Chapter 10: You and I

The light in Vivian's personal garden, forever trapped in that warm, eternal sunset, bathed the valley in shades of gold and orange. But even the beauty of the place couldn't hide the tension hanging in the air. Michael stood across from Vivian, arms crossed, his expression a mask of barely contained frustration. With the tip of his shoe, he kept kicking a small stone, sending it rolling a few inches each time.


"Alright, Michael," Vivian said, her tone striving for practicality but betraying her own impatience. "You've only got 13 days left until your first fight. And we've made almost no progress with offensive or defensive magic. So… it's time we at least try to get you capable of attacking and defending yourself."


Michael stopped kicking the stone and looked at her. "And exactly how do you think I'm going to do that?" he asked, skepticism dripping from every word.


Vivian smiled, a smile of pure self-assurance. "Imagine, Michael. Magic is all about imagination. You're human, and humans have an innate capacity for it. You need to tap into that."


She raised her hands, parting them a few inches. Between her palms, the air began to vibrate, crackling with electricity. Tiny blue sparks danced in the space, and then suddenly, a small lightning bolt wove itself between her fingers, sizzling with contained but fascinating energy.


Michael's eyes went wide. He stepped forward, drawn to the spectacle. "Fascinating!" he exclaimed. "What principle do you use for this? Electromagnetism? Ion manipulation?"


Vivian blinked. Then she let out a soft laugh, as if she'd just heard the most naive question in the world. "Principles? Haha… there really aren't any."


"Vivian's right," a voice said from right behind Michael.


"Wah!" Michael jumped and landed flat on his butt in the grass, twisting his head to find Xix, in his childlike form, floating serenely at his back. "Don't just show up like that! I thought I'd sense you by now!"


"Sorry, Michael," Xix replied with a guilty smile. "I thought, with time, you'd develop that peripheral awareness we talked about. But it seems you still need work."


"I don't, Xix…" Michael mumbled, getting up and brushing off the grass. "Anyway… you were saying magic doesn't follow logic?"


"It's not that it doesn't follow it," Xix corrected, his tone turning more serious. "It's that there's an entity, a higher principle, that handles all magic across every plane of existence. It's called The Abyss. Without The Abyss, magic simply wouldn't exist. It's the source, the origin, the infinite reservoir from which everything flows."


Michael frowned. "Is it someone like you? A god?"


The atmosphere shifted. Vivian, who had been watching with a smile, adopted an empty expression, her violet eyes losing all their luster for an instant. When she spoke, her voice was flat, devoid of emotion.


"Nothing exists that's bigger, older, or more dangerous than Abyss," she said, her words landing like stone slabs in the garden's silence. "Listen, Michael. This is something you need to know, and I hope you never have to use it. If one day you hear a scream… a scream like thousands of children crying in unison, a cacophony of pain and despair that cuts to your very bones… then run. Run and find the nearest light source. Any light. A flame, a lightbulb, the sun, anything. Don't look back. And if, for some reason, you do… don't stop. Don't turn back. Just keep running."


The silence that followed grew so thick Michael could hear his own heartbeat. A cold sensation, different from what he'd felt on the streets, ran down his spine. He tried to downplay it, to find a logical explanation.


"That… sounds like a legend," he said, his voice shakier than he would have liked. "Like stories about wendigos, or those… skinwalkers from horror movies."


"No, Michael." Xix's voice was now deep, ancient, and for the first time, Michael sensed a genuine note of fear in it. "Do what she says. No one, not any god, not any primordial, not any force in any plane of existence, can survive Abyss. You don't fight it. You don't negotiate. You don't flee… you just hope you're not in its path when it decides to manifest."


Michael hesitated. He looked at Vivian, still wearing that vacant expression, lost in some terrifying memory. Then he looked at Xix, whose childlike face had lost all trace of mischief. Finally, he nodded slowly and sat down in the grass, suddenly feeling the weight of his own insignificance.


"Okay," he murmured. "I promise. If I hear that scream, I run toward the light."


---
A long minute passed.


