Year 0 Month 2 Week 2

  -Wheeze-thud-thud-wheeze-huff-puff-

  -Wheeze-thud-thud- “Hey, watch where you’re going!” a man yelled as a courier slid by him, nearly running into the pedestrian.

  Why did I agree to this? A thought Zephyr had many times this day, especially during the long runs when he was fighting to breathe. Despite being in much better shape and now having impeccable running form. That was not to say he was in enough shape to run over thirty miles in a day and not feel like dying shape, especially on their first official delivery day.

  His legs, hips, calves, back, everything was hurting, and his lungs were on fire. There is no way this is healthy.

  It had only been a week since he’d started to really research into how to best improve. Many of Tim’s resources helped, but Zephyr had gone a bit obsessive looking into everything. Running techniques, stretching, breathing exercises, and the fact he could tangibly see the results really helped with his motivation. And before he knew it, he gained two levels in a week, level eight if he counted them right.

  During his little investigation, he got curious and found himself going down a list of things that might happen from constantly running: shin splints, heel pain, knee pain, insomnia, and blisters. At that point, he stopped not wanting to create a self-favoring prophecy. Luckily, he’d yet to have any issues, except a blister or two, but those quickly cleared up when he bought the correct running shoes. Not to mention, he’d been buying the wrong size for years, a half size up, and now, he couldn’t help but marvel at the difference.

  As for the rest, Tim believed: “Must be a minor underlying healing when we enter the portals.” During their weekly check-ins.

  -Wheeze-thud-thud-wheeze-huff-puff-

  I never should have told them I could do an 8-minute mile. I should have known they would expect that at all times.

  It was a mistake, but he had been excited about hitting the milestone. Now, he was pushing himself farther and harder than ever before. His feet felt like they were gliding across the pavement as a sparkling trail of crystals floated behind him, shimmering and glowing in the afternoon sun. Pulling eyes everywhere he went, none noticed the sweat and matted hair under his hat.

  One delivery, one quest. That was the policy they landed on and what Zephyr pushed hard for. He imagined a massive cloud of crystals trailing behind him for every delivery. Sure, collecting enough crystals might take a few weeks, but he had been prepared for the long haul. He had not expected the amount of deliveries he’d have on his first day or how popular he would be in the city, especially with the more affluent.

  “Hey, stop that!” Zephyr yelled at another group of teens, grasping at his cloud of crystals. They danced just outside their reach, leaving the group of kids angry. Just like the other groups he’d passed.

  “Come on! Give us one to prove it’s real!” one of the kids yelled at his back as Zephyr continued.

  People were still people, and it sucked. Sure, they were just more introspective. Or they had been for a month or two. Most still were, in a sense, and for a rather large portion of the populace—namely, people under twenty-seven— their worlds were completely upended, and they didn’t know why.

  -Clank-

  “Fuck!”

  -Clink-Shatter-

  A glass bottle hit him and shattered, making him stumble. When he looked over to see who had the bottle, he found a different group of teens glaring at him. Ready with more cans and bottles to throw. They were yelling something at him, but he didn't stop; he knew only trouble lay down that road. This was the second that had actually thrown something at him. Besides, he wasn’t dumb enough to stop and talk to an angry mob. Especially teenagers. So he pushed harder when he turned a corner, and “AHHH!”

  Looking at the source of pain, a massive dog latched onto Zephyr’s arm, crushing it and shaking it with all its worth. “THE FUCK!” Instinctively, he swung his arm and, subsequently, the dog at a pole.

  -Yelp-

  The teeth let go as the dog hit the ground, seemingly dazed. Not wanting to repeat the incident that put his arm in a lot of pain, he ran even faster. Little did he know the animal was not alone.

  #

  #

  -Beep-Beep-Beep-

  -Clickity-clack-clack-click-

  The distant sounds of two arguing anchors barely audible drifting through the door,

  “How can you say it’s like a drug?”

  “When they enter it, people's personalities tend to drastically shift; People are chasing these levels and quests. All saying how good they feel. When you stop, you go through withdrawal. We don’t even know what the long-term effects are. Tell me, how is that not a drug?”

  “Just cause you haven’t gone through it—”

  “I don’t need to do Hermione to understand or empathize. Maybe if I did LSD, I’d know exactly what it was like. Maybe that’s what awakening is.”

