8 Baby Steps

Day Three...

Yeah at this point I am treating you like a diary. But anyway hear me out.....

My body jerked awake, I felt a jolt rushing through me. Completely draining my muscles of any strength, it felt like someone had shocked me with a taser. My muscles were indolent, and despite my persistent efforts, I could barely move.

Trapped in my bed, it felt like one of those sleep paralysis dreams. Except that I was fully awake. I could talk, I wasn't hallucinating this at all. A great shock had just surged through my body, making me slothful.

I didn't want to alarm anyone, so I didn't raise my voice. Besides, if Sophie found out, it would be a cause for concern...

*Haah*...My eyelids felt heavy, although I had just woken up, I was somnolent.

It took me every ounce of my will to not drowse. Unable to move, and fighting to not doze off. I instead chose to keep myself awake by following the meditation.

I took a deep breathe in... and slowly exhaled. It didn't do much, but after a few minutes, I felt the magic once again.

I could see why I was in distress. The pulse of the magic was unnatural. If before it was controlled and rhythmic, now it felt bizarre and completely wild. I could sense no order in its flow. My magic was disorganized, but why? It was flaring up, and I could not tame it.

My immediate guess was that I was going through some sort of maturity, a milestone per say. I had done two days of meditation, which had undoubtedly pulled me closer to my magic. Yesterday, I also felt the pulse skipping a beat, somewhat a precursor of what was happening to me right now.

In hindsight, I should have noticed that pattern... after confirming that I was just going through a magical process, I was rather calm. If this was a just a massive flare up, and I could survive this....

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.... A common saying. Except in this scenario, I had to take it literally. Having your body stripped of all your strength and energy wasn't a pleasant experience. I was still fighting to stay awake.

Every breath that I took, I felt my heart grow colder. Any semblance of life was slowly being erased from my body. This flare-up was practically sucking my energy reserves dry.

My lips undoubtedly turned a faint shade of purple, my eyes had dried out, my fingers curled inwards, because my hands were unable to maintain an open palm. Slowly, I could see my veins turn blue, as my blood chilled to a halt in my body.

I gasped for air, but my lungs betrayed me.....A faint intangible whisp starting to fade from within me... This is the end..?

I had given up....

Magic started to focus itself near my chest....... The energy gathered within me and filled my body with vitality once more, squeezing through to my core. A wheeze of air escaped my lungs as I started breathing once more..... A blue aura had forcefully restarted my heart. It continued to flush through me, I could feel this sudden...flux of power...

This time, I was in sync with my magic, I felt different. I felt powerful..... finally....

My happiness didn't last for long, a sudden pang of hunger sprang up. Well yeah.... I had basically died and come back to life. I don't know what really happened..... But I was more in tune with my powers now. The magic followed my commands to a degree.

My control wasn't refined, but I was sure I had awakened it. To define the life threatening part .... Well I do think I was far too young, perhaps my act of mediation forcefully influenced my body towards awakening. But it was risky....almost draining me of all my vigor.

In the end, my own magic had pushed me an edge away from death.... Or perhaps, I had died and came back. I wasn't too clear on that part. But after that, the energy seeped within and helped me restart my heart. It was clear that my magic was beneficial to me. Perhaps, sensing that I was in danger, my mind had subconsciously forced it to pull me out of a threshold from death.

I didn't doubt it. But this was a reminder.... Everything had its own time, and forcing myself to bloom early was a risk.... My body was not ready, had I been prepared... I am sure it wouldn't have reduced me to such a weak state as it had.

This did force me to rethink a few things... I had unusual vitality, but even then it was instantly sucked dry... Why was this so? I suppose since my magic was also quite demanding. I had struck a cord, and almost awakened completely. But my lack of energy had forced it to instead stop in its tracks and push me away.

Reasonable..... I had basically tried to burden my young body with a load that only adults could bare. At the age of 18, a wizard would exit their flux period. Thereby solidifying their powers. What I had done was essentially forced my magic to flow faster, perhaps triggering a period of pseudo flux. Which would naturally happen at the age of 12 and continue till 18. But now I had started it at only six!(A/N: I thought this was an interesting idea.)

I was lucky that my subconscious could still control my power. Benefits of a natural legilimens I suppose. My mind had adapted to controlling magic, I just couldn't consciously perform it....

Either way, to satiate my starving body, I slipped out of bed and walked downstairs....

Shuffling down the stairs, I heard someone fiddling with the beakers. Peeking at the counter, I could see Sophie brewing something, I couldn't quite catch a glimpse of it, but it had a putrid stench...

Out of curiosity, I called out to her and walked near. Almost gagging due to the smell.

"Good morning"

She saw me and put down the bottle she had brewed, I could see she that she was perfectly calm...Luckily my earlier incident hadn't caused much of a ruckus. Nobody was aware of it.

"Hello Zack, up early are we?", She pushed her hands under the sink, trying to wash out any odor that had remained on her.

Early? I glanced at the windows, the sun was shining bright, but the sky was condensed with clouds, cloaking the horizon with a faint shade.

Damn.....it was like 6 in the morning. My rest had been cut short due to the incident and I was awake super early. But I could definitely get used to this refreshing air flowing in through the windows.

I look towards the flask Sophie was holding, I was quite intrigued but what she had brewed.

"So what were you making?", My eyes hinting towards the potion she had just bottled up.

"Oh, I made something new today, its a growing potion, supposed to help with young children and help them get a healthy body. It's super nutritious" she pat my head and ruffled my hair....

"Perfect timing Zack, I was waiting to give it you when you woke up, but it seems you can have it fresh out the cauldron" She said, a bit excited about the prospect.

