Awakening

It was a dry, hot day, like always.

Near a mountain range stood a city, its sandstone walls kept out the wasteland, a small bastion of safety; but what drew people to the city wasn't its walls, it was the towering tree that stood nearly eight hundred feet tall in the middle of the sprawling city, like a giant sentinel standing at the edges of the wasteland, the only green for hundreds of miles around. It drew people, like a moth to the flame, they came from all over just to see this miracle.

The city was split into two sections, the inner city and the outer, the inner city sat under a canopy created by the tree, magically protecting the city from direct exposure to the wasteland, only the privileged of Sentinel City could live their lives in the inner city.

The outer city on the other hand had very little protection from the wasteland beyond, only a sandstone wall reaching fifty feet high kept out the beating winds of the wasteland while the sun was still as scorching hot as it ever was.

As the tree grew the city expanded as well, already reaching a capacity of a few tens of thousand of people, the vast majority of which lived in the outer city and were just ordinary people struggling to survive at the edges of civilization.

Behind the sandstone walls of the outer city, in an unremarkable alleyway a small boy ran as fast as he could, behind him two young men pursued him with faces filled with anger.

"Stop!" One of them hollered at the boy. When he saw that the little boy would reach the edge of the alleyway before they could catch up to him. He turned and yelled at his companion who was behind him. "Do it! He's too quick, we can’t let him get away."

His companion looked back at him before he nodded; he took a deep breath and his next step propelled him noticeably farther than before. With the following step he propelled himself nearly six feet beyond his running companion.

Four steps later he had propelled himself a shocking one hundred feet. During this he saw the boy half turn to him and then stumble as he looked back in front of him.

The second young man felt relief when he saw the boy stumble, he knew with only a couple more steps he would have his hands on the boy who had stolen his young master’s pouch.

Suddenly, the boy turned around and lunged at the man pursuing him. He jabbed out with his right hand punching out just above the beltline, a shiny glint of metal sticking out between his small fingers, the man's face registered surprise.

--------

Almost there! The boy thought with a thrill of elation.

He ran with a dark leather pouch in one hand that he had snatched from some snotty young master in the market. He sprinted for all he was worth as he ran through the plan Peter had laid out for him, if he made it to the end of the alley his part was done.

At the end of the alley he would pass the pouch he had cut from the man's waist over to Henry who, inturn, would go in one direction while he went another, Henry would take the pouch and run to Victor.

After a series of these switches, the boy and his companions should have lost the two men and would split the spoils.The boy took a small moment to lament over the fact that it was his turn to be the one in the most danger this time.

There was always some danger in these kinds of activities but they tended to give good results. If the first person who actually stole the pouch got away the odds of danger would be dramatically reduced for each subsequent person.

If something was going to go wrong it tended to happen to the first person, but unfortunately some risks had to be taken. The boy had grown up on the streets, surviving in the filth, decay, and death that always surrounded large cities. The boy and a few others had banded together to survive, they took turns being the person who risked the most.

Up ahead the boy knew Henry was waiting for him. If he could get to the end of the alleyway Henry would be there. They would make the switch, it would be quick, but they had to make sure the two men saw them do it so that they would follow after Henry and abandon him.

He glanced behind him to make sure he had enough distance between him and the two men chasing him. Just as he glanced behind him he saw the man in the far back rocket towards him at an incredible speed. He was very quickly gaining on the boy.

Shit! The boy screamed in his heart.

The boy's heart rate, which was already pounding in his chest, picked up dramatically as a deep fear threaded its way into the pit of his stomach.

The boy turned back around but before he could push himself with all his might a sharp pain burst forth in his mind, blinding him in its intensity and causing him to stumble slightly.

The pain washed over him in the matter of a second, in its wake he felt a placid calmness suppress his panic and fear. He was left with only an intense certainty; he would fight or he would die. The blinding pain in his mind intensified before he found himself acting.

On instinct he turned himself around as he flipped his hand and a small surgical knife that he had never seen before appeared in his left palm, without spending any time thinking about where this knife came from he swiped at the man chasing him.

In his mind he saw the image of the man's bowels opening up as he punched at a slight angle towards the man's waistline. Before the mental image could become reality the man side stepped his punch as he shouted "Ruthless brat!".

