Quest for Mortality
Chapter 2
Understanding Real and Ideal


"Wake up sleepy head!"
Dashu opened his eyes. Fear took him like a tornado.
"How? Why? I'm alive?" He felt his head. It was sore. There was some bumps but nothing more."
"Oh good. You are a smart person. I was afraid you were going to think it was a dream or something stupid." Dashu looked up at the voice. It was a stunningly beautiful girl.
"My God. You're beautiful." The words came out of his mouth.
"I could say the same about you. Look in the mirror." She smiled. Dashu blinked then looked in the mirror. He was completely different. Like he had pictured himself in his mind many times. Long flowing silver hair. Strong physique and tall. He was menacing and cunning looking and a charm full smile and eyes like a cat.
"How?" The beautiful girl laughed.
"This is going to take a while to explain so get relaxed now so you can hear the whole thing." Dashu nodded, he wanted to finally know what was going on.
"I am one like you. As you are like me. We are a rare type of person that has recently been discovered to humanity. We have the ability to distort reality itself. Normally you would find that out when you died but since you are so powerful in your ability you began to distort reality before you even died. Yes Dashu, you did die back there. You were shot dead at close range by an 8 gauge shotgun."
"So they did kill me. Then…?"
"Then how are you alive now right? It's simple and complicated. To fully realize the control you have you have to shed the old ideals. Death is one of them. Believing that being shot can kill you. You ultimately believed that you could do nothing in that situation and that you were dead. That side of you no longer exists. It died when you were shot. Right now we are in a military installation. You and me are the only ones to ever posses this ability."
"Then how are you able to tell me all this?"
"Because subconsciously you have desired this power. You know what I say to be true because part of you created it. The other part is me. You could say I am the thing that completes you. I am the person to fill the whole in you that makes you feel alone even when you are surrounded by your friends. You haven't gone crazy. You now exist as you meant yourself to be."
"I think I am starting to get the idea here. But what does the army want with us?"
"Well, we are valuable weapons are we not? You walking into a gun range and with no gun experience except maybe video games you shot six targets dead on. When you did that, you bended reality. You actually stopped time or at least slowed it and shot them in a mere moment. That's why those people probably stared at you."
"So, you can read my mind? Can't you?" The girl smiled.
"Yes. That's how I am answering your questions before you ask them. And also how I know what happened when it happened." Dashu looked at her for awhile.
"So, what do to do with myself now?" He asked himself aloud.
"Well, I can't really answer that one for you. You make your own path now. The possibilities this time are truly limitless. The army has simply given you one path. The path with the army is safe and dangerous at the same time. But if you choose to try to go back to what you had no one will remember you nor will they accept you. There is something else to stop you from being just simply Dashu again." The girl replied.
"What is this 'something else'?" Dashu asked.
"There are others which can't bend reality quite like we do but it has the same affect. They don't have a grudge towards you yet. But you have the ability to do as they do, so you are a threat."
"I see." Dashu took a while to think. "I didn't get your name. Might I have it?"
"Makatomi. Is the name I was given at birth. You may call me that."
"An honor I am sure. So, can you tell me better how to use my new acquired power?" He inquired.
"Well some I can, and some I can't. You have already been using it. Try to remember what happened just before you were able to do it."
Dashu nodded.
"Then I would like to test this power. Is there a place less confined?" Makatomi nodded and pointed out the door somewhere. Fortunately Dashu had some form of clothing on him. He guessed it was the standard for the men who stayed here. So they left right away.

It didn't take them long to get to their destination. He had remained quiet the trip and so as a result she had kept quiet. It was starting to bug at him that she was reading his thoughts. But he knew the more he thought about it the more it would concern her since she knew what he was thinking. Along the way they had past several soldiers, captains and generals. This was obviously a huge facility. He hadn't seen any hint of real light, meaning this place was underground. Which would explain why there was no knowledge of it to the public. To big bay doors stood in front of them. Makatomi pulled out a card then smiled instead and waved her hand in front of it. Her face looked a little strained for a second and then the door went ethereal. Easily passable now, they walked through it.
Dashu now thought he had the basic concept of how to do this. He first let his mind relax. He knew he didn't have to rush to get it off here. He began to gather emotion, since it was emotion the last two times that allowed him to be able to release it. He then didn't know what to do. He opened his eyes to look at Makatomi and ask her. When his eyes opened nothing was right. The wall looked like it was thin, as if spread too much over a surface. The roof seemed to slowly breaking apart and lifting. The very floor he stood on seemed like and invisible force keeping him still. This time he didn't snap his mind to attention. He looked at Makatomi. She was glowing. Rather she looked like she was glowing but in fact was shrouded in light. It was slowly changing light, some of the prettier colors of the spectrum. Sure enough when Dashu looked at his hand he was glowed the more eerie and menacing colors of the spectrum. A voice came in his head. He knew it to be Makatomi's because it carried her essence. He knew he could speak back because right now nothing was as it seemed and so. Sound could be made in any form he wanted.
