The pounding drum beat followed by the familiar howl of “¡Ay cabrón!” reminded me of every single reason why I stopped trying to make shit like this work out. It’s always something they find wrong with me, and never the other way around. Dealing with that feeling day after day was torture. After so long, I had forgotten just how much I hated it. It isn’t just with girls, either. I hadn’t made a real friend in years until I met Hiro today. I’m always the one who gets cast aside. I’m the broken toy that nobody wants to play with; the flask that you can’t get the stain out of. I’ve never had anything that would be valuable to anybody. So what if I’m some chemistry genius? That’s not gonna help me make any damn friends that’ll actually care about me. I’m not sure why I thought a whole new country would change that.
Maybe there was something else I was a little bit good at. I gave up on it long ago, but I still carry it with me - in a spiritual way, not in the physical sense. Taisuke was right. I had never really let go of that whole music thing. Just because I wasn’t the best at it immediately, I gave up. I always secretly begged Fumio to let me be our lead singer instead, but he always told me the same thing every time I asked: “One who lives only off of free samples will never have a plentiful meal.” I’m not entirely sure what that meant. I was getting tired of people always saying things that I didn’t understand.
Still standing outside the front door to the dining hall, I reached back around my shoulder and into my backpack to grab my campus map, hoping to find a place where I could cool off until 10 o'clock. My hand jerked back when I felt something that I had no idea was still in there; my old pair of drumsticks. I genuinely didn’t remember putting those in my backpack, and I certainly didn’t remember wanting to bring them here. Those days are behind me. But a strange part of me is saying it wouldn’t kill me to give it one more shot. The entire campus was practically empty; she couldn’t have gotten too far, but it’s not like her seeing me again could sink her opinion of me any lower.
So I pulled the drumsticks out of my backpack and hit rewind again.
Hitting those first 5 notes again was simply therapeutic. It didn’t even matter to me that I was only striking air. The simple act of letting the muscle memory take over was rejuvenating. While it refreshed my whole body, it also revitalized my anger. All of the reasons that I was out here all alone in the first place came rushing back just as quickly as I had gotten sidetracked from thinking about them. I started air drumming along with increasing intensity and, in a moment of blind and unfiltered rage, wound up for the first crash of the cymbal and sent my right drumstick soaring into the air in front of me. Turns out I wasn’t quite looking where I was walking as I played, since the stick instantaneously bounced off of the brick exterior of the computer lab in front of me and smacked me in the face head on below my right eye. I immediately dropped the other stick and moved my hands to cover the site of the impact, which was currently throbbing with pain. After a few seconds, I checked my hand. Thankfully, there were zero signs of blood. I scooped up the two sticks, which had finished clattering on the ground and hadn’t rolled too far away, and leaned up against the brick wall.
I started to look up at the bright, blue sky up above me. The last time I had gotten a great look at it was from the other side of the troposphere. I briefly thought about the other side of the Pacific Ocean as well. It would probably hurt Fumio and Taisuke if they saw me like this. I wouldn’t blame them for feeling disappointed, considering how badly we all wanted this to be the best thing for me. All they wanted for me was to make enough new friends so I wouldn’t have to think of them quite so often. I guess I’m failing that assignment already.
My phone buzzed very briefly in my pocket. I had no desire to see what it said, or who sent it, but against my better judgment, I slid out my phone and unlocked it.
[Text Message: Unknown Number]
“You’ve been selected for an exclusive -”
I didn’t bother reading the rest of it.
While I had my messaging app open, I saw the most recent conversation with Chika. It made me feel ill just looking at it. My finger hovered over the ‘Delete Contact’ button, trembling at the thought of admitting that I fucked up again.
“But you won’t talk, won’t look, won’t think of me… I’m the epitome of public enemy... “
That’s right. My music was still playing. I started to regain the urge to continue drumming, so I threw my phone into my backpack and got lost in the beat.
“Why you wanna go and do me like that? Come down on the street and dance with me!”
