His dreams had started normal enough. Earlier in the dream Ken had fallen in love with his soul mate. Dating had been bliss. Their marriage photo was a modern cliché: tall beautiful redheaded bombshell deeply in love with a short, blond nerd in a tux who clearly worshiped her in return.

Of course, being a dream, the sex was incredible. Hours of bliss. Kissing. Touching. Exploring.

He was no longer a simple fast food manager, somehow they had started a restaurant together. His food service experience and her amazing cooking ensured countless positive reviews. Happy wait-staff served full tables of fun, happy and pleasant customers who always tipped well.

The dream was a little dose of heaven, flying by too fast, yet always with something new to look forward to. They had just found a new house and were preparing to move in. His friends were helping carry everything they would need. Moving boxes, Furniture, Weapons…

Weapons? Why would they need weapons? The dream faded and Ken was floating in the quiet blackness of his mind when he recognized a building thought-feeling: Break. Pain. Fear. Joy. Ecstasy. Anger. Hope.

It grew higher, sharper and more intense until the thoughts and emotions completely overwhelmed him.

Change.

Reality itself shuddered under impossible force... and broke.

An impossible wave of hot, clear goo flowed forth. Somehow both totally sterile and completely filled with life, the goo was wonderful and terrifying at the same time. As soon as it touched him the goo transformed into whatever he thought about. Weapons, girls, enemies, friends, money, his nightmares, and his dreams popped into being around him and crowded closer and closer, manifesting with his most unconscious thoughts as quickly as they shifted. His own mind and desires were drowning him.

Ken had practiced too much meditation to let this continue. With willpower born of way too many hours reading, studying, painting miniatures and tolerating spoiled princes and princesses while they threw food and wailed as overindulgent parents looked on with pride, Ken controlled his thoughts. He stilled his emotions, controlled his imagination and chose his reality.

As his mind relaxed into focus, Ken willed his mind creations to return to him. One by one, each creation returned to goo as he re-absorbed them. Each time he felt himself grow as if he was somehow reclaiming parts of himself that he'd forgotten. Once the manifestations were completely gone, and he was sitting in total peace in the darkness of his consciousness, Ken woke up.

The first thing Ken noticed when he woke was the glow. His huge and sparsely furnished basement apartment was well lit with all the colors of the rainbow. The posters of movie scenes, fantastic creatures, and albums covering his walls reflected lights of all the colors of the rainbow. Looking closer, Ken realized that his rings, amulets, crystals, magickal tools and even old charms were glowing different colors.

Ken had been practicing magick for a few years now. Sure the effects had been subtle, but it was working for him. He'd tried anything from ritual magick to chakra work (did the colors seem familiar?) to Reiki. He'd done spells to get jobs, banish enemies and more, but as any sane person would admit, before today his spells had never glowed except in his imagination.

He decided to call up some energy. Closing his eyes, Ken used his will to draw forth the subtle energies from around him. Instead of the lite and sparse energies he was used to concentrating into something useful, Ken immediately felt the same goo from his dream.

The goo seemed to respond to his will like the energies he was used to, so Ken chose to try to guide and use it. Before tonight the subtle energies of magick had responded at the speed of thought. The challenge had been concentrating enough into his aura to be able to be felt. The goo however felt thicker, slower to respond to his will. It was almost... solid.

Ken painstakingly willed the energy into place. The added difficulty reminded him of the difference between grabbing a pebble and picking up a heavy rock. After a minute he felt the energy had risen up, and he opened his eyes.

Something was different. He could see the goo not only with his mind's eye, but also with his physical eyes. It looked like his hands had an inch-thick layer of water surrounding them.

Ken had done this exercise hundreds of times before. He drew energy to his hands, and he then flavored it. He'd gotten so good that even people who didn't practice could tell what element he was changing the energy to. They would mention feeling heat or cold or wet. It wasn't every time, but it was often enough.

Tonight he willed: Fire.

Fire roared into being. Not a simple gentle flame, but a massive conflagration burst forth from his hands filling his room in an instant.

Ken was lucky. The magickal fire seemed to be responding to his assumption that he'd be safe from it. For a moment Ken marveled as the inferno raged around him. Looking through the fire Ken saw purples, reds, blues, greens, yellows and even white. Somehow, he could breathe without difficulty. The magickal fire simply flowed into his lungs like air.

Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said about his room. The magickal fire hungered for his bed, his clothes and his posters which were curling and blackening in the heat. Ken finally realized he might need to find a way to stop his experiment from destroying everything he cared about.

Peace, he willed, imagining the fire retreating into him. Breathing deeply, he drew it in like anime fire-eating characters and it responded exactly as he imagined.

After the magickal fire was gone, non-magickal fire continued to burn on the few objects the magick had successfully ignited in those crazy few seconds. Grabbing a charred pillow, Ken raced around his room beating out the remaining flames.

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After the last fire was out Ken reached for his magickal Jewelry. He had no idea how the magicks would work now that magick seemed alive, but as he grabbed his protection amulet and yanked it over his head, everything hit Ken at the same time.

This wasn't a dream. This wasn't a game. Magick is acting real and obvious.

Ken HAD to talk to someone about this. He reached for his phone (which was glowing with a white light). He wondered if the lack of fire damage was due to the white glow as he tapped his unlock code. He only had one more number to enter when his phone interrupted him. His best friend Melanie was calling; so of course he answered.

“Mel!” Ken said.

“Magick is real!” she screamed through the phone. “I woke up and my spells were glowing. I did a short ritual to call Hekate for wisdom and guidance, and she appeared!”

“Hekate appeared?!” Ken asked. “How?”

