Hal sat cross-legged in a bizarre formation drawn into the courtyard sand. The Old Man stood outside the formation, looking at Hal, who was patiently waiting for the other's instruction. The courtyard was empty this early in the morning. The other children had other things to attend to at this time. The morning air brushed softly against Hal's skin while the sun slowly rose over the top of the wall. Hal could barely make out the sound of the other kids coming from the wooden building.

  "We are going to begin by attempting to establish communication with the other inhabitant of your mind." The Old Man spoke in a calm tone. "I want you to purposely go to that dark space again, but without losing control. When you get there, I want you to follow my instructions. Now close your eyes, and look for that space inside your mind."

  "Yes sir," Hal did as instructed, closing his eyes and attempting to find the same dark space from before. After about fifteen minutes of failer, Hal reopened his eye, looked at The Old Man, and said. "I have no idea what I am doing."

  "Honestly, I expected you to ask for help three minutes in." The Old Man said with a humorous tone. "What you need do is visualize a space at the center of yourself. All of your thoughts and memories circle this space, feeding into it, expanding it. Start by imagining your thoughts spiraling around something. The key to this step is to make sure the spiral is stable. You don't want it to collapse when you stop paying attention to it."

  "Alright, that sounds simple enough."

  Despite his statement, it took Hal nearly thirty minutes to get a stable spiral of thoughts. Every time he thought the formation was perfect, something new would somehow enter into the spiral and ruin the balance again. "The trick appears to be to design a secondary spiral to integrate new thoughts into the primary one while keeping the entire thing working, but that's easier said than done."

   After reaching a point of success, Hal voiced his confusion. "For something that is supposed to be my imagination, it really doesn't seem to be under my control."

  "That is because it isn't your imagination. What you are doing is constructing an entrance into your inner world. The presence of a class makes this process much less challenging, but we don't have the luxury of waiting until you turn fifteen."The Old Man said, with a hint of resignation in his voice. "That is why I drew this formation. It will help with the beginning of the process" The Old Man gestured to the complex series of lines drawn in the sand around Hal. "Now, if you have a stable spiral, I want you to think of that space in the middle. That, theoretically, is where the dark space will be."

  "Do I need to do anything special to it?" Hal asked inquisitively.

  "No, just think about it. That should be all you need to do."

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  The Old Man's eyes didn't reveal any unease if he felt any, so Hal felt confident in his words. Closing his eyes once again, Hal focused on the center of the spiral. The space looked to be empty, a blank spot in the otherwise colorful and chaotic spiral. The more Hal concentrated on the spot, the more it seemed not actually to be a spot at all, it was more like a heart. Everything flowed in, and the space expanded, then it all got pumped out, and the area shrank. The simple process was almost hypnotic to observe, doing so made Hal lose track of the rest of the formation and his position in it.

  Hal slowly drifted into the spiral without noticing, moving down towards the blank section at the bottom. The process was slow and uncontrolled, sometimes he flowed, and other times he was thrown, but ever so slowly, he was pulled towards the center.

  The dark space wasn't so dark anymore. The floor seemed to extend on into oblivion, but the sky was dominated primarily by the spiral of thoughts. The window sat affixed in space, having expanded and cleared to show the outside world. In the center of the area sat a chained figure, wild and angry they were a near-exact copy of the transformed Hal.

  "What do I do now?" Hal said with a hint of fear in his voice.

  "For now, describe the space to me. Tell me everything you see and feel," Said The Old Man. 

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  "I see, so while you are in control of your body, the other entity is chained similarly to how you were. Let's start with loosening the chains then. Don't break them, but try to imagine him having more ability to move." The tone of The Old Man seemed confident to Hal, but his words gave him doubt.

  "Uhh, are you sure that's the best idea?" Hal said nervously.

  "No, but I think you should try it anyway." The Old Man's tone seemed almost comical before becoming slightly more serious "I feel that showing some goodwill right now will go far in the long term. The best we can do is loosen the chains and try to speak to him."

  "I guess you might be right." Said Hal. Trusting in The Old Mans instruction, Hal began thinking of the chains binding the other him as something less restrictive. He imagined new links to add length. Instead of having the chains themselves act as binding, Hal added a shackle to the end of each chain that would fit his wrist and ankles perfectly, and a small ring in the ground for the end of the chains to loop back into.

  The feral Hal seemed stunned by the new level of freedom. Testing the new restraints, he moved about the radius of space the chains now allowed. He gave a sharp yank to test each of his new bindings whenever he reached the edge of his chains before moving to check another direction. Seemingly satisfied with his findings, the feral Hal returned to the center of the space and sat down, turning his eyes to stare at Hal with less anger than before.

  Hal relaid all of this info to The Old man before asking for the next step, "What now?" Hal said.

  "Try talking to him. That is the goal today, communication." The Old Man said, the exasperated tone of his voice going unnoticed by Hal.

  Inside his mind, Hal directed his attention to the feral Hal and spoke. "Uhh, hi, umm, I would like to work with you if we can.

  The feral Hal tilted his head in confusion at the words before opening his mouth to speak. "Dar tuul? Duukuun khruur muul." "What say? Tongue not know."