The dull ache in his spine awoke Jay before he cracked his eyes open. Other than a loud “What the fuck is this guy doing in my house?” from Vega at an ungodly hour, he didn’t have a bad night’s sleep, all things considered. Jay stretched his back and rolled off the twins’ couch that Lyra had graciously offered him as a bed the night before.

Half the items in the twins’ living room were neatly organised, the other half looked like a drunken maniac had tipped them onto the floor the night before. Jay began to tidy the room, even though he had no idea where anything went.

“If you’re awake let’s get going. We can walk and talk.” Lyra said as she entered the room.

Jay nodded, stifling a yawn. He rummaged in his backpack for a moment, making sure the translator crystal was still in there, before tossing the bag over his shoulder and giving Lyra a thumbs up.

She carefully stepped around Vega’s debris and made her way to the front door, unable to hold in a sigh as she picked up a pair of sapphire marbles off the ground and pocketed them.

“We’re going to the coliseum.” Lyra said as they emerged onto one of the eclectic alleyways near Reveller’s Avenue. “I can watch the fights anywhere, but it’s nice to leave the house. Especially when it looks like that.”

“Great.”

“Do you still have the translator crystal? If so, you should try assimilating it while I’m setting up there.”

“Assimilating?”

“You’ll see.”

Jay was too tired to ask any questions. Lyra and Jay walked silently the rest of the way to the coliseum. When they got to the courtyard, the coliseum didn’t look any smaller. Jay craned his neck to try and spot the top, but it was just as useless as last time. Lyra led them through a discrete entrance, far from any of the pavilion’s crowds. Once inside the coliseum, Lyra walked down a hallway and peeked through several doors before finally opening one and inviting Jay in.

“Sit down somewhere and meditate with the crystal in your lap. It shouldn’t take long.” She said.

Jay was no stranger to meditation. After a rather brutal pair of losses early in his career, Coach had insisted on meditation before and after each training session. Initially, Jay struggled to see the benefits, but eventually he came around. He stopped training thoughtlessly. Stopped relying on his quick hands and feet to get him through fights. When his mind was cleared of everything but his goal, every aspect of his training streamlined.

Speed of body, speed of mind. Coach had always said that, but until he discovered meditation, Jay never truly knew what it meant. An undefeated streak followed Jay’s change in workout plan, and meditation became as crucial to Jay as warming up or stretching.

Jay didn’t know how the assimilation worked, so he just placed the crystal on top of his crossed legs and began to breathe.

In Jay's experience, simply breathing in and out in a rhythm didn’t do anything. When he’d tried that, wayward thoughts just came flying towards him faster than he could swat them away. It was certainly necessary, but he needed to go deeper. Jay needed to meditate consciously. Whenever Jay meditated, he acknowledged every thought that entered his mind subconsciously. Then tried and find the reason for its existence.

So Jay breathed, and every thought that arose was accepted. Thoughts of his coach, of course they’d come up, Jay was using his training method. Thoughts of the coliseum, only natural, he had another fight in five days, and no idea how to best prepare for it. Thoughts of Lyra, Vega, and Akira. Inevitable. They were the most trustworthy people he’d met here, and he’d only met them yesterday.

After acknowledging his thoughts, and their origins, the distractions faded away. Jay was left with just the rhythm of his breaths. In. Out. In. Out.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Usually, Jay stayed here. The tranquil state clearing his mind of worldly stresses. But he knew he had to go further, push harder, try for more. He wasn’t here simply to calm down, he had to work. Jay didn’t know what more he could do, but an overwhelming desire to push his boundaries engulfed him.

Jay thought it was external, but he couldn’t tell where it came from. Was this the crystal’s doing? Or was the coliseum affecting him as he meditated within its walls? It made sense that he tried to figure out where the sensation came from. It was new to Jay.

But he tried to move on and clear his mind.

Tried.

It took everything Jay had not to get up and scream “What’s going on?” But he sat still. Face scrunched in concentration. But the errant thoughts just wouldn’t go away.

You could be more.

