"I am cute, and I am confident!" I say my daily affirmations as I stare at my vanity mirror. I managed to get today off work so that I could go to a convention. I'm not really into this kind of thing, but my friends pressured me into doing cosplay. I basically just added elf ears and a staff to my usual dark outfit and black lipstick. At least I can try to meet some cute girls there. My therapist says I should try to meet new people after all.

I pick up my bag and grab the wooden staff that Evan made for me. It's made out of a gnarled thick vine with a big piece of jade embedded in the top, tied with thinner vines. I walk downstairs and look out the window, Evan and Jada aren't here yet. I still can't believe I let my driver's license expire, but until I get a renewal, I have to carpool.

Since I have some time, I fill up my kettle and make myself some tea, then I put it in a travel cup so I can bring it with me. Just as I finish up, I hear my friends pull into my driveway, and I recollect my staff in one hand and my bag and drink in the other.

As I start at the door, I feel a blinding pain in my head and drop to my knees, dropping my tea and bag to hold onto the staff for support. My face stings and my vision goes white before I black out completely.

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As I come to, I struggle to push myself up from the dirt floor and look around for my friends or my phone to call for help. As I look around, I pause for a moment as the realization sets in. My house doesn't have a dirt floor, nor does it have only two and a half standing walls and a tree growing through what remains of the ceiling. I look again for any of my belongings, but I see only moss-covered furniture and shelves lined with rocks and jars.

I try getting up to find my way out of the ruin to try to find some sense of where I am, but something feels off with my legs. I look down and see only air where my body should rightly be! I try to feel my legs, my arms, anything, but I feel only the ghosts of the sensations. I start taking deep breaths. Well, I feel like I'm taking deep breaths as much as I can for not having a mouth or lungs. I try to calm myself. There must be some rational explanation for all this. I'm in a coma or hallucinating, or something. Deep breaths. I can't figure anything out if I'm panicking.

I keep breathing, calming myself for a few minutes until the adrenaline wears off, and I look back at my situation. I was home, I was hurt, and now I'm here. Whether it's real or not isn't important right now. I closer inspect my surroundings with clearer eyes and see something I didn't before. A small sphere sitting in the dead center of a rotting tea table. the size of a marble and almost pitch black, contrasting heavily with the deep greens and light browns of the table. There's something about it, its impeccable condition. Despite the dilapidated nature of the building, the sphere remains completely free of dirt and dust, much unlike the various surrounding stones and crystals.

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I feel something else now as well. Hunger. I didn't realize it before, but I am starving like I haven't eaten in weeks.

While I focus on that feeling and inspecting the other minerals lining the standing walls, I don't noticed the deer walking right into the ruins. I turn and freeze as it's inches from the sphere. I'm not sure what's happening, but I feel an intense sinking feeling the closer it gets. My skin crawls, and I feel deathly afraid like I'm in mortal danger. The deer didn't seem to notice me in my intangible form, but the moment I made rushed to it to push it back and made contact, I could feel a force within it, the force struggled against me as the deer suddenly thrashed violently I squeezed the force, wrenching it from the deer that was so close to my precious sphere. My strength quickly leaves me by the second as I struggle against the deer, though physically, it seems more like it's choking than fighting. The deer finally stifles out a sharp whine as the force seems to dissipate, melting and flowing into the sphere like a black hole. I lay on the dirt floor in exhaustion and shock at what I just did. But the hunger is gone. And my strength has returned.

The floor feels completely solid now, beneath me. Yet I remain still, not daring to look where the deer had fallen on the other side of the weathered table.

After what must have been at least three hours, I finally push myself to my feet, which, to my surprise, are now visible, if still mostly transparent.

I spare a glance toward the deer and- it's gone. I lean over the table to look closer, and the corpse is nowhere to be found. I hope that maybe it survived and I just didn't see it get up, so I finally step over one of the crumbled walls and walk a few yards towards the woods to see if it's there, and to learn a bit more about my surroundings.

The forest doesn't seem to hold the answers I seek. I've circled the ruin a couple of times, and there's nothing but a small dirt path leading north, based on where the sun is setting. It seems I won't know where that path leads, however, because there's some kind of force that I physically cannot pass, keeping me close to the ruin. 'The ruin' seems too formal now that I've gotten a good look at everything, and since it seems I'll be here a while, I've decided to call it the cottage.

The cottage has very little in the way of actual structure, but the front door is still remarkably intact, the heavy wooden door squeaks on its rusted hinges in the wind. I instinctively reach for the handle as I walk up to it, having forgotten that I can't seem to affect things physically, but I successfully push the door open. I look down at the hand I used, and it's almost completely solid while the rest of my body is once again invisible, then it quickly returns to how it was a moment ago.

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I push my energy into a small jagged brick on the ground, which contorts and shapes to form an almost perfectly rectangular brick, and I celebrate my success. It only took about twenty minutes of concentration this time, while it took almost an hour to get it this good on my last attempt. I gently coax my energy into lifting the brick and placing it neatly into the wall that I've been rebuilding.

Once I learned that I could use this energy to move objects, it was simple to figure out how to shape them, but I've already almost completely run out of the energy I got from the deer in the last five hours of testing.

It's almost completely dark now, and I'd rather not be conscious for a night alone in the woods, so I focus on sending my remaining energy back into the sphere, and I become intangible once more. I then curl up under the tea table and finally get some rest after an impossibly eventful day.