No one spoke. The garden, with its bright flowers and perfumed breeze, seemed to have frozen as well, as if the very plants had held their breath at the mention of that forbidden name. Michael just sat there, processing. It wasn't fear he felt now, but a kind of existential vertigo, the crushing awareness that the universe contained things even gods couldn't face.


Vivian was the first to move. She blinked slowly, as if emerging from a deep dream, and her violet eyes regained their usual sparkle. She rubbed her arms with a shiver, shaking her head.


"Fuuu…" she exhaled, the sound breaking the spell. "Well… enough cosmic horror stories for today." Her voice tried to be light, but still carried a residual tremor. "Sitting there thinking about monsters you'll probably never face won't help you. What will help you is this."


She planted herself in front of him and, with an energetic motion, extended her hand to help him up. Michael took it, feeling the warmth of her skin, so human despite everything she'd revealed.


"Look," Vivian said, letting go and stepping back. "Sit down and cross your legs. Now, focus on your bloodstream. Imagine your blood gathering in your arms, in your hands. Then, imagine that blood shooting out, as if your veins were conduits and your palms the mouth of a cannon."


Michael obeyed, letting himself be carried by the routine of training. It was easier to focus on the tangible, on what he could control, than on cosmic abysses. He sat, closed his eyes, and sought that internal current that was already starting to feel familiar.


As he concentrated, Xix floated over to Vivian. His small, childlike form watched Michael with a mix of pride and concern.


"Do you think he'll manage it?" he asked quietly, just for her.


Vivian didn't take her eyes off Michael. "He'll manage it," she replied with conviction. "He has something he doesn't even fully understand himself. A grip on life I've rarely seen. And that, Xix, is worth more than any innate talent."


"I know," Xix nodded. "That's why I chose him."


They both fell silent, watching. And then, Michael's hands began to take on a faint red hue.


---
He felt his blood circulate, felt the warmth in his chest. He visualized a baseball. Not just any baseball: a perfect one, smooth, seamless, like the ones he'd seen in sports stores. He imagined his blood gathering in his right hand, solidifying, taking that shape.


The magic responded. The blood swirled in his palm, hot, dense. It compressed, spun on itself, and suddenly…


Plop!


A small baseball, perfectly round and seamless, dropped from his hand onto the grass.


"Hah… hah…" Michael panted; the effort had been titanic. "F-finally… I did it…"


Vivian picked up the ball, examining it curiously. "Still, Michael… why a baseball?" She turned it in her fingers. "There's nothing special about it. Doesn't weigh more than normal. It's… a ball."


"Hah… hah…" Michael was still catching his breath, but a proud smile lit up his face. "I thought… if I could make a ball… then I could make a bat… to throw them with."


Vivian and Xix exchanged a glance. Then they both smiled.


"That's an excellent idea, isn't it?" Vivian said.


"Yes, it is, Vivian," Xix agreed. "But…"


"I see you noticed too, Xix," Vivian finished.


Michael, who had been watching the exchange with growing confusion, sat down in the grass, waiting for an explanation. "What's wrong? What did I do wrong?"


Vivian sat beside him, her expression serious but kind. "See this ball?" — she held it up — "To create it, you used roughly the amount of blood you'd lose in a donation. Three of these and you'd be in hypovolemic shock. Four and…"


"I could die," Michael completed, understanding crashing over him like a bucket of ice water. "Or worse."


"Yeah."


Michael looked down at the little ball in the grass. His pride deflated like a punctured balloon. "I thought… I thought I had something good."


"Michael," Xix said. The child-god floated until he was right in front of him and, with an unusually human gesture, placed his small hand on Michael's shoulder. The touch was warm, comforting. "It was a good idea. An excellent idea. Listen: you can use blood the first time, to create a real, solid object your enemy can see and fear. And then, the next time, you can use pure magic to create the same object, without spending blood. Your enemy will let their guard down, thinking you've already used your trick, and then… surprise!"


Michael lifted his gaze. Slowly, a smile crept back onto his face. "You're right, Xix. I just have to try harder. Thanks."


"Well said, Michael!" Vivian jumped up, bursting with energy. "Look! Now I'm going to teach you to use pulses."