The opportunity was lost.

The man's reach was longer than the boys, his fist swung out and connected with the side of the boy's head.

The boy's vision went dark as he crumpled, he saw a blast of colors in his mind as his head connected with the ground. A clattering noise was heard and he lost his grip on the small surgical knife he was holding.

The man that had swung at him followed up with a fierce kick to the stomach. The boy's eyes popped open as he wheezed and covered his face with his arms.

Despite the intense pain coursing through his body the boy only felt that placid calm holding down his emotions, he didn't cry out. Through his arms he could see the end of the alleyway, a hundred feet in front of him.

Henry. He thought as he locked eyes with another boy standing at the lip of the alley. A small kernel of hope started to blossom, but then he saw the boy turn and run away, that kernel of hope was ruthlessly smashed.

A moment later the second man reached him and kicked at the side of his head, when his foot connected, the boy's world went dark.

In the darkness the boy slowly came to, as he became aware of his surroundings he panicked.

Did I die? He wondered.

Looking around himself he saw far off in the darkness a small blotch of color. After what could have been a single second or even a thousand years, the boy wasn’t sure. The small blotch of color began to grow larger and the boy's mind was suddenly caught in a flash of light that burst out from the blotch of color.

When the color subsided Jerrek found himself floating inside a swirling fog filled with strips of colors. As he observed the colors they began to collide with each other and form images. As a spectator the boy watched as colors condensed into the image of a man standing alone near a lilac bush staring up into the sky.

As he watched on, unable to comprehend what was happening before him he felt a strange image burrow its way into his mind accompanied by a sense of itching heat. A single barren mountain reaching towards the sky, above the mountain was a vast starry sky, the likes of which the boy had never seen before, from the sky poured a tyrannical sense that the mountain was insignificant.

The boy felt his mind calm down in a strange manner, as if his own panicked thoughts were irrelevant. The boy was forced to just watch on as the man made his way through the dark to a room filled with paintings. Just before the man began to cut the paintings off their frames his hand trembled and a second later the same images of a mountain and skyscape followed as that insignificant feeling washed over the boy again, the itching heat that accompanied these images were much more intense then before and left him gasping in relief when it passed.

Just when the boy began to recover his thought process again he felt the images smash into his mind for the third time. This time the images didnt just wash over him , instead they seemed to burn themselves with a searing pain. The boy became convinced that he would never be able to forget the images and feelings that scorched their way through his mind. When the pain finally receded, the enforced calm that came after the images forced the boy to watch on as the man tried to leave and was forced to a small door at the end of the room.

The man woodenly reached for the door in front of him and opened it. Behind the door was a small room that held an enormous mural of a snake that was about to eat a round object. In front of the snake mural was a table that held a giant round shiny gem that looked like an eye.

The boy heard a sound coming from the gem. A beautiful sound that demanded his entire attention.

He forgot everything and simply basked in the sound and he calmly watched the man get attacked and struggle for his life. A strange sense of melancholy enveloped the boy as he watched the man lean against the wall after having dealt with his assailant. The melancholy didn't last for long as the boy's attention was drawn to the gem the man now held in his hand.

So beautiful, the boy thought as the images before him dissolved themself into a deep blackness that the boy found himself pulled into.

The next thing the boy was aware of was the distant sound of two men talking. He pried open his eyes to the sight of two people with blood on their fists, walking away from where he lay crumpled on the ground; cackling at the beating they had just delivered.

“Think he’ll survive?” the man asked his accomplice.

“Who cares, you know the young master would prefer it if the kid died, we already did him a kindness by not outright killing him,” there was no remorse in the man's tone at all. They left the alley and disappeared around a corner.

There was a throbbing pain throughout the boy's body. Strangely it seemed slightly muted, as if it was far away from him.

The small boy on the ground took a deep gasping breath, dragging himself further from the black abyss of unconsciousness.

Instinct told him to get himself to safety. Rolling over he used his arms to pull himself out of sight and into a dark corner where the scorching sunlight wasn't touching.

He felt so weak, like he had just woken up after an illness. Shakey and in more pain then he had ever remembered himself being in, he drug himself deeper into the alley.