Push further.

Go beyond.

Open your eyes.

See.

Every time Jay carved a moment of peace from his own thoughts, it was mercilessly snatched away from him. His mind couldn’t seem to stop talking for a single second.

Finally, Jay gave up on the hopeless task. What’s wrong with me?

Jay thought he’d made a good first impression on Lyra, but this was bound to be a pretty shit second one.

He opened his eyes.

But he wasn’t in the coliseum anymore.

Jay sat cross legged, floating in a colourless void. The void felt familiar. But not comforting. Jay felt darkness permeate through the void. The black expanse of death mixed with the white void of rebirth.

They melded into a strange mixture, it didn’t feel like his death or his rebirth.

This void teemed with life.

Floating in front of him was the crystal. Jay reached to grab out to it. But he couldn’t move his arms. He couldn’t move anything. He willed the crystal forward, directing it towards him, somehow knowing it would work.

It did, but not in the way the thought it would.

The smoke inside the crystal swirled into a vortex, causing the crystal itself to spin. Smoke spouted from the top. A tornado slowly creeping out, ever spinning. It inched further and further out, until the spiralling smoke sat above a perfectly transparent crystal.

The tornado collapsed into a puffy grey storm cloud, barely a shade darker than the expanse behind it. Specs of flashing electricity bounced within the smoky cloud.

It drifted closer to Jay.

Jay embraced the strange smoke. It inched towards his face, stopping within millimetres of his nose.

He tried to inhale.

This time, his body responded.

At first, Jay merely felt a tingle in his mouth, gradually moving down to his voice box and then up to his brain. The tingling became vibrations that coursed through his body. Myriad rhythms bouncing within him.

Words.

Jay could almost feel the smoke’s voice. He couldn’t pick out any words in particular, but he understood. He felt at one with it. The comforting feeling of unity didn’t last forever though. The sensation grew more complex. He felt ideas beyond just surface level thoughts as the smoke looked inwards and it recognised itself.

Tense. Register. Lexis. All concepts instinctually understood, yet previously unnamed.

Jay didn’t just understand them now. He knew them. He too looked inwards, not just towards the way he spoke, but the way he communicated.

New thoughts flooded Jay's mind. He didn’t know whether they were his or the smoke’s. He didn’t know whether that mattered, so he embraced them regardless. Every conversation, every written communication, every subconscious interaction he’d ever witnessed, flashed before him. Only now viewed through a new lens, layers upon layers of communication previously unknown to Jay now stood in the light.

The English he once thought he knew branched into a delicate puzzle of interwoven pieces. But he now knew how each and every one of them fit.

It kept coming.

Clusivity. Polysynthesis. Evidentiality. Concepts not only unnamed, but completely alien to him, were now but second nature. Jay wondered how he’d ever been able to truly express himself fully before this very moment.

The revelations slowed down. The last dregs of the smoke slowly trickled into Jay's brain as his knowledge of language and communication evolved. There was no pain of creation, like when he was reborn. The knowledge hadn’t appeared from nowhere like his bones or muscles once had. It seemed like it was all contained in the crystal, and now inside his mind. Only the empty gemstone remained, still spinning mid-air.

The crystal, now less than half its previous size, advanced towards Jay. It seemed he wasn’t done yet.

Jay could do nothing but watch as the crystal neared his head. It slowly circled around him, like a planet orbiting a star. Growing more ethereal with each orbit, slowly fading into a crystal shaped mist.

It entered his brain. The ghostly mist seeped through Jay’s skin and into his skull.

Jay couldn’t feel a thing, so he accepted his fate and waited for the crystal to assimilate into his body.

The aftermath of the smoke felt like a revelation, new insights unlocked. But the crystal entering his mind felt eerily alien. Something new had been planted into his brain. The splitting migraine just behind his forehead told him exactly where.

Jay awoke. Returning to the viewing room. The headache remained, although it was already starting to ease away.

He turned to Lyra, sat in a chair with a golden sheen glinting over her stony eyes.

“What the fuck was that?”