It had taken him an hour before he felt calm enough to attempt another deep dive into his mind. It took him another hour to finally let go of trying to replicate his previous experience. The moment he decided that he didn’t have to conquer whatever deep emotions were afflicting him today, he started to slip into deeper states of focus as if they were waiting for him. The next thing he knew he was riding the edge of his breath, and his mind grew evermore still.
Then he was somewhere else.
Hunter opened his eyes, and found himself in a dark cave, a eerie blue glow surrounded him, exposing a ground with vines that seemed to cross the ground like veins.
Despite the darkness of the environment, he felt safe here. It was filthy, and he could hear strange insects chittering in the dark the caves unlit corners, watching him. But within the confines of this place, he knew that he was in no danger.
The cave shook, and Hunter seemed to understand what it meant. He despaired, knowing that his sanctuary was about to be exposed to an unstoppable enemy.
The top of the cave was torn, and a beautiful but terrifying night sky lit by a billion stars, exposed the silhouettes of a multitude of hulking figures. Their eyes were like planets, their fingers spanning the interstellar depths. Some were like wolves, some were like men, others like spiders. These great cosmic beasts considered him with a primal malevolence.
Hunter knew that this was the end of him. Before them, there was no where to run or hide. He was trapped, and these beasts were hungry.
They shook him out of his cage and Hunter fell. There was no ground to catch him, so he fell further and further, faster and faster. The beasts chased him, howling in the delight of the hunt. Hunter knew that in a moment, they would catch him, and he would know no more.
A sweet humming voice met his ears, and his fall began to slow. Light and warmth surrounded him for a second, but the beasts howled and the humming faded. He could still hear it, but its protection was gone.
But Hunter no longer fell.
His body was still, and he couldn’t move. He watched the beasts stalk closer, and they started to melt together into one form, constantly shifting, never deciding on a final shape, but settling on the vague outline of a wolf, uncertain forms streaming behind it like smoke. The smoke drifted in the shape of a thousand faces, contorting in agony. Vistas of flame and blood were born where the wolf stepped.
The despair grew deeper and deeper. His mind screamed, and yet his body could not escape. As the beast drew near, and Hunter saw an inexplicable hatred in its eyes, Hunters heart felt like it would tear from his own chest in a bid to relieve itself of the strain of fear that gripped him.
“You think a cave will hide you from me?” the dark god growled, its voice ripping through Hunter like barbed wire. Hunter wailed and sobbed, powerless to stop the pain. He lamented his foolish desire to free of himself— his determination had brought him here to this nightmare that didn’t end. It was a nightmare that felt more real than anything he’d ever experienced.
“Look at you, child,” it said, circling his unmoving body, taking great pleasure in the waves of torment that assault him, “powerless.”
The wolf’s head was suddenly directly in front of him, staring him in the eyes.
“Say it,” it whispered.
“I’m powerless,” Hunter said, tears streaming from his face. Before this great beast, he was too weak to fight back. He only wished for the pain to end, and he would do anything to hasten it.
“You’ve always been weak,” the wolf said, “and that makes you pathetic.”
Hunter tried to nod but his muscles didn’t seem to receive the signal.
“That’s why your friends left you,” the wolf whispered, “that’s why everyone started to hate you. They knew you’d never be as strong as them.”
Hunter had no more energy left for tears. The wolf was right. He remembered the looks on the faces of his friends as the display showed his results. He remembered how much it hurt, year after year, seeing everyone growing stronger, living their lives unburdened by the frailty which afflicted him.
“You deserve to be alone. Even your own father kept his distance, so embarrassed by his son that he was driven mad. He killed people to cure you of your disease, so that he wouldn’t have to be the father of a cripple,” the wolf laughed.
The beast was right.
Hunter had completely forgotten this feeling. He’d forgotten how much it hurt to be him. How had he forgotten?
He remembered that after his dad had died, all he could focus on was survival. After a while, he found that it was easier not to think about it. Day after day, he strove to improve himself. To work harder, to know more, to be better. The more he worked, the further away the pain seemed.
