Chapter 13: Recovery

Alex sat in the tent. Blankly staring outside through the entrance of the tent. While he seemed this way on the outside on the inside his state was even worse. His consciousness was encased by darkness. He could see nothing. He could only feel emptiness. He kept hearing words. Words that were horrible.

“YOU KILLED YOUR FAMILY! OUR FAMILY” He heard his father’s voice say

“It’s all your fault.” He heard his grandfather say

He was bombarded by the voices of his family telling him that they hate him and that everything that had happened was his fault. Alex did not cry. He didn’t react to any of the abuse. He was very much in a state of shock. He could only hear the voices and take it.

While Alex’s consciousness was surrounded by darkness he could still see, hear, and feel the real world normally, but the magic that the normal world had was gone. The singing of the birds sounded like screeches of pain and hatred. The initially cooling rain on his face now felt like the tears of his dead family members. Even the beautiful colours that painted the world seemed to have become grey and disgusting. The only thing that was not tainted was not a thing at all, but a person. That person was Trip.

Even though everything Alex saw was tainted by hatred and pain, Trip displayed none of this. Trip still looked colourful and happy. This was because the bond he had with Trip was as strong, if not stronger than all blood relations he ever had. Trip was the only brother and the best brother he would ever have. His subconscious couldn’t block out Trip.

If Trip was not there to help Alex through this difficult part of his life then Alex would probably never had recovered. Every day Alex would see Trip working hard. He would feed Alex, he would carry Alex and keep moving forward. There was always a smile on Trip’s face. Even when he trained himself to a state where he couldn’t walk, even in difficult times Trip was always there to comfort and take care of Alex.

Similar to the guilt that Alex felt for the death of his family, he felt guilt towards Trip for not doing anything and being a burden to Trip. However unlike the guilt that he felt towards his family, the guilt he felt towards Trip was solvable. This guilt took Alex to take small steps.

One day when Alex had to be fed Trip went to try and forcefully stuff the food down Alex’s throat, but then suddenly Alex swallowed. Trip was shocked, it had been weeks since the incident, and never once had Alex shown any form of recovery. These weeks had been incredibly taxing for Trip. He had to painfully endure, but now this simple action from Alex fired him with hope and strength to carry on. This, albeit a tiny step, was the first step to recovery.

Trip gave constant encouragement to Alex after that, and his smile was brighter than ever. Even Grelin was touched by this small development. From there on the road to recovery started.

Alex felt the icy darkness around him start to thaw. The bombardment of screams from his family was being countered by the constant words of support and encouragement form Trip. He could still say nothing, but he started to feel again.

One bright morning Alex caught himself staring at the bright sun. He started to feel a deep connection to the sun. The sun, a massive ball of fire so far away, yet still so visible and beautiful. Alex touched his face and felt that it was wet. He was crying. The sun was so beautiful he felt himself slowly gain power over himself again. Very slowly he lifted his hands and wiped his tears away. He did not stand after that, but a significant event had just happened for Alex. As long as the sun was there for him he would be able to recover.

What Alex didn’t know at this stage was that he was actually gaining control over Hyuru this way. Since all of his senses were directed towards the sun he was gaining more insight into the very concept of fire than he would by just focusing on the fire around him. The sun was the strongest form of fire that a fire mage could focus on, but only a select amount of people were able to gain power from trying to understand the sun. Now Alex had joined that select amount of people.

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Through weeks of support from Trip and the sun Alex felt that much of the darkness around him had already thawed. He would now walk alongside Trip instead of being carried by him. He would also help Trip with some simple tasks. This was a massive development, but it was incomparably small compared to the development he had gained within his soul. Not only had much of the darkness within him thawed he had directly confronted his feelings. This was a painful process, but also a necessary process. Otherwise one would live with pain for the rest of their life.

Alex had confronted his feelings by trying to look directly at what he was feeling. These feelings were pain, sorrow, and most of all guilt. He felt that he was the one who caused the whole situation. If he had not followed Trip at that point then his family would still be alive and then he would have been living happily ever after. For many days Alex could not see a way to counter this feeling. Even though he did not personally kill his family it was not and arguable fact that he was the reason they died. This was not something that Alex would ever be able to disprove, but he eventually realised that this was not something that he wanted or needed to disprove.

He had to accept his mistakes, and learn from them. He would become strong. He would become so strong that none of this would ever happen again. He did not want Trip to take care of him forever. Trip could not save his family, that was not his duty. That was Alex’s duty. He could not blame anyone other than himself for this mistake. The only way he could make it up to his family would be to make the Oyak name become the strongest and most powerful name ever. He would make his family strong again.

This was the only solution in Alex’s mind. This way he would not only be able to repay his family, but he would also become strong enough to walk alongside Trip.

Naturally Alex would not be fixed immediately, but now that he had confronted his problems his full recovery was only a matter of time. Well, Alex would never be the same he was, but that was because he had grown into a different person than before.

One day when they were finished walking and had already set up their tent Trip went off to train. When Alex saw this he decided that it would be good to start training himself. He decided to try and enter Hyuru. Surprisingly he entered Hyuru the first time he tried. He tested it out a bit more and was shocked to find that he had gained 90% control over Hyuru. He did not know why this happened, but he certainly wasn’t disappointed by it.

He continued to train Hyuru and he managed to gain full control over Hyuru within two weeks. This meant that he gained full control before he reached the age of 8. This meant that he could start to practice fire magic. Alex had received education on magic before he entered the school and he had read books about how to use basic magic. Trying to remember all the information he had ever learnt he attempted to create a little flame on his finger.

When he tried nothing appeared, but the more attempts he made he saw the air above his finger started to smoke a bit. Instead of creating fire it seemed that he had heated up the air slightly. Seeing this Alex was determined to master fire magic, he had to catch up to Trip after all.

He trained daily and he made very slow progress, with him only being able to make a tiny amount of visible fire after 3 weeks of training. The real progress from this was his mental progress. The training helped him cope with the grief he was constantly feeling, and he began to feel good emotions again. He genuinely felt happy looking at the sun. The birds singing no longer sounded like painful screeches and rain felt relaxing. The light emitted from the sun bathed the land, letting him see the beautiful colours again.

Trip had been keeping count of the days, and before they went to sleep he would always tell Alex what day it was. One morning Trip found Alex sitting upright smiling and crying at the same time while looking at the early morning sun.

He turned to Trip and said in a raspy voice “Good morning Trip. It’s my birthday today. Isn’t it beautiful outside?”