I didn't want to leave the bed that morning.

The entrapping zeal combined with the lovely emotions that had been circuiting around my brain, going into overheat was too good.

I calmed myself and grabbed the nearest thing as I waved my right arm about.

It was quite entertaining, being hidden under a cloth and only finding something with my sense of touch.

Soon, the sensation of cold and numbness spread throughout 2 of my fingers.

Then 3.

Then 4.

And then I twiggled my thumb in an attempt to get a good grip.

Clang.

Ah.

The metal apparatus had fallen to the ground and an irritating prong of pain now remained at the tip of my finger joints.

Normally, I would be frustrated, bitter, and thick with moodiness at such an event yet today I wasn't.

To put it simply, I was content.

I let the pain subside, I let the soothing and sweet feelings consume the darkest.

I found myself staring into twomaroonn eyes. Found my eyes dancing around upwardly curved white hair, deepened wrinkles and a large purple mark that had formed on this one's cheek.

I found myself-.

Cured.

Cured of the bone-rattling fear that I had felt when I saw this man. My bones didn't even try to rattle. Rather they ached. Ached for action.

Wait-. No. That was probably just the lactic-acid build up or something.

Unlike almost any other occasion, I found myself taking the initiative to speak to this man.

"Well. I think that's one of the best nights I've had in a while."

I spoke casually, not even looking at him. I was fine with this man. Not arrogant. I knew my limits and even held back a -wouldn't you agree- at the tip of my tongue.

To my statement, Vorgio merely stood still.

Shaken.

Soon, the sound of clangings fell as his cutlery fell to the wooden floor.

I kneeled down, accepting his state, and brought them up to him.

My face was neutrally toned as of now.

When I brought my legs up, I saw his face.

It was the face of a man watching something. Revisiting something. Something traumatic, I gathered. And something that I had seen, I swiftly assumed.

The wrinkles on his face deepened with every second he spent in that memory-gaunt world.

I should probably leave...

I put his cutlery back on the plain and casually white plate.

I turned and left for the door to the porch. Silently.

Crash.

White shards of varying sizes were now littered across the floor.

The cutlery had fallen too.

As I turned around to see the mess, two maroon eyes stopped my eye's gradual descent.

I saw a man.

Bridled with fury, humiliation, and seething anger.

His face was an awful orange-red. His eyes had lost their strong and deep brown, replacing them was a faint ethereal hazel. It was as if he was losing himself.

His entire body was trembling. This guy, he was mad.

His eyes only focused on me. The memories of last night had surged through his body, his muscles crazed and unstable shakily trembled.

Boom.

A silver glint was before me. Stopped in mid-air. I felt an instant sensation of burning and continuous winces broke from my eyes.

I hadn't the time to move a muscle.

I don't know what I was looking at.

Was I looking at the moment just before my death?

Had time frozen, was my life about to replay in front of my eyes?

Soon, the knife hit the floor in a sodden dong.

Dong.

A short reverberation travelled.

Vorgios eyes slowly got deeper, stronger and controlled.

His facial muscles instantly contrasted and transformed to the emotions he wished to display.

Though, it would seem as though he was in quite the shock as twitches and quivers gradually broke out.

My hand hurt. But it didn't bleed. Rather I couldn't see blood.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

I then realised. My hands didn't hurt. Rather, they were perfectly unmarked.

The pain itself came as though it was in one of my hands.

It occured in the radius of a hand of mine.

But it was no hand of mine.

I then felt my arm get tired.

But my arms had just been casually laying by my sides.

I then realised once more. My arms didn't hurt. Rather, you could argue they were in peak condition.

The pain, as a feeling, came as though it was emitting from an arm.

It occured in the estimated area of an arm of mine.

But it was no arm of mine.

It was his.

The Ravine Creature.

The thing I could never forget.

But although it was his. Now it seemed, it was mine.

I came to a conclusion instantly.

An invisible arm.

I tried to move it around.

Wait. What. No?

Stop. I need to think.

I blew away any thought of this mysterious power and met eyes with Vorgio who had been staring at me with mixed emotions within the last moments.

He soon rolled his shoulders back, cast some wind magic without a staff and kept his eyes shut firmly.

The knives, forks and plate shards soon shakily floated upwards. Making their way to the shaggy sink and constituted bin respectively.

This guy. This guy just tried to kill me.

I hadn't grown arrogant in myself. I had grown arrogant in his character. His actions, his ideals.

His goals.

Unknowingly, I had now surrounded him in a volley of world-energy.

My fingers twitched as I wasn't confident in my reaction speed.

Perhaps I should just take him out now?

No. It doesn't seem like he's trying to fight. That metal plated skin of his is nowhere to be seen.

And the silence that had grown to uneased apprehension was soon shifted as a girl with long-white hair entered monotonously.

Her omniscient purple eyes lay ignorant of me.

I don't care.

Thinking this, I shut the door behind me.

The cold winter air hit in weak blasts.

The difference in temperature made my skin feel metallic but I trodded through snow,silver grass and logs despite this.

The wind howled.

A howl that was soon cut short as I broke into a small enclosement.

I had been here before.

This time however, there was no Chlora.

Just me.

But who needs her? I need someone who understands me perfectly. Me.

Well I guess I do have someone else with me.

I looked to my right.

My left.

Up.

Down.

Behi-.

What am I doing?

I sighed, inhaling a toxic amount of smoky cold air.