I leaped into the air and my feet landed on a nearby stair railing, sliding down as the chorus of “I’m a lot like you…” invigorated my spirit. When I reached the bottom of the railing, I was completely lost in the music. While my wrists played their heart out to the rhythm, my feet stepped to the melody of the guitar. If there were any bystanders, they’d probably think I was inventing a new form of waltz in the process.
“Hello… I’m here… I’m waiting….”
I rushed over to a nearby fountain and ran my foot through it as I dashed by, spraying a huge wave of water onto the stone surrounding it. Noticing that there were already plenty of shallow puddles on the ground, presumably from a leak in the stone, I glided across the surface of the pools of water, being careful to keep balance in my upper body. Who said I needed a girl to have fun on this campus?
“I think I’d be good for you, and you’d be good for me…”
After a few good, long attempts at sliding across the fountain square, I went back to drumming. Once again, I wasn’t paying all that much attention to where exactly I was heading, because while walking backwards I had accidentally walked off the top of another set of steps. Thankfully it was one of those staircases that has multiple long, flat platforms throughout, so I only fell down about 4 steps. Still, I learned my lesson. I was impressed not only by my sheer luck, but also at how varied the elevation on campus was. Each side of the fountain square led to a different elevation than the rest.
“How cool is that? So I went to your room and read your diary!”
Before I knew it, I was in the central park again. Seeing it from the other side really made it click how big this place was. Had I really walked all this way just to go to a food court? That can’t be right, there was another one, wasn’t there? I could’ve sworn there was more than just this dining hall on the map. If I remember correctly, there should’ve been one in the Northwest corner of campus. Now that I’m not under a time crunch, I might as well go check that out.
“And then my heart stopped: Listening to Cio-Cio San… fall in love all over again.”
As I made my way through the central park, I noticed how many acorns I was stepping on. I picked one up just to take a closer look. It looked pretty different from the ones on my street back home. I tossed the acorn with as much strength as I could muster across the park just to see how far it would go. A couple of squirrels happened to see it land and immediately snatched it up. It felt nice to make their lives just that little bit more interesting, even if they had no idea I was even the reason why.
I continued to let the flow of the melody carry my weight across the park, ignoring everything around me as I got lost in the vision in my head.
“How stupid is it? I can’t talk about it. I gotta sing about it and make a record of my heart…”
I thought about what mom said before I left. Something a “fiery passion” that would “ignite the world”. Was she referring to school? Friends? Music? Something greater?
“How stupid is it? Won’t you give me a minute? Just come up to me and say hello to my heart…”
Another me suddenly appeared in my vision. His back was turned to the original copy. He had everything I had ever wanted; Talent. Love. Recognition. But it still wasn’t enough for him. Not out of greed, but out of sorrow. He didn’t want more. I think he needed more.
“How stupid is it? For all I know you want me too… Maybe you just don’t know what to do… Or maybe you’re scared to say…”
Finally, a third me appeared as well. All three of us stood with our backs to each other, forming what would be the points of a triangle. This time, the new me looked mortified. Still, he sang along, just like the rest of us. With each second, he took a small step back, as did the other two apparitions of myself, slowly shrinking our inverted triangle. It was eerily theatrical.
“I’m falling for you.”
After enough steps, we stood united in the exact same spot. When I looked up, I finally remembered that I was simply envisioning all of the last 30 seconds. That much should’ve been obvious from the start. I should be careful to not let my imagination go so wild.
Speaking of my imagination, I must’ve been daydreaming for much longer than I thought. For some reason, I wasn’t in the park anymore. Instead, my surroundings were more akin to a haunted house attraction at a school fair, except way more… authentic. It was dimly lit inside. None of the lights on the ceiling or walls were turned on, and the only natural light came from the windows, which were spread an uncomfortable distance apart from each other, and were way too high for any person to reasonably climb in or out of. This place looks like it’d appear on a page in the ‘haunted/condemned locales' chapter from one of my textbooks. Every reasonable instinct told me to get the hell out of there, but the corridor was so long that I didn’t know which side led to the exit, but the last time I was forced to pick a direction, I ended up being correct. I’ll take another flip of the coin. Hell, it’s not like I have anywhere to be for a while.