Why was he fighting so hard?
Wasn’t he just hiding from what he’d always known to be true?
Hunter could never be the person he wanted to be. His own body had stolen that possibility from him.
But that was bullshit.
Hunter laughed. All of a sudden, all of his despair seemed ridiculous. He couldn’t even tell what had shifted, but now he was seeing the fear, the guilt, the shame, all of the pain he’d fostered and hidden from for so long as if it were all at a distance. He still felt every shred of it, but it seemed like an unnecessary affliction.
It was silly.
Why should he give the thinnest quivering sliver of a fuck about what others think of him? So he’s physically weak, so what? In the last few months, he’s been pushed harder than he’d ever thought he could be pushed. He faced challenges that most of the people who have ever judged, or mocked him, wouldn’t be able to face, and every time Hunter emerged better.
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He was better now than he’d ever been before. He was stronger, smarter, more ambitious, and he was pretty sure he was going to ask Tilda Burner to be his girlfriend.
Hunter was more proud of himself than he’d ever been before. He’d never felt more confident and capable.
He understood what had been bothering him, the last couple of days. He understood the panic that had gripped him that night.
This monster had no power over him. As soon as he realized that, he understood what this whole thing was. He knew what had been bothering him over the last couple of days. He understood the panic that had gripped him that night.
“I get it,” he said, as his body was suddenly free to move. He stretched, savoring the sensation of having agency over himself.
The beast spoke accusingly, tauntingly. It chased, and threatened, and promised death. But wasn’t that exactly what fear did? If all of his negative emotions could take up a form, and present itself to him, how it would it look? What would it say?
Would fear give him a hug and tell him that everything was alright? He laughed.
It was him. The beast, the giant scary wolf monster from the depths of the nightmare realms was a manifestation of his own unprocessed feelings.
The beast roared, feeling threatened by Hunters freedom. It lunged at him, trying to tear at him with its claws, but they melted as they got near him, dissipating into thin air.
The beast saw its claw disappear, and Hunter recognized helplessness in its reaction. It’s eyes widened and it stared at Hunter, whimpering.
He felt tempted to mock the beast, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. As he studied the animal, and looked into its giant eyes, he saw his memories reflected back at him. Every one of them a reminder of why he was alone, why he felt so bad to be who he was. He saw every reason he’d had to be afraid of the world, afraid of being seen, afraid of being known.
He could see memories of being beaten by Pippen, and being taken hostage by terrorists. He saw memories of every rejection, every dismissal. As the memories flashed by, the beast whimpered once more and curled up on itself, but they shared the same mind. It could hide its face, but it was him.
He could no longer hide from himself.
He remembered being interrogated as a child, his father being accused and his refusal to listen. He remembered his fathers funeral, he saw his father growing more distant. He saw himself being shunned for the first time, and remembered the feelings of betrayal and confusion. He saw it all, and knew that this was the heart of the beast. As the memories moved, the beast cowered and shivered like a frightened child.
Hunter saw his mother dying. He felt everything he’d felt as a very young boy, feelings he hadn’t ever felt before. A sense of utter confusion— that something so comforting and good could suddenly disappear and never come back. It had changed something in him, effecting him so deeply that he’d barely realized it.
This had all been living inside of him, as him, since he was barely old enough to walk on his own. The more he saw the beast, the more he understood the frightening figure in front of him, the more the figure in front of him shifted. Soon, the monster was replaced by a reflection of himself from years ago.
He was tall for his age. So thin that you’d think he might be malnourished. His posture was awkward, and he seemed so lost. His eyes were constantly searching for something, and he didn’t even seem to realize it.
He heard the humming again, and the lost gaze seemed to light up. The young boy’s eyes shot towards the direction of the soft, comforting voice.
The humming grew to encompass them both. It started to swell all around him and within him. It surged up in a feeling of elation, like Hunter had just discovered the most incredibly treasure in the universe.
