The Underbelly (First Draft)

Ghosts of the Past

I felt my mind settle into a calm trance, Chaz's hands enveloped mine and I could feel spikes of energy scatter along our palms. I ignored them and focused on the pressure building up in my head, just above my nose on my forehead. People in the psychic communities call it the third eye and I have often wondered since discovering my gift if they were on to something.

I could feel my mind fold in on top of itself, almost like a collapsing water column. With a resounding roar it crashed and flooded from my mind, I felt it race along my arm, reaching hungrily for its escape.  

My fingertips began to buzz, not too dissimilar to when Chaz first took my hand. I felt my gift swell and rush into Chaz. This part of my gift was very familiar to me, however this was the first time I had paid it this much attention. It was the next stage that I was far more unsure of.

It was almost like my gift could sense my hesitation and was also unsure of itself. It cruised from my fingertips and flowed into Chaz's fingertips. With no directions from me the gift continued to mill and swell about in his fingers.

Suddenly I felt my eyes squeezed shut  and my neck snapped back and in my mind's eye I could feel the flux and flow of my gift, no it was more like I was my gift! Incredible! I felt like I was suspended in liquid but with some aqueous acrobatics, I orientated myself and I could feel myself looking at the roots of the roads of the nerves in Chaz's hands spread out before me.  Each nerve was a silvery blue hue and made it easy to distinguish from the mass of red flesh around it. With a grin I began to explore.

It was more than a little strange, since I was in both of his hands, I was split right down the middle and was in both places at the same time. It was like holding a wet slippery ball in one hand and a dry rough ball in the other at the same time, being aware of the differences but also thinking of them as the same. Pretty quickly however, things got interesting once I had re-joined up with myself.  

I spilled out into his torso and I could see his heart and his other vital organs. The heart was a phenomenal sight, there were smattering of pulses of electricity as it continued on its ever demanding job of contracting and relaxing to pump around the blood in the body. The silvery blue lights were strong here, almost hypnotic. It was with a start I realised that the nerves were not actually silvery blue but rather it was the pulses of electricity that I was seeing.

His lungs were pushing and pulling at the air currents and the silver and blue lights were dancing amongst the lungs, as though they have just been set free from slavery. Dancing with wild abandon. Each breath was like a firework display, so dazzling.

I managed to drag away my gaze and I followed his spine, a mass of silver and blue. I was going up, I wanted to see what I was going to find in his brain.

I felt like I was Dorothy following the yellow brick road, except I was following the nerves of Chaz up to his very essence. I felt more and more nervous as I approached my destination, I had no idea what was going to happen.

I just hoped I didn't kill him.

I finally reached the brain and my oh my, what a sight, the combined lights of the vital organs and the spine had absolutely nothing on the brain. It was a blinding mass of silver and blue, a shining brilliance. Curiously though it was shaped as an orb as opposed to an actual brain shape. I tentatively reached out with my gift and when it touched the membrane of the light, a ripple streamed across the orb.

"Merissa?" I went cold all over. That couldn't be right, was I hearing voices or did I actually just hear Chaz's voice? Am I reading his mind? I heard him again, "Merissa, what's going on? You've been stone still for nearly an hour now. Is everything ok? Do I need to do something?" I withdrew my tendril and the voice went silent. Interesting.