The more time that went by, the less confident I became in the direction I had chosen to walk in. The corridor seemed to get longer and longer with every step I took, like one of those optical illusions at a funhouse. Yeah, that’s right. There’s no way that’s what’s actually happening here. It’s just that - an illusion. I’m probably in some sort of haunted house filled to the brim with tricks to spook me. Just a regular haunted house… in the middle of April. They probably just leave it empty when it isn’t being used. That’s such a logical explanation, Genjo! Nice one! “Thanks, Genjo,” I said out loud to myself just to break the feeling of loneliness.
I caught myself rewinding the “How stupid is it?” bridge of the song over and over again, which is usually pretty difficult on a click wheel - that is, if you haven’t been using one for more than half of your life. Each time, I kept envisioning the three versions of myself that I saw in my earlier daydream, and their image became increasingly clearer with every subsequent rewind. The ways that their bodies flowed to the rhythm so differently from one another were astounding for something that I knew for a fact I was imagining. The first one moved very quickly and sporadically in very short bursts, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t putting his all into every single intentional movement he made. The second one, however, was very elegant, similarly to that of a Renaissance era ballet dancer. His arms swung in large, open circles and his steps were in long, graceful strides. The third one still had a look of terror on his face, though. His backwards steps were still very short and steady, like he was backing away from his greatest fear. I don’t blame him for always looking that way. There’s a lot to be afraid of out there.
After what felt like ages, my perseverance had sort of paid off. I wasn’t greeted with a door to the outside, but rather by a table. The table was oddly regal, at least compared to the dining hall I had just been to. The metal silverware didn’t look quite as flimsy. The plate that sat between the forks scattered around the table was a lot bulkier. It must’ve been made out of a sturdier porcelain material. Everything in here was really dusty. The place felt more left behind than it did run-down. Compared to everything else I had seen on campus, this place just screams the word ‘baroque’.
“I wish I could get my head out of the sand…”
I wiped the dust from one of the plates on the table to get an idea of how long this building had been left to rot. The thick gray layer that now sat atop my finger helped me approximate the time period to ‘a while’. I used an equally dusty handkerchief to wipe the rest of the dust off and took a good look at the design around the rim of the plate. There wasn’t much to admire in the way it was patterned, but it was clean enough to see a little bit of my reflection in it.
“Cause I think we’d make a good team…:
Seeing myself was one of the last things I wanted to do right now. My fear and apprehensions were on full display. There was no color in my reflection; only a face painted in doubt. No wonder she could tell I was afraid.
“But that’s just a stupid dream that I won’t realize, cause I can’t even look in your eyes…”
I took the plate and threw it with all my might. It sliced through the air like a frisbee and shattered against the wall. For some reason, it felt good to watch it fracture into unrecognizable pieces. I grabbed another plate and threw it the same way, seeing it as it broke into a completely different pattern. It was a nice form of catharsis, albeit an odd one. It was exactly what I needed right now.
“I’m a lot like you, so please… Hello… I’m here… I’m waiting…”
I jumped straight up onto the table and punted a glass across the corridor. As the drums in the song roared back to life I broke, stepped on, and launched various tableware from their resting places.
“I think I’d be good for you, and you’d be good for me…”
Eventually it was no longer about destruction or catharsis; I just felt like dancing. The tableware was just in my way.
“I’m a lot like you...
Empty glasses scattered along the table made for great cymbal substitutes.
“I’m a lot like you…”
They didn’t make good substitutes for very long, though. As it turns out, cymbals are way less fragile.
“I’m a lot like you…”
A large chandelier hung from the ceiling. No matter how hard I tried, nothing I threw up there managed to make it swing. It must either be super high up, or someone earned a raise for that installation.