  “That’s not—”

  -Click-

  The sounds of the hospital cut off as a doctor enters the room and sits next to a courier. The

  -Sh-rip-ting-tink-

  He opens up a packet of surgical tools and begins to stitch the messenger’s torn arm and hand.

  Zephyr had been lucky; the first few bites from the pack of dogs merely crushed his arm; then his luck ran out as one latched onto his arm, taring his clothes like paper. After a few good kicks and slamming, the animal attached to his arm on the ground. The pack gave up, whining as they ran. He did not appreciate the sneering looks from the kids and teens laughing. Like he had got what he deserved. He flipped them off as he ran, finishing his final delivery, before heading straight to the hospital.

  Why did I not just go right here first? The adrenaline had long worn off, and everything hurt except the numb portion of his hand getting stitched up. The rest of his muscles burned, and it hurt even to move. We got to do shorter routes. Or maybe stretch after?

  “So, did you get bit at a Renaissance festival? Didn’t think we had one this time of year?” The doctor asked.

  “Nope. Uniform. Was running in the streets when pack of wild dogs decided they were hungry.”

  The doctor paused, raising an eyebrow and a bit of condescension, “So that's your uniform?”

  Zephyr rolled his eyes, “We’re leaning heavily into the change going on.”

  The doctor raised an eyebrow, His tone filled with judgment, “Don’t you think that’s discourteous about what people are going through?”

  “Who knows? The world is changing, and this is how we’re going forward.”

  “And this led you to being chased by a pack of dogs?”

  “Pretty much. My job is running packages. And a pack of dogs took umbrage with it.”

  The doctor sighed as he tied another stitch off. “Are you sure you didn’t do anything to antagonize them?”

  “Not if simply running through a busy city with a lot of people is antagonistic. Am I being accused of something?” He replied, irritated. Getting tired of the doctor’s attitude toward him.

  “No. You aren’t the first, or even the dozenth person to come in, where a pack of animals attacked them. This month.” -Sh-rip- the doctor opened another pack of sterilized tools. “Though yours might be one of the worst cases."

  He watched as another needle pierced his numb arm, “Seriously?”

  “Yes, and not just dogs. Cat scratches, deep ones, have been growing, too. A few elderly people have fallen from suddenly energetic animals.” The doctor chuckled, “It's funny; there have been more injuries from people over sixty from simply trying to be more mobile than their bodies are ready for. Just because they feel younger doesn’t mean they are.”

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  “Fascinating. I did not know that, and I’m currently working with one of the research teams looking into everything.”

  The doctor paused in his stitching, “I thought you were a courier?”

  “I’m a volunteer test subject.”

  “Ah.” The doctor said it, like everything made complete sense, and that did not feel good to Zephyr.

  “As for the job. I got running when I awakened. I got an idea for a business, called around, and got in touch with my partner—who's a lawyer, by the way. He thought it was a great idea. See, they use couriers to send documents all around downtown, and before I knew it, we were delivering. Well, I was—am? We’re working on hiring right now.” Zephyr was rambling; he knew it, but the doctor's dry condescension was getting under his skin.

  “Makes plenty of sense.” He replied flatly, “There we go. You’re all stitched up. You're going to need to change those bandages a couple of times to prevent infection, and you can pick up your prescription at the pharmacy you gave us.”

  “Thanks, doc.”

  “The Nurse at the desk will get you checked out.” And the doctor practically hurried him out the door to the nurses.

  By the time he was making his way to the elevator, he was exhausted in pain, and the numbing on his hand was running out. So when the elevator stopped on the wrong floor, he was already across the hall when he noticed he was standing right in front of a door. Why am I here?

  He felt like he was supposed to be there. Like a task was sitting right behind it. Why is this feeling familiar? The image of a tree in his backyard flashed in his mind. What?

  His curiosity got the better of him, and he opened the door. To find a man lying in a hospital bed, with a rift glowing up and down his torso. It was both horrifying and mesmerizing, and before Zephyr even realized it, his fingers brushed up against the rift, pulling him inside.

  #

  Everywhere and nowhere, silent darkness surrounded him. For a moment, it was like being back inside his portal, except he felt another, not himself. Then, all at once, he was standing somewhere surrounded by waves of gray, and clouds of darkness sat all around him. Only the glowing crystals trailing him gave any illumination.