Pulling himself into a sitting position, against a stone wall, he looked around to make sure he was safe.

What greeted him was something that seemed somehow strange to him, it was nothing but an ordinary alleyway. A few doors were placed periodically up and down the alley, trash was piled up outside of each one in small mounds.

He felt strange, like he was an observer to himself, like he wasn't the one sitting with his back against an alley wall.

He turned his head and felt slightly surprised that it actually turned. He could see people walking past the entrance to the alley, no one looked towards him. The people were dressed in standard desert drab.

Rough cut clothing of the worst quality dominated the vast majority of clothing that people wore, adding color to clothing was a waste of money that only the rich of the city would care about.

The majority of the people wore a wrap around their heads and faces, to protect them from the sun as well as covering their mouth and nose to keep out the dust.

Everything seemed completely normal. So why did he feel so strange, like all of this was wrong? Like none of this was real.

As he sat there in confusion a strange name floated from out of the depth of his mind, Adam.

Who is Adam? I’m not Adam, am i?

No that’s not right, my name is Jerrek.

Who is Adam?

As he pondered that question he continued to look around. The overriding color of everything was tan, just like his own hole filled burlap clothing that could more accurately be described as rags, and the ambient temperature was very hot and just as dry. His mind told him he was in a desert climate.

Of course I'm in a desert climate. This is Sentinel City, in the badlands, I’ve lived my whole life here, why does that seem strange to me all of a sudden? Jerrek thought while confusion clouded his mind.

Continuing to look around in his confusion, he glanced up. The sky above him was a pale blue, no clouds in sight, the only thing that broke up the vast expanse were the titanically large branches from the guardian that stretched across the sky of the city, nothing strange with that.

Suddenly he caught sight of movement, an object was moving across the sky but it struck him as wrong, when he focused he came to the conclusion that the object was a person walking through the sky.

How could that be? That was profoundly wrong. How could anyone walk through the sky? His breath picked up, faster and faster, with hints of panic in it.

Wait, why am I panicking? I've seen this before, there is nothing strange about an Acolyte walking through the air. Acolytes are capable of so much more than that. Jerrek chided himself silently

What is wrong with me? Jerrek tried to remember the last thing that happened to him. But it was strange, as he struggled to recall the last thing that happened to him, two seperate and extremely vivid memories came to mind.

One of them was him running into this alley, to escape being chased by the two body guards because he had stolen from a wealthy man in the market. When they caught up to him a strange sensation had come over him and without thought he had attacked.

His attack failed but it seemed that because of his decision to attack they beat him mercilessly, smashing his hands and his legs, among other things.

That happened mere moments before, why was it so hard to remember that? You would think someone beating you near death would be something you wouldn't forget any time soon.

Did they hit me in the head? He quickly answered his own question. Yes, yes they did.

Then came the second memory, it scared him.

His head hurt when this memory began to appear in his mind but he couldn't ignore it either, it was like the memory had been violently shoved into his head. A dripping faucet that refused to be ignored.

In this memory the things he experienced while he floated in the darkness came back to him. The entire sequence of events, from the man standing silently looking up into the sky to his death were branded in his mind and he could remember each moment with vivid detail.

The burning sensation from the images of the mountain and stars came to his mind, thankfully no pain accompanied the images but Jerrek still knew he would never forget what he experienced in that darkness. As he thought of these things the images that were burned into his mind forced him into the placid calmness that he had experienced before.

These memories were as vivid and life-like as his own, especially that eye like gemstone and the beautiful humming sound it had been emitting.

That beautiful, all encompassing hum. He hadn't heard anything like it in his entire life, he knew that without a doubt.

Jerrek was young, maybe only twelve years old, but he wasn't a fool, he knew he wasn't clever enough to have created that memory from nothing.

Thinking of that sound made him think of the gem eye he had seen. Jerrek looked down at his left hand, the only part of his body that didn't have any residual pain in it, and he noticed something different from what he had ever seen before.

There appeared to be a vague tattoo in the palm of his hand, it looked like an eye. Despite having never seen this on his own hand before he didn't find it strange, it was as if he knew it should be there, like it had always been there and he just wasn't able to see it before.