“I’m waiting…”
The acoustics in this corridor were awful. My singing echoes worse here than it did at my high school’s gymnasium.
“I think I’d be good for you…”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Singing all the different harmonies yourself all at once is great when there’s no one here to make fun of you for it.
“And you’d be good for me!”
I let out a victorious shout in what was hopefully the same key as the actual song, being a bit careful not to strain my vocal chords. The song quickly faded out, leaving me standing alone on top of a table surrounded by broken glass and porcelain. Kinda sucks that no one will ever come around here to clean it up.
There was a sound that resembled the blowing of the wind which made me hopeful that there was an open window I could climb out of. When I took my headphones off to hear it better, the sound actually went away. As it turns out, that was just the sound of an instrumental song playing from my MP3 player. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized this was the first new track that I had heard since walking out of the dining hall. (Talk about getting my money’s worth on that CD.) I looked down at the new track that was playing, since I didn’t recognize it well enough to tell you what it was called. ‘Sense of Doubt’. You and me both, Mr. Bowie.
Turns out that all this place needed to feel creepier was a song playing in the background that sounded like I was being escorted to the site of my own public execution. At this rate, there was no way that walking any further would get me to an exit, so I just turned around and headed back, hoping that there wouldn’t be any ghouls or spirits waiting to ambush me in the dark. Not that I’m afraid of the dark, or anything like that. This just seemed like one of those places where I’d get jumpscared by an axe wielding maniac who just wants to tell me a knock knock joke.
In my pursuit for an exit, I sort of grew accustomed to the unsettling vibe that this building gave off. Sure, it was old, dark, empty, uncannily long, and potentially full of hazards to my physical and mental health - plus the fact that I have zero idea how I got here in the first place - but I could at least take solace in that the scary music was entirely my own fault.
Every once in a while I could’ve sworn I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye. It was hard to say what it was, as it was never there for very long. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t colorful enough to stick out from the shadows, so I figured some racoons had probably found their way in here. If I’m lucky, I won’t have to worry about getting bitten or anything like that. Although now that I think about it, there’s no need to be concerned about how well I can talk to girls if I’m on my deathbed with rabies… now that I think about it, if I see any more movement, I’m going to stay far away from it.
That plan didn’t last very long. Another strange blur of motion occurred directly in front of me. How in the hell did I just watch something move without actually seeing anything physically there? I stepped to the side and kept walking, this time at a brisk pace. Only a few seconds went by before it happened again. I was starting to really freak out, so I started to run towards what I prayed would be an exit. More and more of these things were starting to move, and I wasn’t staying to find out what they were or what they wanted. As they kept showing themselves in my way, I weaved my way around them, hoping that not wanting to disturb them would just make them go away. My surprise detour here had become an escape from the world’s most confusing, invisible maze, and I just wanted to hit the ‘give up’ button and have someone airlift me out from this nightmare.
I was running out of energy. I had no option but to slow down, and when I did, they seized the opportunity. They began to form a circle around me, enclosing me in their web of nothingness. That was the worst part of it all; they didn’t even seem to exist. They barely even had a physical form. Now that I was no longer running, I could sort of see that they had a humanoid shape, but it wasn’t rigid and solid like mine. They were more fluid, or gaseous, or whichever word means that they weren’t definitively shaped. There was small fluctuation in their resemblance to a human figure, with small flares from their shadowy forms serving as a reminder for me to not get any more comfortable than I already wasn’t.
This has to be a dream; there’s no other explanation for something like this. I’ve been having weird dreams recently anyway. This isn’t any different. This is just a strange dream where I’m in an infinite hallway and getting chased by shadow people. I’m gonna wake up in the dorm room that the man in the sweater let me sleep in. Hell, that means my awful date wasn’t real either. When I wake up, I’m gonna know exactly what not to do! And then everything is gonna be alright!
