Khazack’s words echoed through the air and resonated inside my mind like a warm breeze. “You need to Stop looking at magic like it's a number on a status page or a mysterious power that only happens when you're in the zone. feel it with your whole body.”

I shook out my arms, feeling my heartbeat accelerate as if my body was already anticipating danger. “I’ll do my best…”

“That's good. That’s all I could ever ask.”

I paused again… His answer was so warm it caught me off guard. It seemed like it should have just been a normal answer, something I would have expected to hear, something so common that it wasn’t even notable.

In reality, it always felt like no one cared what my best was, just that it wasn’t good enough. So… When I heard him acknowledge the obvious, that all anyone could ask for was my best, and say that it was good that I would give it… I nearly started to cry.

My heart calmed down. It was such a strange reason to be put at ease, but it somehow made me feel lighter. Shaking my head I rubbed my face, getting a hold of myself. I still felt normal, but my body was reacting on its own.

Still, not crying was something I had gotten pretty good at over the years. My tears ran dry in my room years ago where no one could see them.

Taking a deep breath I closed my eyes, imagining a swell of energy inside of me. ‘Let's do this.’ I could feel my heart beating in my chest, my blood vessels circulating blood throughout my body, and air entering my lungs.

“Status.” Inside my mind, I could see and feel everything. My injuries, how they were healing, and even how tired I was it was like I was solving a complex equation, slowly putting the numbers through the calculations to find the answers.

“YES! THAT'S IT!” Khazack cheered.

The spell quickly fizzled out before I could make sense of any of the information, and I was left with nothing but a headache.

“Well… almost.”

‘No blood loss… I guess that’s an improvement in a way.’

I suddenly felt short of breath. My body was still cold, but not as much as before. ‘Progress.’ I smiled. I felt a dull warmth fill me as manna started flowing through me again. It wasn’t much, but I could feel it.

Khazack clapped his hands. “You used magic, but you weren’t controlling the flow of manna at all. You were just shooting it out of your body as fast as it would go. Think about it like singing. If I’m trying to sing, and I let out all of my air on the first note, there isn’t any left to continue the song.”

I wasn’t much of a singer by any means, but the analogy wasn’t lost on me. “So instead… you regulate the flow, only giving as much as you need for the volume you want…”

“Precisely. If I’m trying to sing a lullaby, but I am forcing out all my air on every word.”

“Then the son will be too loud… You won't be putting people to sleep but waking them up.”

He smiled. “The effect will be reversed exactly!”

I looked down at my hands. My heartbeat felt stronger than before, and with it, my body felt lighter.

“Regardless you have completed lesson one.” He continued, looking rather pleased with himself. “Continue your training until you can light up this whole room from the center. Then I will see you again for lesson two.”

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His magical form slowly vanished before my eyes like the particles were being blown away by the wind, losing their light.

“Wait, but aren’t I done then? Can you tell me how to open the door?” There was no response. “Khazack?” My voice cracked as the room around me began to slowly darken once again.

I felt myself swallow as my throat went dry. For a brief time, I was calm, I was even having fun, but it always ended the same. I was alone, in the dark, by myself, and this time I didn’t even have the cold moonlight to keep me company.

‘I’m alone again…’ Those three words sent chills through my whole body as they repeated in my mind. I found the wall and sank down to the floor, once again waiting for what I had wished for. ‘A warm blanket… And a little extra sleep…’ It felt like so long ago that I asked for that, and for a moment it felt like I even had it.

It almost seemed like it was all a lie though. The new room, the new clothes. ‘How many days have I been in here, sustained by nothing but manna from this dusty room.’

‘Even the ghost left me… Why does it have to be this way.’ I felt a tear well up in my eye but quickly wiped it away, sniffling to try and keep myself together.

‘He wasn’t even a real person, he said he was just a memory of the real thing… So why…’ Another tear welled up, but instead of wiping it away I just buried my head in my knees, somehow hoping they would just dry themselves.

‘Get to the center…’ That was when it hit me. The reason I felt so alone, so abandoned. Every time, regardless of who, where, or when, I wanted to have someone next to me there was always a condition. They would always leave. My father would always say he would come back if I got stronger…

Mara wouldn’t let me train with my sister until I could pass certain unattainable markers on whatever tests she made me do. If I wanted something I had to earn it. There was always another test, always another battle.