  Zephyr reached out a hand, touching the frozen fog; fragments of a dream touched the back of his mind. Memories.

  His eyes widened as he took in the endless frozen ephemeral moments of time surrounding him. A deep desire echoed through this foreign land. Screaming hoarsely, desperate for anyone to hear. So much like his tree and not. It’s so much more complex. A life dimmed and shattered.

  It called to Zephyr, reverberating everywhere, a desperate plea, calling him deeper into the endless dark filled with tiredness so deep Zephyr felt it resonate with his own deep weariness. More than anything, he wanted to rest. His eyes slowly blurred, his mind drifted, and the world around—in the manner of dreams—began to take shape. Showing what this place was. His hand fell, slapping his thigh, and burning pain shot through him, bringing him to full wakefulness as his heart began to beat a mile a minute at what nearly happened. Don’t fall asleep; that’s not a good idea.

  He had no idea what might happen if he had given in. He might have laid down and joined the man in the darkness forever, or maybe he would have had a nice nap, though he doubted the latter.

  After that, he might have turned around and left, except there was no shining exit like the tree. Only more darkness. It could have been right behind him or miles away. Except he couldn’t turn away. So he moved, one foot after the other, deeper into the dark.

  Every step traversed gave the fog more substance, small crystal lights giving Zephyr glimpses into a life not his own, images, emotions, and feelings shimmering, given new life by a cloud of tiny lights.

  He passed a child high on a swing set, frozen in a moment of pure joy. The edges of the memory blurred like and transparent, and so many other tiny moments of fleeting joy.

  Deeper and deeper into the veil of the heart’s shadow. Walking through another cloud, a first victory, a race won, a kiss stolen beneath the bleacher, a dance, and a song reverberating before becoming nothing once more.

  Deeper: a friendship deepened.

  Deeper: a heart broken.

  Deeper: a betrayal of a friend.

  Deeper into memories, moments, tiny things, and large. All the while, the Courier followed his bone-deep exhaustion, tiny stars illuminating his way in this darkened world.

  #

  —Silence—

  How is silence audible? A strange passing thought, in between each memory, was a palpable quiet, a stranger event than that of even the memories themselves. It was completely wrong.

  Or maybe it’s just the pain meds. His hand was still hot and sore; Zephyr was getting confused every time he passed through memory as they jumbled up his mind. More than once, he found himself laughing or crying as he passed through a cloud, unsure who he was. It was like being slowly twisted as emotions stormed through him. The mists wrung him dry, the desperate call pulling him ever deeper, the only guide in this frozen maelstrom.

  As he followed, he realized the pull was similar to the one when he looked at the tree’s rift in his backyard. Am I going to find a deeper rift? He had no idea, this was all he knew, and instead of feeling scared, he was excited, or as much as he could, with his emotions all out of wack, especially as he drew closer. Something resonated inside him the closer he got; unfortunately, it was exhaustion. He wanted nothing more than to lay down in the nice dark space and was a hundred percent certain if he did, he wouldn’t get back up.

  —Bang—

  “Fuck!” He shouted as he hit his hand again to force himself to keep his eyes open. Zephyr did not like this trick. So when he suddenly found his eyes blurring on a solitary patch of color, it took him a long moment to realize it was some hallucination.

  —Bang—

  “GAH!!” He inhaled deeply, “Why was that so much worse!” It was like a bolt of electric fire shooting through him. Bringing his eyes and mind back into focus.

  A memory, the man’s last. An explosion of light, frozen in a moment of impact, metal and rubber all around. A car accident. It was such a benign thing; it hadn’t even occurred to Zephyr to wonder what happened to be put in such a state.

  Now what? He stood there, the soft light of his crystals slowly drifting around him. The longer he stood, the more it seemed to come into focus. Wait? Zephyr lifted his hand as a glowing quest floated into it. An idea was percolating in his tired brain, and he held the crystal up to the memory. Color began to bleed through the image until he pulled the crystal away, the image maintaining the new color, and the shining gem seemed dimmer. Fascinating.

  Huh? What if I—?” Without thought for the consequences, he shoved his hand inside the memory, automatically crushing the crystal, as an immense feeling of fear, shock, and pain shot through him. The world around him—just for a second— moved like the man turned over in his bed. Everything was just a little less dark. Things seemed to be moving in the depths before slowing back down to stillness.