"Now you see what I see. How the world isn't as it is to our eyes but how it is represented to our minds. A person might ask themselves. What makes our world the way it is? What makes the fact we breathe the air give us function? We can touch any surface no matter what it might be and be totally fine or hurt as a result. Did we have to concentrate and become in our minds one with the surface to be able to interfere with the space around it, and then touch it and disturb it? No, we simply reached out and touched it. What makes us think the fact we walk around think we are supported? What actually keeps us where we are? Gravity? A physical element so to speak. An invisible force supposedly stops us from hitting escape velocity. For that matter how do we run as we do? Or stop before we collide into and object. A law made said that and object with momentum will keep its momentum unless acted upon by another force. This time that force is friction. The thought that pushing on the ground will slow us down to a stop. Too many a things humans take for granted."
Dashu nodded. Then returned his thoughts.
"These are things I have always wondered. And now I understand them as I always wanted to. The old me would have gladly wanted to just close his eyes and have it all go away. Instead now my eyes are open and I desire more. A second ago I was going to ask you what to do next with my power. It's all so different from this side. I think I know what to do. I also know that what I think will be what is since this is as our minds can create things and as they have been perceived is it not?" Makatomi nodded.
With a desire to have the air around him condense he concentrated not on air. But making the void do that. There was a pressure drop in the room and as he desired as well a big noise as if it had imploded. It was like holding the key to creation. He was able to toy with it and change it. Or if it bothered him enough. He waned it gone. He wished it gone. He desired for its existence to have never happened. The condensed air shimmered. Then something surprising happened. It went brittle and looked like glass. The more he desired the more it started to crack. A small bit cracked and was sucked into a huge dark void. Surprised he lost his focus and all returned to the eyes view. Makatomi rushed beside him and put an hand on his shoulder and stared in awe at it. In the middle of the room was a small little piece like it was out of a mirror or glass and it is completely void. Nothing existed in it. It was beyond simply dark or abstract. It wasn't a path to another existence. It was just empty of life and existence.
"Fix it Dashu. They can't know this" She urged him
He let his mind relax again. He thought about how the air used to be, how he was used to it as he grew up. And gathering his strength he thought about putting it there as it was. There was a slow whining motion. Like it didn't want to go back as it was. It flickered like a flame and then it was whole again.
Dashu let his mind go back. Back to what he knew as not real. But it was seen as real. And felt sudden overwhelming drain. He slumped to his knees. Makatomi put an arm around him and put his arm around her and helped him walk back to his chambers. Or so he thought. It was a different room. There were two beds on either side. In fact the room looked like it had been cut in half and then mirrored. It was simply that they had made the room the same on both sides. She put him down in the one bed and sat near the edge of it.
"I'm sure you now know the last part of our power. It leaves you literally exhausted." Makatomi informed him.
"What did I do back there Makatomi? I know can hear your thoughts. I know you are worried I know how to break barriers of the mind. It's to open your own." His voice was no longer out loud. It was then in her mind
"How am I able to take something completely out of existence? Why can't you do the same?" She answered back the same way. There was no need for words when your thoughts could be read.
"I don't know. You are different than me in some ways. You either have different aspects or you are stronger in your power. The simple fact of using them when you were alive is proof of that. The army can't know of this though. They would have you simply obliterate the enemy. Imagine a war were one side didn't even have bodies or casualties. Were no one came back alive to tell the tale of war. And there was no evidence of it. No bodies or weapons or even land."
"Absolute power corrupts absolutely. I don't know how it works yet anyway. I won't try to do that again. I remember how I tried I will just make sure I don't try to do it again."
"The reason you are so tired is because the energy in your body is limited of course. It does have to re gather or regenerate. Also how we see things the way we do is energy from the ethereal plain. That's how I do my ability. Making things ethereal or changing aspects of them while they are that way. You're different though. When you tried that you almost shattered a part of reality. I can only fathom the energy your ki produces."
"My head is swarming with thoughts and doubts I think I need rest. I'm sorry but I will have to discuss more later."
"I understand. I am tired as well. Between waiting for your arrival and doing that to the door I am sure we will sleep like… Well, sleepers sleep I guess."
"You were going to say log or something unreal weren't you?" Dashu lips smiled.
"Yes" Her cheeks were red. "Goodnight."
Dashu let his mind stop it thoughts and relied upon that which was fabricated to keep him in his bed and let him sleep.