Because this is all just a dream. It has to be.
The shadowy figures were inching closer to me. Even if my legs weren’t paralyzed with fear, I’d still have nowhere to run. As they got nearer and nearer, I prayed that this was the part of the dream where I’d wake up in a cold sweat and tumble out of bed. I didn’t want to admit that any of this could possibly be real. I closed my eyes, hoping that maybe, just maybe that was the secret to getting out.
And then a voice spoke to me.
“Genjo? ...Genjo, are you there?”
The voice was soft, but not one that I recognized. I quickly opened my eyes, expecting to see someone waking me up from a bad nightmare. But the figures were still there, surrounding me. That voice… Did it come from one of them? The voice spoke again, but from an indiscernible location, as if it was from inside my head.
“Genjo Sazama. What are you afraid of?”
I darted my eyes around the room frantically, hoping to see someone coming to my rescue, but there still wasn’t anything in sight other than those figures. I yelled out, “You think I’m afraid, huh? The hell do you know? And where is your voice even coming from, anyway?”, hoping I’d get an answer.
A small blue light shined in the air above me.
“Make no mistake. I know quite a lot about you. There is dread in your heart. I wonder… does that dread chain you down from achieving greatness?”
That question left me breathless. Why am I getting prodded with all these questions at a time like this? And why are they so… personal? I called back out to the voice again. “Well… sometimes it does. Is that supposed to help me get out of this mess?”
The voice paused for a brief moment. It seemed like it was contemplating my answer.
“Do you desire to expunge that dread? Or to harness it?”
Suddenly I was able to feel my hands again. My grip on my drumsticks tightened. I didn’t need to think long about my answer to her question. “I can’t run away any longer. That would be the coward’s way out of this. I think I’ve seen that now.” I took a deep, long breath.
“I want to harness it.”
The voice’s blue light enveloped me with a gleaming radiance, its light swallowing the entire room from top to bottom. It was holding the living shadows in place, preventing them from approaching any closer.
“Excellent. Do you desire the strength to bend the world to thy will?”
I closed my eyes one more time, just to confirm once and for all that I wasn’t dreaming. I opened them again. Nothing had changed. That was all I needed to know.
“I do.”
The light shone even brighter. It blinded my entire field of vision with its intensity. I had to hold my hand over my eyes to shield them. After a few seconds, the bright blue light shining through the slits in between my fingers disappeared, so I removed my hand to see where it had gone. I wasn’t in the old building anymore, but instead stood in an endless, shallow pool of water. Everything above the water line was just an empty skyline, but it was gray and overcast instead of blue and sunny. My reflection was perfectly clear in the water, like I was standing on a fluid mirror.
A faint dot of light flickered distantly from where I stood. Not seeing anything else of note, I chased after it. The pond rippled as I ran through it, sending infinite waves through the surface. I never truly felt like I was moving; the molecules in the air seemed completely frozen in time, as if the world was moving around me rather than the other way around. Time was so still that I had no idea how long it was even taking for me to reach the dot of light. It never really looked like it was getting any closer, and if it was, then it wasn’t doing so very quickly at all.
With absolutely zero warning, the dot suddenly went from far off in the distance to vanishing entirely. Was I not fast enough? I systematically scanned the entire horizon to find the dot, only to find it right behind me. I decided to slowly walk towards the dot this time. Whatever hunch I had was correct, because within seconds the dot, which had been sitting off in the ever distant skyline, was now sitting right in front of me. Looks like the laws of space-time differ a bit here. Wherever this is still has yet to be discovered.
The voice spoke once more.
“Genjo Sazama… In order to grant you the strength to surpass the limitations of your own flawed humanity… I must ask you one final question.”
“Of course,” I called back.
“What do you believe to be the most defining feature of the world around you?”
I didn’t even have to think about that.
“I believe in infinite possibilities. The limitlessness of the world; This is its greatest asset as well as its most undeniable flaw. One can achieve anything they desire. However, the pursuit of that goal for everyone causes severe dissonance within society. This balance keeps the world order.”