I felt abandoned, like a bird that was locked in a cage and left out in the wild. I kept telling myself all I needed to do was find the key. If I could get the key everything would be fine… But every time I thought I found the key, I was reminded that there was no door…

‘I need to pull myself together…’ My eyes burned as I lifted my head, trying to wipe away the tears as they kept coming down. ‘This is just stupid… I’m crying over a hologram turning off…’

I knew deep down that wasn’t the real reason, but the fact that something so small triggered me to react like that only made me feel worse, and that only led to more tears.

Making a fist, I gently pounded my head three times, counting each hit, and on the third, I stopped crying. “Just get to the center right?” I said out loud, trying to clear my throat and steady my breathing.

‘Just get to the center and turn the lights on… How hard can it be… Come on Rikki… What did Dad always tell you… The trick to walking on ice… is that first you take one step, and then another.’

I placed one hand on the door for a sense of direction and carefully pointed myself toward the opposite wall. Logically, halfway there I would find the center.

With a deep breath, I took a step, not realizing just how anxious it made me to not have a wall supporting me anymore. I felt like I could fall at any moment, and that if I did I might not stop falling getting swallowed up by the darkness instead.

Still, I took another step. My chest tightened but after the third step, I began to relax, sliding my feet across the ground one at a time, careful of where the ground would drop off into a mote.

‘Something isn’t right. The mote shouldn’t have been this far away…’ I finally felt something, but it wasn’t what I expected. I had stubbed my toe into the other wall.

I raised my hands out in front. When I was sure of what I I let out a sharp breath, muffling my own scream as I tried to control my frustration.

My breath quickened, and finally, it broke. “AGH!” I slammed my hands against the stone wall as hard as I could, instantly regretting it. My arm shot with pain and started to ache just like before and once again I wanted to cry.

‘I need to stay calm… Or at least take out my anger with a kick next time…’ I sat down, my muscles starting to shake from how tense they were while I was walking blind. My eyes were sharp, and I had always considered my greatest asset, even before I could use my skill to analyze people… ‘Walking blind… I had no idea it would make me this nervous…’

Cradling my arm, I bent over, resting my head on one of my knees. ‘I know I was going straight… There has to be some explanation for this… The test… I need to send manna into the ground to light up the room so I can find my way.’

Even if I was wrong, and I had somehow just walked the wrong way rather than there being a magical explanation, the answer was the same. ‘I need to use magic…’

I closed my eyes again, feeling the manna course through me, and sent it through the ground. It shot through me like lightning, burning my body, and as I opened my eyes it was already fading. ‘It hurts… But I can see.’

With every step I shot manna out from my body, forcing it to light the way ahead of me until my legs were numb from the burning surge of the flow.

I fell to my knees, sweat dripping from my brow as the heat spread through my whole body. ‘At least I’m not cold anymore…’ I groaned falling onto my back. ‘Halfway there…’

I started laughing to myself between gasps for air. ‘I bet this isn’t what he had in mind when he told me to get to the center and light the room, but after so long, this is the only way I know how to do things anymore… Pain… and mind-numbing amounts of effort.’

After recovering for a while, I started making my way to the circle again, but with every step, it seemed to be getting farther away, not closer. Hours passed… And then days. Every time the room went black it was like it warped around me until I was back at the halfway point.

‘I wonder what would happen if I slapped My father. Would he hit me back?’ I laid down again, resting. ‘Probably not right. What if I gave him a hard hit though? Just one, but like a real clean one right to the jaw… I bet I couldn’t even get his neck to move… He probably still wouldn’t hit me back… He’d probably ask what I was doing, genuinely confused…’

I let out a long sigh, wishing for nothing more than a drink of water, and for once, a cold bath to cool off.

‘I’m finally starting to get a better feel of the manna passing through me, but it's hard to downregulate it… How much longer do I have to stay here… Until I get better control I guess. Enough to keep the entire room lit until I reach the center. I can’t let it pulse, it has to be a steady flow of magic.’