  Zephyr finally realized he had been knocked flat as he stared at his cloud of glowing quest. Do I have enough?

  It was just an idle thought, one that he might have thought about for more than a second if he was anywhere else or in the right mind. But he was curious and a bit impulsive as all his crystals floated into a ball right before him. Then he clapped, and the world exploded in color just as his arm burst into pain.

  “AAAHHH!!” Zephyr found himself suddenly back in the hospital, a scream involuntarily pulled from his lips—a prismatic scar sitting in the exact spot where a man in a coma once stood.

  —BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP—

  Alarms were going off in the room.

  —Slam—

  A nurse bursts into the room and sees the scar and Zephyr lying on the ground, “The hell is going on in here!?” Wires swinging from the hospital bed.

  #

  Two men sit inside an office, one a familiar archmage and the other a man with his face blurred out. The censored man's hand moves away from a button on the desk as Tim looks towards the camera, confused.

  “Sorry about this, new policy. We have to record these sessions now.” The blurred man said as he pulled out a manila folder. -ehem- the man cleared his throat. “How have you been, Tim?”

  Tim turned hesitant towards the man, “Good, great even. We’ve been getting amazing data. Based on everything, if patterns continue, I think we might be seeing superhuman abilities. I mean, just leveling to two, I’ve never been healthier.”

  “That is good. The future is looking to be…interesting.”

  “Yes. I agree.”

  A heavy silence between the two slowly grew, Tim fidgeting nervously.

  The blurred man sighed long, and Tim’s face dropped. “It’s your channel, Tim.”

  “But I only talk about things we’ve already sent in press releases or are readily available to everyone. Not to mention, I did have permission from the college to talk about research.”

  The other man leaned forward, “That was for a specific event and also expired the day after you posted it. If it had done well, we would have re-evaluated where you stood. But that’s not the real reason.”

  “Then what is the real reason?”

  The man behind the desk sat back as silence grew between them. After a long pause, “What happens when you level?”

  Tim looked on, confused, narrowing his eyes, “Intense retrospection when awakening, which is currently referred to as level one. Level two gunk seems to be removed from the body. I think they are still analyzing what it is. Three…I’m not sure; nothing has happened to me yet, but it was yesterday. Further levels… I don’t know.”

  “Oh, they’ve finished analyzing it.” His voice filled with false cheer, “It’s very promising we found traces of various toxins, artery plaque, kidney stones, tar, lead, what appear to be cancerous cells, really any foreign entity at all.”

  “Shouldn’t that be good?”

  “Think about it. Really think about it.” He said, tapping his head. “Any foreign entity.”

  A dawning look of horror passed over Tim’s face.

  “Yes, exactly. So far, we've confirmed pacemakers, replacement hips, stents, and surgical screws. With you and your channel being out there, giving advice even, we can’t be associated with you anymore.”

  Tim slumped into his chair, “Ooh.”

  “And with your videos already out? They offered you a generous severance package, Tim.” He slid a packet over to Tim.

  “Couldn’t I just take the videos down?”

  “Sorry, the videos are already out, and the controversial subject—I’m sorry, we’ve already received a few complaints.”

  “Controversial? It’s just how life is now. People are going to level. It’s natural now. Even if people do nothing, they’ll eventually level up.” Tim said, hand hovering over the packet and looking in disbelief.

  The man shook his head. “It’s still Controversial; half the students here don't even believe any of this or think people are playing it up. So many people have died. Your videos—and while I don’t agree with the sentiment— seem to glorify it, and the board is trying to get ahead of this.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Tim stood angry, “This is the dawning of a new era. How...no. no.” Tim forced himself to be calm. “I’ll accept the severance. But this is fucking bullshit.”

  The blurred man shrugged.

  “What about the research? Whose taking over?”

  “There is officially a freeze on all of it.”

  “What!? But this is the perfect time for it. We may never get data like this again. It’s the perfect window!” He practically shouted at the man.

  “I know. But with so many subjects already dropping out, scientists who quit, died, or just don’t care anymore.” The man put his hands over his face, “We don't have the manpower anymore and no longer have enough reliable subjects. So it’s not your problem anymore.”

  “Maybe I’ll make it my problem.” Standing with the packet, Tim narrowed his eyes, “Oh, and I’ll need a copy of this recording.”

  * * *