I spluttered slightly, uncaring to hold it back or restrain it in this winter isolation.

I could hear a distant stinging from within me.

Ah. The thing from before. What was it? The arm.

It seems to be something from the so-called Ravine Creature.

It had saved my life.

Become mine, even.

But how was I to control it?

As if answering my question, a greasy,smooth and sickeningly warm hand slipped through my red-rose hair.

The hair that this invisible hand passed through took a few seconds before it curled into position. Nature that never belonged to my hair.

This peculiar sensation sent jolts down my back.

Soon, I looked to my right.

The sickening warmth covered my mindspace. It felt like the black that was my mind had begun curling and running from this warmth.

The two eyes that I met with, locked my neck in a constant position, I wanted to move.

But the will required to make that command had seemingly also been stuck in place for a seemingly long while.

I felt another warm surge rise. This time it was near my shoulder area.

A hand pressed itself in multiple areas in the shoulder area. A slimy and slushy feel loosely washed over my back. Dripping down and leaving behind a sore feeling.

Over and over again.

I was confused.

Morse code? A pattern?

It was trying to communicate using my shoulder joint.

It tried a clockwise-motion that spread right and downwards a bit.

It pulled at my sleeve.

It disappeared.

All that was left was the unnatural seconds before everything abnormally returned to normal.

I tried to do everything, before my memories fleed.

This time. They disappeared so fast it couldn't go unnoticed.

I repeatedly moved my shoulder again and again.

Forcing pain and grit to learn the muscle memory.

I was soon covered in sweat.

But I had gotten the muscle memory down to the inch.

I thought about my sleeve. It had pulled at that.

"Aargh."

I couldn't help but release a frustrated groan.

What does any of this mean?

I then remembered.

Some things aren't so simple.

I thought back to years that had long since passed.

The day I discovered world-energy.

It was something that was there, yet hidden by a curtain.

A curtain that in itself was almost as invisible as the energy.

It would seem I had abnormal control on this energy.

I looked backwards.

I moved a slow torrent of world-energy, making it dive and feel around me.

I did this for minutes.

Minutes that formed dozens. Dozens of minutes soon combined into hours.

The sky had grown considerably duller from its impending brightness in the early hours.

I had been feeling for anything.

And that anything, was something I felt.

Well. Felt is an over exaggeration. I would argue I spotted a pattern through trial and error.

Rather than pattern, more like an anomaly. An error.

In the area just behind my shoulder muscles, the world energy moved slightly slower.

I used this knowledge, expanded the world's energy and came to an answer.

Although it was hard to feel or tell, I could grasp the mirage of an arm.

Strangely enough. The mirage changed shape from time to time.

It went from a normal, human arm to a pincer.

A long pincer.

The pincer from the Empire of the Sun Gods Lord rank.

I kept expanding and outputting the world energy, I continued until I finally confirmed it myself.

Yep. This is the pincer from that thing. Its size was identical and the tip was pyramid-shaped and pointed.

But how do I control this?

As soon as my mind moved on to other things, my control of the world's energy slipped.

The images I was taking notes off ceased to exist in my mind and my body finally released the strong hold it had been sustaining for hours on end.

"Haa."

My pants were all I could hear in the silent burrow.

The air was a barely visible steamy white as it was exhaled.

In that moment of silence.

Bitter-sweet silence. I connected dots. Draw lines. Solved mind-poking issues.

My sleeve.

I lifted my arm.

To be precise, I lifted my arm and held it still.

I soon used world-energy and masked it. Impersonating it to my best efforts.

I then stuck this stick of world energy down the sleeve of the invisible pincer.

I was leading myself through untrustable thoughts. Thoughts that came out of hope, not theory or knowledge.

My right arm could not move.

In fear that my hold of this construct of world energy would fall apart.

As my right arm shook from ache, so did the construct that was smoothly expanding throughout my invisible pincer.

The pincer did not change back. Was it aware it was being invaded?

I assumed that it was such.

Finally.

Clunkily,slowly and almost embarrassingly slow the invisible pincer slowly made its way to a nearby tree.

My standing figure was shaking.

Threatening to lose control any second.

Just a little more.

I felt the construct get closer to one of the trees.

Its dense and irregular movements cost effort and energy.

Effort and energy that I needed.

I just wanted something. Something to prove that this had happened. A mark on a tree, a mark on myself. Anything.

I didn't want just another half-assed memory.

As my body fell to the floor, I used every last part of my being to quickly rotate right.

My legs half crumpled hardly complied, the world energy I was holding on to was barely moved.

Yet it had been swept a bit. Perhaps the length of a twig would be a good comparison.

I met the black of the silent mind.

I woke up in the same position. My body was recovering slowly, soothing pains had somehow sprouted as evidence of this.

I, however. Did not care for such feelings. Instead, I looked at the tree I had last seen.

A mark lay apparent. It had not even scraped off any wood, rather it had left a thin and crayon-like white line. The length was comparable to a twig.

It was thin and hardly an achievement.

And yet I laughed in joy,with achievement and most importantly, myself.

I laughed without a care as the trees solemnly comforted my winter solstice.

Oh lord. Was I going bollocks?

I shrugged myself off.

Too much was happening.

Maybe a bit of bollocks would do me some good.

Vorgio just randomly becoming crazy felt blank and empty.

It didn't lessen any trauma, but it still felt out of the blue.

For years, he had been a kind and motivating fellow.

So why the change-.

I fell to the hand of sleep.