I flinched as the dot suddenly started to glow with a deep purple hue. It pulsed with rays of light, just begging me to reach out and grab it. I subconsciously extended my left arm to touch the dot, causing a series of purple sparks to fire through the air as my finger made contact. Strangely, it didn’t hurt. After the sparks had finished flying, the dot let out one final flash of purple light before dissipating. The energy had taken refuge in the pointer finger on my left hand - exactly where I had touched it - taking the form of vibrant purple flames that burnt with no sensation of pain.
“Go ahead. An unpredictable future awaits you. Release the power to face it that lay dormant within you. It is one such power that can mold the world, if you so desire. Wait no longer. Genjo Sazama, the one who shall hold the world in the palm of thy hand...”
Everything went dark. Only the luminescence from the flame remained.
“Unlock your potential.”
Very little of what the voice said registered in my brain. I was still in awe of everything that was occurring right in front of me. What was I supposed to do with this flame?
The answer came from my headphones, of all places.
“So please… use your powers… for good…”
Those words echoed around me, like a grand choir. I remembered one thing that the voice had said: “Release the power.”
I slowly raised my hand upwards until it was level with my face. The flames grew even more immense. I clasped the energy of the flames between my pointer finger and the ones that sat adjacent. It condensed in the tips of all 3 of those fingers. That energy began to pulsate strongly, as if it were a force too powerful to contain.
“Please… use your powers for good…”
The volume started to crescendo as the energy grew more and more difficult to hold in. My eyes glued themselves shut, hoping that would help in any way to keep the energy from detonating my entire body. I tightly clenched my wrist with my other hand to stop it from shaking.
After only a few seconds, everything went quiet. My body suddenly felt at ease. Staying completely still, I opened my eyes. I stared intently at the site where the flame had condensed in my hand. I let out a quiet whisper.
“I will.”
I snapped my fingers.
The energy of what felt like a thousand solar systems erupted from the palm of my hand. The sheer force of its release nearly sent me straight to the ground, if not for how firmly planted on the ground my feet had become. Streaks of purple light tore their way through the darkness, restoring my vision of the world around me. I had been returned to the strange corridor, surrounded by the shadowy figures. They were cowering in fear of the rays of light and had started slowly backing away, giving me an opening to escape. I nearly took it before stopping to realize that this power had to be more than just a glorified flashbang.
And that’s when I felt it. A surge of power ran through my blood and into my nerves, simultaneously giving me an indescribable burst of energy as well as a short-lived yet splitting headache. When the pain subsided, I felt almost weightless. I leaned my head back and let my arms float up above my head. They had a strange sensation of being attached to strings, but not in a restrictive way. It was less like I was a puppet; Rather, I was the puppet master.
When my arms had risen as high as they could, I snapped my head back to a neutral position, and was absolutely astonished by what I was beholding. A translucent figure was floating in the air in front of me, with a strange aura of purple light surrounding it. I quickly flicked out my right arm in its direction, and oddly, so did the figure. I spun my wrists in a circular motion until they were crisscrossed with each other, striking a pose with my fingers out dramatically, hoping to rotate the figure around. Even more strangely, the figure obeyed. What I saw staring back at me was unbelievable.
It was tall and slender, donning a flashy jacket with a silver luster and hilariously tacky light blue skin-tight pants. The shimmer wasn’t limited to its attire, with its eyes glimmering a hue of purple that resembled the flame that summoned him in the first place. At least, he looked like a man. He had short, slicked back hair that was barely visible underneath a gray Ushanka-hat, which looked like it was ripped straight out of an image I had seen in a history textbook. In his left hand rested a comically simplified model of an atom which floated in his palm.
Somehow, I already knew what to call him.
“Hey there, Petrov. Guess you’re my ‘power’, huh?”