His mother appeared. He recognized her. She smiled at the young version of himself, picking him up. Hunter could feel the child’s joy, having finally found what it had lost.
It was Hunters own joy. He collapsed to his knees, tears streaming from his face. The nightmare around him rapidly dissipated, and he came back to reality, sitting in his sofa at Barnum.
Just like that, it was over. The vision of his mother was gone, but it didn’t matter.
He felt happy, he felt sad. He felt a thousand things at once, more than he’d ever felt before.
He finally remembered his mothers voice, her face more than a vague recollection. The face he’d seen in that vision had been hers. It was so clear.
These focus exercises were no joke. His father had utterly understated the potential side effects.
It took him a few minutes before he felt like he was ready to move on from what had just happened to him. He felt like he’d just uncovered and confronted something important.
He remembered what his father had written about his theory regarding the origin of Hunters deficiency. On a whim he grabbed the small device on the side of the table and activated it.
It beeped, and he read the small display.
6.
“Yes!” Hunter said, jumping from the couch. He looked at the display again to make sure he hadn’t misread.
It still said 6.
He hadn’t even managed to catch a glimpse of of etherium channels, and his AR was already rising. But then he questioned if that was true. What if had glimpsed his channels, but hadn’t realized it at the time?
When the cave he’d been in had been exposed, he felt like he was staring into the depths of something that inspired both fear and beauty.
The fear came from the pain, from the monster inside of him. But what about the beauty?
Hunter was far too excited to sleep, so he made himself some coffee and decided to continue exploring. After drinking the coffee and reviewing his fathers notes again, he built up another state of deep focus.
It was like a hot knife cutting through butter. The focus came quickly, and it was stronger than ever.
When he was ready, he picked up the small drawstone on the table and brought his attention to it. He noticed the sensation of the stone in his palm. He felt the etherium inside of it, and how it started to slowly dissipate. He paid more attention to his hand, to the skin. His attention flickered for a second, distracted by a sound outside of the building.
But as his attention moved away from his hand, he noticed that a subtle sensation disappeared, one which he hadn’t even been aware of feeling.
He brought his attention back to his hand, and the sensation returned. He had trouble putting it into words, but it was almost like he could feel something flowing from deep within himself, and this flow was focused on his hand, at the point where the drawstone met his skin.
It was like the flow was simultaneously within, yet beyond his hand. Utterly free from the shell of the skin, yet free to act within it— but it wasn’t outside of him. It was within his consciousness
The more Hunter studied the feeling, the more he realized what the flowing feeling was.
He compared it to the etherium in the drawstone, and realized that what he was feeling was what etherium felt like before it was charged by a drawstone. He hadn’t even realized that drawstones could alter, or impart a charge. Sure enough, the more he studied the contrasting feeling, the more he could see how the ‘neutral’ etherium in the drawstone could be recontextualized as having more of a desire than the etherium he was feeling within himself.
The feeling was so vague, and it was difficult to keep his attention in it. Even though he knew it was there, he would suddenly forget about it and his mind attention would drift to his thoughts, or other sensations in his body. It was like forgetting the fact that you were breathing because it tends to happen automatically.
Eventually, he managed to stabilize his attention on this subtle feeling. He dropped the drawstone, and the feeling of flow continued for a split second before stopping.
This had to be it. He was feeling the etherium being pulled into his body after the drawstone was no longer activated, stopping when his channels were full.
He could finally start practicing the Internal Arts. He wanted to dive right back into it, but after an honest inquiry into how he was feeling, he knew that he needed a break. He imagined a day when he could practice all day, every day, but he still needed to work his way up to that. Hunter now felt the real possibility— the certainty, that he was cured.
He would never be weak again. Hunter would forge himself into something that before, he could only dream of. But first, he needed to get some sleep. Looking at the cups of coffee he’d devoured over the last few hours, he knew that that wouldn’t be coming until at least mid-day tomorrow, and he couldn’t miss tomorrows session with Aera.