Chapter 29

From Feathers to Branches

Kenzo’s hand fell away from me and I fell back, sinking into the couch and gasping for breath, like I’d just submerged from the ocean. My eyes were wide, still feeling the power there but the light no longer burned. I took some gasping breaths, trying to readjust to reality.

Stephen was there, he put a hand on my shoulder, firm, giving me something to focus on. “Darce, it’s okay, you made it; you’re alright.”

I took his hand in mine and my breathing slowly normalized. “Th-thanks,” I said breathlessly.

“Wasn’t very fun, huh?” I shook my head. “Check out what I got.”

He threw his menu at me.

[ Congratulations! You’ve just had your first migraine! Here’s to many more, the sky is the limit!

Migraines: 1/??? ]

In any other situation that screen would have had me rolling on the floor but I’d really been through something and could only manage a few laughs.

“So it happened for you, huh? Welcome to the club.” I patted his hand and fell back into the depths of the couch. “What… did you see?”

“Everything. My whole life. Lotta bad, but… there was a lot of good, too.” He smiled, clearly having a much different experience than me. He held his head. “That migraine though, geez, they are no joke. I felt like my head was going to split open. Are they always like that?”

“The really bad ones, yeah. Others are like a dull throbbing. Others are pressure. There are also visual migraines.”

Stephen backed away. “What? Good god. But you said this will be the end of headaches and migraines for us, right teacher?”

“In general, yes. If the headaches were being caused by built up energy. Some are just part of the normal human expereince. But for you Stephen, no, I do not think you will see an increase in them.” Stephen gave a relieved sigh. “But there are always outliers.”

Stephen reflexivly rubbed his head and went a little white in the face.

“Darcy,” Kenzo’s voice lost its jovial tone and took one of severity. “I’m sorry about your mother. I didn’t know that’s what awaited you there.”

I shrugged. “It’s okay. You were right. I did need to face it again. But why did you force me to it? That wasn’t very therapist of you.”

“What?” He looked genunely confused. “Darcy, I would never do that. I guided you but the final move was yours. You pulled away, I thought we were going to lose the connection all together–but then you rushed in yourself.”

“I didn’t though. Something pulled me. And the eye, it–”

[ The appointed time has arrived again! Prepare for teleportation in 10… 9… ]

Kenzo looked even more confused. “An eye? Darcy, what are you talking–”

“We’ll figure it out later!” I shouted over the countdown that got louder and louder everytime the number decreased.

He nodded. “Be careful you two! Your powers should be heighted but don’t try anything too–”

[ 1! ]

Back we went to fight the beast.

#

The past few hours while trapped inside my own mind had taken so much of my headspace that when we were beamed into the game I’d almost forgotten that we had a new ally.

“Damn, we should have set up a meeting place, that was so dumb of us. Darce?” Stephen held me steady as I threatened to tumble over.

My head wasn’t fully all there again and the teleportation left me even more disoriented. “I’m fine.” I shook my head, took a deep breath and stood up straight. I smiled at him. “Realy, I’m fine. So, how do we find her?”

He looked unconvinced but he went along with me and let the subject change.

“No idea. Ugh, how could we not have planned for this.” He rubbed his head, like he was having the second migraine of his life. “I don’t think we can do this.”

Stolen novel; please report.

I hit him on the back, a bit too hard, he fell forward a tad. “You’re too negative, dude. This is just a minor set back. We got this.”

“But if she really can help us, if she was some master planner, wouldn’t she have seen this coming?”

“...you’ve got a point. But! Still. Easy mistake. It’s not like any of this are normal circumstances. We’ll find her, and she will already have a plan. I know it. Have a little faith.”

Having Stephen to worry about got me out of my head and I started to feel more like myself by every passing second. Soon, my mom and the eye would fall back into my subconscious. Where they could come back out right before bed and bother me then. Wasn’t the brain a lovely thing?

Stephen perked up but I could tell he still wasn’t convinced. “Let’s find her, quick. Your faith just has to last that long.”

“We also have to survive that long–look out!” Stephen tackled me to the ground as a rock flew by over head and slammed onto a sniper that I guess had been annoying the psycho girl. He didn’t even have time to move his eye from the scope. A red splat all that was left.

“Thanks. Okay, maybe we shouldn’t be out here in the open.”

Stephen agreed and we took off, heading toward a forest.

“Isn’t this near where we saved Angelia the other day?” Stephen asked.

“I think so. Maybe she would go back there? I think it was… this way.”