"T-To me?", I was instantly sweating bullets, I inspected the bottle a bit closer, this vile liquid was dark green, completely opaque and absolutely not something I would consider for human consumption.....Most of all, it smelled exactly like those "healthy" smoothies made of kelp and spinach.

I couldn't help but keck from disgust.

"No need to be such a baby Zack, its good for you. Besides, you barely eat anything, you should drink this, its going to help you grow"... Noticing my incoming tantrums, Sophie had instantly countered every excuse in my book.

Fuck.... is this what getting nagged by your mother felt like? Forced to eat healthy garbage... this is crazy....

I stared at her face in disbelief. My eyes, pleading her for mercy.

She simply returned a stern glare, seems like my puppy face had lost its effect....I couldn't run from this one guys....

Sensing that my fate was sealed, I gripped the flask and opened it with a pop. Instantly, my nose was assaulted by its vehement smell. It was to the point that my eyes had welled up with tears.

I looked towards Sophie, but she too was busy restraining her tears behind a stiff smile.

"Come on Zack, its good for you I promis-ug", she cupped her mouth close with her hands.

I swear I almost heard you gagging right now..... fuck...

I had no choice, so I clipped my nose with one hand, and gulped down this green concoction. It felt like melted gelatin sliding down my throat. Lukewarm and tasted like sour cucumbers. Not a pleasant feeling.

Once it settled in my stomach, I could barely stop myself from puking it out. Sophie saw me drink it all down and simply showed me a thumbs up... Then she took out a small notebook and scribbled down a few things while staring at me.

Guess I was being treated like a lab rat now.... Well I am sure it wasn't anything harmful. I did feel reinvigorated and strangely satisfied after drinking that sludge.

Seeing as Sophie was busy doing her work, I decided to ran back up stairs to restart my training. I wasn't exactly allowed to go outside, so my room was my sanctuary. Everything I did had to be within these walls, otherwise I was not confident about keeping my secrets.

I was excited about todays training. Today was the day I would finally start practicing magic! Well at least I hoped I would.

Seeing as my last meditation session had basically almost killed me, I decided to lay it off and turn to something far more practical. Seeing the movies, the most basic magic was usually done by kids.

"Accidental magic" as they call it. Moving things by accident, making them disappear, changing their color. The examples were endless. Now that I had established a connection with my magic, I wanted to move up a tier and start these spells. Of course, I was looking to master this element.

It was called accidental magic, because it couldn't be explained. Magic depended on intentions, and kids were mostly pure and curious. Once in a blue moon, their emotions would take the reins and the magic would trigger in response.

I wanted to make this power mine, so I looked for something easy to experiment on.

Rummaging around the room, I didn't really find anything I could control easily, so for the time being I decided to pluck some petals from the dandelions on my bedside table. About three would do.

I sat down on my bed and lined the petals alongside each other. I needed to start with one. If I could control one, then the next two wouldn't be too great a hurdle. So I focused my intentions on moving the petal, I wanted to make it spin.....

==== A few minutes later....

Why isn't this working.... I've been concentrating for 20 minutes now.... I hadn't seen the petal move a single inch... Heaving a lethargic sigh.... I decided to try another approach.

I cupped my hands around the petal...

My logic was simple, perhaps the magic would find it easier to act if I was closer to the petal? Normally, wands served to extend the range of a magician. They channeled the flow of magic, that was also the peculiar reason why wands were fashioned with a pointed tip, or rather a long and sometimes circular form, usually a stick or cane. The edge simple allowed the magic to focus on one single point.... At least that's what I had read from the *Fables of a wandering mage*...

Since I had no wand, I intended to emulate this feature using my fingers for now. Placing the petal in between my palms as I wrapped my fingers near it. Focusing once again, and fully intending to move this petal, I stared at it intently.

A few minutes later... The petal nudged itself an inch to the right.... WHAT!

Paranoid that I was simply caught in my own delusions, I locked my eyes onto it. Picturing it moving. Surely enough! the petal pushed itself to spin, causing me to be flustered at my own doing.

This felt good... Ah yes.... the feeling of success. Marvelous. Afraid, that I would forget this feeling, I repeated this motion with two petals. A few minutes later, I decided to move to three petals.....

This was amazing, I had always imagined how magic would feel when I had first watched the movies, I couldn't put it into words, but now that I was finally doing it. It felt fulfilling.... to an extent I had never thought it would.

Now I could see three yellow petals, spinning simultaneously in my hands. I kept at it and tried many different things. It wasn't wise to stop now, it was a rare moment of inspiration, and I wanted to exploit it.

Spinning at different speeds, spinning in different directions even spinning at odd intervals. I tried everything. I slowly felt my control improve, it wasn't refined at all, but this was a start. Baby steps towards my eventual goal.

I decided to add more petals, plucking a few more, I practically skinned one whole flower. Setting the stem in the vase, I moved on to the mess of yellow petals scattered all over my bed.

As if conducting an orchestra, I waved my fingers. Soon following my thoughts, the petals picked themselves up, and in harmony they juggled around in the air. It was a fun experiment.

I imagined a ball, and the petals crunched up to form a round yellow figure, picturing a flat sheet, they rearranged themselves to rectangular shape.....I continued to mess around to find the extent of my abilities.

A few hours later, I had practically exhausted my imagination. From making the petals float, to reenacting the entirety of the bee movie. Nothing was outside my reach.....

Ok maybe I had lied about the last one.... but it was a good idea right?

Feeling the fatigue catch up to me, I decided to gather all the petals with a flick of my finger, and neatly placed them inside the vase. I had drained my reserves for the day...

Tucking myself in, I thought about a few things, surprisingly, today I had woken up at 6 am, and still had not met Dalton. He was essentially impossible to catch. I decided to investigate this in the future. For now... I was tired.....My eyes grew sore, I took a deep yawn and drifted off to sleep.