I slowly brushed my hair out of my eyes with my left hand, the residual energy from which caused it to stick up on their ends, but without the rigidness that comes with hair products, instead flowing gently with the air. I took the moment to take it all in. This is my ‘strength to bend the world’?
I clicked play on my MP3 player, and cranked up the volume. The wail of the guitar and the cheers of the live audience filled me with even more energy than was already coursing through my veins. I looked around at the hopeless shadows around me who had nowhere to run. Whatever the hell this power did, I knew that Petrov and I weren’t gonna let them leave in one piece.
“Welcome to the blackout.”
I casted out an arm towards one of the lone shadows as theatrically as possible, watching as Petrov shot out a wave of energy in its direction. The wave collided with the shadow, blowing it to pieces in a movie-like explosion. Nothing remained in its wake. I glanced back at Petrov in awe.”Holy shit. I can do that?” I struck three more overly dramatic poses to the beat just to make sure, commanding Petrov to take out the shadows one by one with each strike. Once again, little remained of the previously terrifying creatures.
Now I wondered what else this thing was capable of. This time, I clenched my fists and mimicked the punching motions of a professional boxer. Petrov, echoing my movements, hit one of the shadows with a swift and powerful set of jabs followed by a powerful uppercut, disintegrating the shadow on impact. What couldn’t this thing do? As long as I’m commanding him, he seems to mimic my every step. I pointed at another shadow and yelled, “Burn him to a crisp, Petrov!” However, he only sent out another energy beam, resulting in another explosion. Guess all he can do is induce waves of nuclear fission. Like that isn’t the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
A lone shadow charged towards me, seemingly more brave than his fallen brethren. I pitied the poor creature as I readied to fend it off, but to my surprise, it wasn’t lunging after me. Instead, the shadow had leaped into the air and collided with Petrov, sending the both of us staggering backwards. I had figured as much. Petrov wasn’t just some weird ghost that I had control over; He was an extension of myself entirely. I casually shot a finger gun at the shadow as revenge for that blow. Based on the size of the blast, it might’ve been a bit overkill.
One shadow, somehow braver and stupider than the last, tried to blindside me from behind, but my instincts had forewarned me of its presence. I swiftly side stepped to the right to let it dash past me before sending him off with a sucker punch, courtesy of my new friend. Only a few of the shadows remained, and I decided that the only way to finish them off was with my strongest weapon: unparalleled style and grace. I spread both of my arms straight out to my sides and pivoted around my foot as I spun around, casting a spinning circle of explosions around me. After a few rotations, I halted in place as I stuck out my right hand, reaching to the sky and clenching my fist as one final ring of blasts had obliterated any potential foes that could have remained.
The entire area quaked as I struck my final pose and Petrov let loose his final blow. As if on cue, the song had ended, leaving only the live audience from my headphones to applaud my magnificent performance. Not bad for a beginner's luck, I suppose. After all, it’s not everyday that you get to control a glowing spirit puppet, much less practice for it. Petrov had vanished, as he was no longer needed. I stopped to stretch out my muscles, mostly in my arms and legs. No amount of occult soul energy out there would loosen up these calves. God, was I really fighting all of those creatures with such sore triceps?
While I was letting my muscles get relaxed, my mind was anything but. I had another strange instinct that I wasn’t alone. The feeling just kept on nagging at me. It was annoying. Where was it coming from? Was it another one of Petrov’s powers? Would I even need to summon him again?
Footsteps started echoing from further down the corridor. I slowly readied the flame in my left hand as a precaution. Good news: it was no longer a struggle to keep it lit. Bad news: I wasn’t entirely sure if I could reactivate that level of power. As the sound of the footsteps got louder, I realized that I had less time to find the answers to my questions than I thought.
The sound became deafening. Whatever was producing it was right behind me. There wasn’t any time to hesitate. I turned around with lightning speed, prepared to snap my fingers and held my arm out more than ready to strike.
Somehow, what awaited me was more surprising than I ever could have anticipated.