a vessel, just above and behind his navel. One of the paths was bright, full of raging energy pulled from the air around him. That energy roared down the path, then collected in the vessel where it crashed against the edges. Aaron could feel his body slowly breaking under the strain. His body was wracked with pain as he struggled to bring the energy under control. Slowly, the energy began to flow smoothly through the path, the pain fading as it did. Smoothly collecting in the vessel, where it was pushed against the vessel’s edges by the growing pressure.
Aaron focused and “saw” that within his stomach was an empty space like a cave which contained a wildly writhing sea of gray energy. The energy flowed into the cave through a single opening. More and more energy flowed, the cave already full nearly to bursting.
Acting on instinct, Aaron pushed the energy into a spiral, feeling the suction compress the energy. The sea compressed into an ever-tighter spiral as He sped the rotations. The spiral slowly transitions from gray towards an almost metallic white. Aaron can feel something unwanted being pressed out of the energy by the force and speed. His work continues; spinning faster, pressing tighter, the energy growing more lustrous.
Once the energy feels fully pure, he finally loosens his focus, noticing at last that the sea that once filled the cave is now a pool, barely one twentieth the size. Shifting his focus, he somehow felt many more openings that were blocked in some way, preventing the flow of energy. He focused on one particular blockage that felt different from the others. Aaron felt an instinctual drive to open this pathway and let the energy flow through it. Unsure how to go about this, he reached out to the energy and found that it moved at his will, much more pliant than when it was gray. Aaron’s focus teased several thread-like strands of the energy out of the spiral and spun them together into a makeshift drill. He began to spin the energy drill and then drove it against the blocked path, which caused a jolt of pain. Still he persisted and drove the spiraling energy harder against the blocked pathway. There was an even sharper spike of pain as he felt the bockage give under the force.
Aaron leaned forward as the rush of energy crashing through his body drove his breath out. The rushing current flowed in and out in time with his breathing. He felt the pain ratchet up as the other blockages shuddered under the tide of power. A scream ripped itself from his throat as the other pathways were smashed open by the sheer force. His vision fading to black, overcome by the agony.
Aaron’s consciousness drifted in a sea of gray mist without the concepts of either time or space. Then, after hours, or perhaps days, without count the gray began to swirl into a vortex that drew Aaron into its depths and out of the mist.
Aaron awoke to the darkness, the soft carpet of his bedroom floor pressed against his face. His entire body ached, the pain ratcheting up as he hauled himself to his feet. He shuffled to his kitchenette to appease his dry throat and roaring stomach. He settled at the counter between the living room and kitchenette, sandwich and sweet tea in hand.
Once his hunger was seen to, his mind turned to the prior events. He immediately felt that the air was still thick with the strange energy. His breath carried wisps of it into his body. Focus quickly drew him back “into” his body, to the strange pathways and the vessel in his gut.
The paths, a dozen now by his count, seemed to draw the energy from many sources: the air in his lungs, the food in his stomach, and out of the air through his skin. It flowed through the channels, becoming purer as something was pressed out during the motion. Once the luster was a match, the energy pure, it was drawn into the spiral within the vessel.
Aaron breathed deeply, and was immediately torn from his consideration by a scent akin to week old garbage. A downward gaze saw a thin black sheen along the surface of his skin. Both the scent and the oily texture were removed by a long shower and some vigorous scrubbing. His mind raced as he laid down for some proper rest. He had a great many questions that would need answers sought tomorrow.