We changed course to the right, traveling the outskirts of the trees. The psycho girl was rampaging in the desert again, roaring and giggling as bullets and energy blasts rained down on her, doing absolutely nothing. She was like a little kid, destroying a colony of ants, and finding much glee in doing it.

For the most part I tried to ignore her. I kept her in sight, just to judge she wasn’t heading straight for us but, beyond that, I didn’t want to think about her. And how impossible this task really was.

“Is this the place?” Stephen ask, holding out a hand to stop me.

I looked around. It didn’t seem any different from the rest of the outskirts of the forest except–a tree, felled on the ground, and splintered into pieces.

“What the hell? This is it, exactly. Does that mean… I hadn’t noticed…”

Stephen went over to the tree and inspected it. “It is. The world doesn’t reset.”

“That’s not normal, is it?” I asked.

Stephen shook his head. “In the normal game, after every match, everyting resets. I just assumed this was the same.”

“How did we miss that?”

“We usually started in the desert. Not a whole lot of stuff to destroy there that wouldn’t just look like normal desert stuff. Rocks, holes. What I don’t get is if this helps or hurts us.”

I didn’t either. I couldn’t think of any ideas of how it helped us but there was a clear way it hurt us: the more it destroyed the less places we had to hide.

“One positive,” I said as I thought of one. “We know this is the exact spot we met Angelia at. If we could find it, so could she.” I took cover near a small chunk of tree that had stayed intact, leaning my shoulder against it.

“We are really gonna just wait here?” Stephen asked.

“Do you have any better ideas? I’m all ears.” I cupped my ear toward him.

He laughed, sighed, and plopped down beside me. “I do not. She’s our only hope. But if she doesn’t have this thought too then today is a total waste.”

“Not true.” I tapped my forehead.

“Okay, yeah, we did do that. Hmm…” He grinned.

“What?”

“Wanna see what we can do?”

I matched his grin. “Hell yeah.” I reached into the foliage of the tree and broke off two mid size branches. I threw them on the ground.

“That’s not very impressive.”

I shrugged. “It’s way heavier than a feather.”

“Good point.”

I sat back down, crosslegged. I wiggled my fingers above my branch. “Okay, let’s do this shit.”

Stephen mimicked me and closed his eyes. I hit him on the arm and they shot open again to glare at me. “What was that for?”

“We just delved into our memories and very minds themselves. You don’t think we can lift a tree branch with our eyes open?”

He laughed. “Okay, yeah, you’re right.”

He took a deep breath and focused in on the branch, eyes wide open. I did the same. I did as we were taught, imagined the branch lifting and floating. Replayed it over and over in my minds eye. Then I put intention into it, reaching out with my mind, willing it to happen. The branch shook. Then, slowly, jerkily, lifted.

“Oh my god,” Stephen said. “We’re doing it!”

I didn’t know how he could talk and do it and just listening to him made the branch wiggle in my mental grasp. But I focused back in and put all the will I could muster into it.

The stick righted, became firm, and rose above my head. I smiled, and found that I could focus on other things and keep it up.

“We really are!” I finally responded.

I could look away now and still keep it suspended and saw that Stephen’s branch was just as high as mine. I moved mine closer to his and he caught onto what I wanted to do and we bumped the branches together, a telekinetic fist bump. We both died laughing and the sticks whopped and fell, bonking us on the head, adding further fuel to our laughter.

“That was awesome,” I said, as Stephen agreed. “But so not worth the stuff I had to face inside myself.”

“Today, yeah, maybe. But this is just the beginning. One day…” He slapped the tree trunk and gave me a knowing look.

“Hell yeah!” I exclaimed, excited by just the possibility. “By the last day we are going to lift up the whole forest and throw it at her.”

I pretended to aim at the forest and lift, directing it at the monster. Right in time for me to see her pick up a really big guy and tear him completely in half, gore raining down on the remains of his team.

I put my hands down and fell back behind the tree. “I hope,” I whispered.

Stephen was similarly shook by the gore. “Me too. Otherwise we are fucked.”

As if putting a period on that sentence, a blood curdling scream pierced our ears. It was way more terrified and like three times as loud but I recognized it instantly. I bolted to my feet.

“That’s her!”

Stephen got up, a lot slower than me. “Are you sure? I mean, how can you tell. A scream is a–” Again, louder. “Okay, yeah that’s her.”

I jumped over the tree and chased the source. It came from behind the edge of the trees, farther off, in a huge clearing. Even in the circumstances I was able to appreciate how beautiful it was, flowers of all sorts of colors dotted the landscape,surrounding the center of the clearing where, yes, the screaming came from. It was our girl.

Underneath a giant tree.