Monday, June 6, 2005
(Mike)
Ten in the morning and I was flat on my back, staring at the ceiling like it might blink first.
Classes had ended last Friday, which sounded great in theory and felt like a cosmic joke in practice. Leah was already at work, the house was quiet, and my brain was doing laps with nowhere to go. Over the past few days we'd been shuffling between homes; sometimes crashing at her place, sometimes at my parents'. It felt natural in that half-chaotic, half-domestic way that happens when you don't really separate mine and yours anymore.
We'd told Sue.
That conversation had gone… surprisingly well. She'd taken the wolf thing in stride, way more than most people would, mostly because she'd already suspected something was off. Too many late nights, too many "I can't explain it right now" answers. She didn't push. Just nodded, hugged Leah, and told us dinner would still be at six.
Seth, on the other hand, was blissfully ignorant.
Which was for the best.
Because Seth is Seth, and some secrets deserve to survive a little longer. He'd get the truth when he phased. No sooner.
We'd also told my parents about Leah being a wolf as well. That conversation had gone… differently.
My dad had needed a long sit-down and several clarifying questions.
My mom?
She'd gushed.
Apparently the words imprint and destined soulmates short-circuited her brain because now she treated Leah like she'd personally descended from heaven; while I, her actual son, had been demoted to background furniture.
Still, that left me here.
Alone. Bored. Awake.
With nothing to do.
I sighed and rolled onto my side before flopping back again. "Okay," I muttered to the empty room. "Let's try this again."
Meditation.
I'd had some success before. Not great success. Not repeatable success. But enough to know there was something there, I could feel it.
I sat up, crossed my legs, closed my eyes, and tried to clear my mind.
Breathing in.
Breathing out.
An hour passed.
Nothing.
No floating. No separation. No mystical enlightenment. Just stiff legs and the creeping suspicion that my brain was laughing at me.
I opened one eye, scowled, then leaned back onto my hands. "Maybe I'm trying too hard," I said to no one. "What if I just… let instinct take over?"
I paused.
"…Just let it go?"
The thought finished itself.
"Let it go, let it go~" I sang quietly.
I snorted, then committed.
"I don't give a fuck anymore~"
When the song ended, I huffed out a laugh, closed my eyes again, and stopped forcing anything. No techniques. No mantras. No expectations.
I just… let myself go.
And then…
I opened my eyes, and I wasn't in my body anymore.
I was floating right beside it.
For half a second, my brain blue-screened.
Then I whooped. "I did it! I fuckin' did it!"
I drifted upward, laughing like an idiot, until my head was almost brushing the ceiling. "Whoa," I breathed, then I tried touching the ceiling and my hand passed right through it. "Okay. This is freaky."
I looked down at myself.
My body, still sitting cross-legged on the bed, looked perfectly normal. Breathing. Alive. Empty.
I looked back at me.
My spirit form was… different.
For one thing, I was shorter. Maybe half a foot. My skin was a shade darker too, not as tan as my previous life, but not as pale as this one. Somewhere in between, like a careful blend. I reached up and tugged a lock of hair forward.
Still blond.
But threaded through it were faint brown highlights.
A fusion.
That realization settled in my chest with a strange sense of rightness.
Then I felt it.
Two pulls.
One of them hit me like gravity.
An overwhelming sense of longing yanked at my chest, sharp and warm and alive. I didn't need to think about it to know what it was.
Leah.
That connection felt anchored, solid, immediate, and impossibly close. It belonged to this life. To this Mike. I couldn't explain how I knew.
I just did.
The second pull was weaker.
Fainter.
When I focused on it, a quiet ache surfaced, a sudden desire to see Bella. Not urgent. Not consuming. More like homesickness than hunger.
That thread felt different.
Older.
It led back to my past life.
And with that came an unsettling thought.
If my past self's soul had taken over completely instead of fusing with me… things might've gone another way. I probably would've fallen in love with Bella. Maybe even ended up with her.
Leah would've been just another passerby.
The idea hurt more than I expected.
A life without Leah?
Yeah.
No, thank you.
I was perfectly happy with how things were.
Eventually, another problem hit me.
"…Okay," I muttered. "How do I get back?"
I tried willpower first.
"Return!"
Nothing.
"Uh… fusion?"
Still nothing.
"Fuuuu-sion, ha!"
Absolutely nothing.
I floated there for a moment, scowling, before drifting back down. On instinct, I reached out and touched my body.
And snapped back in.
My eyes flew open.
I sucked in a sharp breath and immediately rubbed the back of my head, heat creeping up my neck. "…So it was that simple."
I leaned back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling again.
Only this time, I was smiling.
I'd finally done it.
…
I spent the next few hours messing around with my new abilities.
First, I focused on getting used to leaving and returning to my body. I repeated it again and again, slipping out and snapping back in until it became almost instant, like flexing a muscle I hadn't known existed until today.
Once that felt natural, I decided to try the other abilities Billy had mentioned in his stories. I headed into the nearby woods, remaining in my spirit form and phasing effortlessly through walls, trees, and rocks, though I made sure not to stray too far from my body. I wasn't eager to test what would happen if something went wrong.
I started with animals.
I spotted a bird perched on a low branch and drifted closer, trying to talk to it the way I would to a person.
"Hey you… look here."
Nothing. The bird just tilted its head and fluttered its wings, completely unresponsive.
Frowning, I tried something else. Instead of words, I focused on willing a connection, reaching out gently, the way I did through the pack bond, but softer.
Suddenly, I felt it.
The bird's alarm at the sudden intrusion. Its rapid heartbeat. Then, slowly, curiosity.
I nearly lost my focus from the surprise but steadied myself and tried again, this time forming a clear intent. I tried to order the bird to fly to the next tree.
It flat-out refused.
Only when I softened my approach, when I asked instead of commanded, did the bird finally agree. It hesitated, ruffled its feathers, then took off and landed in the neighboring tree.
Progress.
I released the connection and drifted back, thinking it over. I couldn't control animals. I could only communicate with them. Honestly, I liked that better. The idea of overriding another living being's will, even an animal's, made my skin crawl.
Next, I turned my attention to the wind.
This one came more easily than I expected. It wasn't like summoning storms out of nowhere, though. It felt more like guiding existing currents, nudging and amplifying them little by little. As I pushed, the breeze grew stronger, leaves whipping through the air, branches swaying violently.
I stopped abruptly when I heard a sharp crack from a nearby tree.
"Yeah, nope," I muttered. "Not doing that."
Destroying the forest was very much not on my to-do list.
Then another thought struck me.
If I can guide wind… what about clouds?
I turned my attention skyward and found that, yes, I could influence them too. Slowly, carefully, I condensed a large cloud into a smaller, darker mass. Remembering what I knew about how lightning formed, I began manipulating the particles inside, forcing them to rub together and build static.
The result was immediate.
A bolt of lightning slammed into a tree with a deafening crack, splitting it clean in two. Thunder followed a heartbeat later, rattling the air.
"Shit!" I shouted, panic flooding through me.
I rushed to disperse the cloud, then froze when I saw flames licking up the broken trunk. Swearing under my breath, I pulled the cloud back together, this time without charging it. I compressed it just enough to release a heavy downpour directly over the burning tree.
Rain hissed against the flames until they finally sputtered out.
Only then did I allow myself to breathe.
"Okay," I muttered. "That's enough experimenting for today."
I returned to my body and opened my eyes, my heart still racing.
"Phew," I said out loud, rubbing my face. "That was way too close."
…