Long moments passed while Jerrek stared at his palm, the placid calm keeping him from being truly upset about everything that had happened to him.

He heard a creaking sound to his left and a door had opened in the alley. An old man stood in the doorway, a bag in hand, looking at the beaten and broken body of Jerrek.

The old man appeared to be beyond sixty years old with a head of gray hair, he stood with a strange posture that reminded jerrek of people from the city guard, except age had taken its toll and not been nice in the process. The man just stood there looking at Jerrek’s injured body. Under the placid calm that the images had forced upon him, Jerrek just looked back at him calmly.

“Can I help you?” Jerrek finally asked after a while, completely ignoring the fact that he was the one outside the man's back door, unable to even breathe without a dull stab of pain.

“Yeah, can you move, that's where my trash goes.” the man said while motioning with the bag in his hand.

It took a moment for Jerrek to realize what the man meant. Oh yeah, just ignore me, jerrek thought, push the rat out of the way and leave it for someone else, typical.

He mentally berated the man, but Jerrek knew better than to provoke anyone in his feeble state so aloud he said, “No problem, give me a minute.” Jerrek tipped over, using his left hand and right forearm to pull himself a few feet over.

The man watched him silently as he struggled to get out of the way. As soon as Jerrek moved enough the man tossed down the bag of trash he had been holding and turned around, returning inside.

Jerrek just sat there and slowly the placid calmness began to fade as he thought about what in the world he was going to do from here. A small part of his mind told him that this was it, this was how he was going to die. Just like the man, Adam?, in his newly acquired memory, leaning against a wall, struggling to breathe. A small smile found its way onto his lips when he realized the irony of his situation.

A few minutes later the man returned silently with a pouch and some cloth. He squatted in front of Jerrek and began to apply a powder from the pouch to his wounded hand, it stung mercilessly, before he used the cloth to wrap his hand up.

Jerrek didn't know how to respond to this but he didn't stop the man. He knew he was in no position to turn away someone's help.

“This isn't free you know, I expect you to repay me for whatever you use.”

“I don't have any way to get money”

The man looked up from his work and scoffed. “There's always work to be had for an acolyte, don't try to swindle me boy or I'll leave you here to rot.”

Jerrek looked at him in confusion for a moment, “I'm not an acolyte”.

Now it was the man's turn to be confused, “you've Awoken haven't you?” the man took a piercing look at Jerrek, “of course you have, I can feel it.”

“I've Awoken?” Jerrek was surprised for a moment before he devolved into pure joy. He knew what it meant to have Awoken.

Only after awakening could someone become an acolyte and walk the path of magic. Even the weakest of acolytes were still far more capable and sturdy than a normal human. Capable of using the energy of the world to perform the wondrous feats that defined their civilization.

Anyone and everyone could awaken, but it was hard to tell what would awaken someone, everyone was different and required something different to ignite the spark in their minds. But once that spark was lit, nothing would ever be the same again.

“You didn't know? It must have just happened then, I guess you should go chase down whoever it was that beat you so badly and thank them.”

Jerrek choked on his own spit when he heard this, “I don't think so, if I chase them down for anything it would be to leave them worse then they left me, besides, I think one of them was an acolyte.”

The man slightly stilled at that before he asked, "why do you think an acolyte attacked you?"

Jerrek mumbled to himself, "he moved too fast."

Nodding his head at that, the man then said, “Well, let's get you inside and take a look at that leg of yours, since you're an acolyte now it won't be too much to fix you up.

The man reached down and picked Jerrek up unceremoniously, Jerrek did his best to help the man out but that seemed nearly impossible with his injured leg and smashed hand.

The man half carried him through the doorway and into a room at the back of the building. The room had a small window that sunlight bled through, the rest of the walls were lined with shelves that were packed with clay jars and packages.

A small bed sat in the corner, a chair and a lonely cupboard sat across the room from it, everything in the room seemed to be covered in a thick layer of dust as if no one had bothered to clean the room in ages.

“You can stay here till you recover, but don't break or open anything in this room, unless you want to owe me more money then I guess go ahead, I'll add it to your bill.”