“It was like the movies.” Melanie said. “I cut the circle. I could literally see it cutting space. Once I was inside sacred space, I lit a candle and called to her. I felt magick drain out of me for a moment as it connected with her magick on the other side. Then our magicks sliced the boundary of reality like a sword, and she stepped through the cut.”

“And then what?” Ken asked.

“She hugged me.” Melanie said. Ken could hear the tears of joy in Melanie's voice. “All those times before. Whenever I connected with her it felt real, but not. Today... today she was here. She touched me. She hugged me. She held me. She was so warm...”

“That sounds awesome.” Ken said. “I'm so glad for you.”

“That's not all.” Melanie said sobering. “She warned me that life is going to be different now. She said that the return of Magick is going to hurt. She said there was a wall which just fell down and which will probably never be able to be put back up again. She said that we have to be smart because our world has become complacent. She said that they will be coming, and they will take advantage of our ignorance.”

“They?” Ken asked. “They who?”

“I don't know.” Melanie answered. “She telepathically projected along with the words. She showed me more than one group, some friendly and some not. I saw monsters, animals, ghosts, dragons... all the old stories which haunt our fantasies and our nightmares.”

Melanie paused. “You should have felt the telepathy Ken. It was like it's supposed to be in stories. So deep, so clear. I wish I could show you.”

Ken felt her reaching out to him, and he reached back. Somewhere they met in the middle, and at their meeting their magicks flowed together. It was like they were both suddenly sharing a new mind; however, unlike the fleeting nature of each one’s own personal thoughts the shared mind was slowed down, persistent.

Ken-Melanie expressed surprise and joy together. Each thought and emotion rippled through the magick, overwhelmingly clear and intense. Expected thoughts and emotions from one nuzzled into their recipient with a joyful embrace.  Ken-Melanie shared experience upon waking marveling at the different colors on different items.  Together they noticed that only items which had been used to create spells or which were enchanted glowed.  Objects intended for magick, but which were never used, had no glow.  They also noticed that eating the fire felt like swallowing the moisture from an empty mouth.   Nothing felt added.

Together they shared Melanie’s version of waking to see her room mostly dark.  Melanie’s family didn’t approve of her magickal practices so most of her magickal items were hidden away.  The only light was from a pentacle that the two of them had created a spell of protection on together.  Ken’s pentacle that he had just put on was a sibling of that spell.   Together they remembered the casting, but their impressions diverged…  

For him the spell had been trusted and safe friends doing magick, but for her it was sharing time with someone she loved. The love was old and painful because she knew he didn't love her the same way. Somehow, that made it more beautiful.

They'd been friends for almost eleven years. Distracted by the revelation the shared heart/mind splintered into two minds learning each other’s perspectives of their remembered times together.

He felt warm heat in her memory of noticing his nerdy confidence as she sat down to the group's table at Denny's. Surrounded by friends both old and new, she connected with people who weren't judging her or making her feel broken. Ken especially had no barriers. He was completely honest, seeming fearless of anyone's opinion of him. She could sit here in this safe place, away from fake friends and fake family forever.   He seemed safe.  He seemed warm.  She wanted more of that.

She was shocked to learn that he had barely noticed her.  He was so focused in his own stories and life.  She seemed nice, but she was so quiet and mousy that he was afraid to even interact with her for fear he’d break her.  As time went by they shared more and more.  Eventually he started to get to know her and they formed a friendship.

She remembered the moment he realized they were friends.   She felt his warm comfort in a memory of sitting in the car talking about their Dungeons and Dragons game. He was so glad to have someone who was willing to listen to his ideas without trying to compete. She was listening, and he felt like she really cared.

In this sharing he felt the depth of that caring.  She deeply loved him.  In the chemical addiction of love everything he had done had seemed wonderful.  His ideas, his voice, his car.

The intensity of that moment for her jumped the sharing magick into a new memory years later. 

He felt her fear from a memory of him yelling at her for breaking his favorite glass. His intense fury was so passionate it hurt. It terrified her that she still hungered for his verbal passion. What other things would she tolerate in the name of honesty?

The memories jumped again

She felt his anger and hurt from the time she disappeared for three months. They had been friends for nearly eight years when she disappeared. They had become inseparable. He could always count on her. They hung out almost every day playing games, chatting about the TV Shows & Movies they were watching and sharing the awesome moments of life. Then suddenly she was gone and he didn't know what he'd done...

...As quickly as they remembered the question, the link shared with Ken why.

Melanie felt his intense shame and pain bloom,

…

She couldn't handle it!

…

He had to get away!

The link broke without a sound. Both of them were crying.  Partly from the shared memories, but mostly from the intensity of the experience of sharing.

“I'm so sorry,” they said to each other over the phone.

Ken took a moment.  Melanie had disappeared because she needed time to find peace that he didn't see her the way she saw him. She knew he'd been furious and betrayed, but she had to take care of herself first.

Ken was ashamed that he'd never even cared enough to ask her why she left. Instead of listening or asking, he’d focused on his own discomfort and unhappiness.  It had been about him.  It had always been about him and these memories showed him just how selfish he’d always been.

Melanie was the first one to talk again. “We don't have time for this Ken.”

Ken wasn't stupid; he understood. He knew that what she said about getting information was very, very real. The world was about to have all of the old monsters, all of the old horrors and somehow, all of the old peoples return. The shit was about to hit the fan and they had to get ready.

“I'll call the gaming group and anyone else who I think can help. We need to come up with a plan. Let's get together on Skype.” He said.

“I'll setup the Skype room and start sending invites. Just text me the skype/cell for each person.” She responded.

And like that, it was all set aside. Life had changed. The World had changed, and they had to plan. They had to prepare. Everything else would have to wait until later.