"Pulses?" Michael looked at Vivian, but saw nothing special about her. No aura, no change. "I don't see anything."


"Don't look, Michael," Vivian said with a mysterious smile. "Feel it."


Suddenly, Vivian lifted her foot and stomped it hard against the ground.


BOOM!


To Michael, nothing happened. Just a dull thud. But beneath the surface, something was occurring. Imperceptible waves, invisible to the naked eye, began spreading from the point of impact, traveling through soil, roots, and rock. They were perception waves, a magical sonar that fed back to Vivian an exact image of everything beneath the ground: the depth of tree roots, the position of every flower, insects swarming underground… and Michael's silhouette, with his bone structure, his organs, the flow of his blood.


Vivian smiled. She raised her fist, and suddenly, from the ground right at Michael's feet, multiple stalactites of solidified earth began to emerge. They rose like spears, sharp and deadly, at breakneck speed, surrounding Michael, nearly grazing his skin.


"Wah!" Michael fell backward, rolling through the grass to escape those stakes that had sprung from nowhere. "Haha!" — his laugh was nervous, heart pounding — "I never saw that coming!" He got up, sweating, staring at Vivian with a mix of awe and terror.


"Fuuu…" Vivian sighed, relaxing her stance. "I still haven't gotten used to using this without scaring people. Okay, Michael, we're going to train this, alright? Stomp! "


Michael, obediently, stomped the ground hard.


…Nothing happened.


"Concentrate, Michael," Vivian said, crossing her arms. "We're not sleeping tonight until you get this."


Michael groaned. He looked at his hands, the gloves Vivian had given him. He looked at the baseball, his first success. He looked at Xix, who gave him a thumbs up.


"Alright," he said, his voice tired but carrying a new determination. "Let's do this."


---
Hours later…


The garden's eternal light hadn't changed, but Michael felt the weight of those hours in his bones. He'd tried dozens, maybe hundreds of times, to perceive those waves, to feel the ground, to connect with the earth. Most attempts were total failures. Sometimes, he caught a vague sensation, a distant echo of what lay beneath his feet, but nothing more.


But he didn't give up. He remembered Xix's words: "Pulses aren't seen, they're felt." He remembered Vivian's warning about Abyss. He remembered why he was here. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and stomped again.


BOOM!
This time, something was different. He saw nothing, but he felt. A faint vibration reached him through the soles of his feet, a blurry map of what was nearby. It wasn't perfect, it wasn't clear, but it was a start.


Vivian, who had been watching from a rock, smiled. "Good, Michael. Very good. We'll continue tomorrow."


Michael opened his eyes, exhausted but smiling. Fatigue was a weight on his shoulders, but a small flame of pride burned in his chest. He glanced at Vivian, already stretching, ready to head back to the house. He looked at Xix, floating beside him with a barely contained expression of satisfaction.


And then, in the moment when the garden's silence seemed to envelop everything, Michael noticed something.


It wasn't a sound. It wasn't an image. It was a sensation, a tingle at the base of his skull, like someone had run an icy finger down his spine. Something in the air shifted. Something far, far away, but also close, as if reality itself had flickered for an instant.


Michael stood frozen, the smile dying on his lips.


"Michael?" Vivian asked, noticing his change in expression. "You alright?"


Michael blinked. The sensation vanished as quickly as it had come, leaving only an echo, a phantom memory.


"No…" he said slowly. "No, nothing. I think… I'm just tired."


But even as he said it, he couldn't shake the certainty that somewhere, in some plane of existence he couldn't comprehend, something had responded to his small achievement. As if the universe, for just an instant, had turned its attention toward him.


His ancient eyes gleamed with a light Michael couldn't decipher. For a moment, Xix seemed about to speak, but his lips pressed into a thin line.


"Come," Xix said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Rest. Tomorrow's another day."


Michael nodded, but as he walked toward the house, following Vivian through the washing machine portal, he couldn't help glancing back at that garden of eternal light.


And for a second, he could have sworn the flowers were glowing just a little brighter.