After laying Jerrek down on the bed, the old man sat at the end of the bed and began to examine his leg, his ankle was twisted at an angle that no ankle should be able to twist to. Jerrik winced at every touch, suddenly, without warning, the man's grip turned firm and Jerrek felt an intense, mentally overriding pain and heard a sickening snap.

Jerrek screamed; and cursed, and screamed again.

“WHY!” Jerrek sat up quickly, filled with a sudden outpouring of hate, and took a swing at the man, unfortunately Jerrek swung with his right hand, and a new wave of pain hit him as his injured hand connected with the man's back.

The old man completely ignored his antics as he bound Jerrek’s ankle up with cloth. Jerrek laid back in the bed, tears poured down his face as he tried, unsuccessfully, to catch his breath.

After a period of time the man finished tending to Jerrek’s ankle and checking over the rest of his body for damage, as he did so Jerrek tensed up, afraid the man would find some other injury that he could snap back into place. He then silently got up and went to the cupboard across the room and placed his hand on it.

Jerrek felt a strange sensation from across the room and looked up, a pulse seemed to come from the man's hand and entered the cupboard, the surface of the cupboard flashed with a shiny texture, like a soap bubble, before the door silently opened. He reached inside and pulled something out before turning around and walking over to Jerrek, a small book in hand.

The book was probably only a few dozen pages front to back. Jerrek received it and looked at it blankly, there were characters and symbols on the front cover but Jerrek didn't know what they said.

“You can read this but, again, I'll be charging you for it.

“What is it?”

The old man looked at Jerrek strangely for a moment before a look of enlightenment flashed across his face. “You can't read, can you,” Jerrek looked down in embarrassment. The man rubbed his hand across his face then continued in a wry voice, “In for a penny..”

The old man pulled up the chair in front of Jerrek and looked at him for a time, “You're a sand rat aren't you?”

Jerrek continued to hang his head, not looking at the man. “Well, never mind that, I don't care if you are or aren't a sand rat. A man's origins don't decide his life, especially for those who have awoken.”

Jerrek finally looked up at the man, a look of relief on his face.

The man looked at Jerrek and hesitated for a few moments before finally coming to a decision, “I’ll assume you've never left the city, otherwise you would never have been let back in. Have you ever seen those small twisting funnels of dirt in the street?”

“You mean dirt devils?”

“Exactly, as those dirt devils move down the street, you've probably noticed that they pick up light things and pull them into the rotation; sand, dirt, paper, the sentinels leaves, anything light enough to be pulled in will be.” the man paused here, a small look of grief crossed his face before he continued.

“If you had ever been outside the city you would have seen that a small dirt devil can grow infinitely, all the way till a full blown dust storm is created, sweeping across the desert for hundreds of miles, scouring the land clean, leaving nothing in its wake.” the man spaced out for a while before he came back to himself and continued speaking to Jerrek.

"Close your eyes and calm yourself.” Jerrek closed his eyes and tried to calm himself, it was difficult with the pain throbbing throughout his body and his fear that the old man would “help fix” something else that might be injured.

After a time, when the old man saw that Jerrek had finally calmed down, the man continued, “I want you to picture a small dirt devil in your mind, it's constantly spinning, just as it does down the street. Once you've got that image firmly in your mind take a slow, steady, but deep breath. As you breathe in, imagine the air your breathing entering the dirt devil. Then I want you to equally exhale in a slow, steady manner until your lungs are empty. As you exhale none of that air will leave the dirt devil, but with your next breath more will enter it. With each breath the dirt devil will grow in size and intensity.”

Jerrek did as he was told, after nearly fifteen minutes of this, he began to feel as if he was standing in the sun and it was warming him, the heat brought a slight sense of relief to his body, the pain in his body had lessened by a degree, he opened his eyes in confusion and looked at the man.

“Did you feel it?” the man asked with a bright look in his eyes, “take a look at your arm”.

Jerrek looked down at his right forearm, it had already been almost an hour since he woke up from the beating the men had given him and his body had already swelled in the areas that took the most beating, as he had used his arms to protect his face they had swollen to an almost exaggerated fashion, but now the swelling had subsided to a large amount.

Jerrek looked up in surprise, a look of wonder on his face.

The old man smiled widely, “Congratulations, young Acolyte.”