1H: Mind and Matter

1: Microburst

Gianna

Move.

"Nothing has to be convinced to move. There is always motion, if you look deep enough."

I couldn't see the hydrogen atom I first linked with three months ago, but I knew it was still there, surrounded by too many others to count. Right now, it was part of a molecule of water vapor, a common union for a hydrogen atom.

It wasn't difficult to move my hydrogen. I could have reached out and done that with a simple wave of my hand. The challenge was forming a cascade: creating movement that itself created movement. Like before, I took the motion that it already had, and gave it a nudge. It pulled the rest of its parts, which pulled the other atoms and molecules that wanted to stay in its vicinity.

I couldn't actually feel the oxygen molecules that followed my hydrogen, but I knew they were there, too. Negative followed positive followed negative...

A light, cool breeze began to blow in the tiny room around me. The cool was the clearer sign that I was doing it right: it takes energy to exert energy. I heard the pages of the journal at my feet begin to ripple as the slow, thin movement of air began to pick up speed.

"All alchemy, at its core, is persuasion. Matter already does what I'm teaching you on its own; you are simply asking for a little more order."

Those words on the page seemed to taunt me. Asking was never my strong suit.

Move.

The breeze grew cooler and faster as I glared at the book at my feet. A page flipped, then another, then another, then too many to count as the whole book was lifted by the moving air.

There. Now it was moving.

If there was one thing Rigel taught that I treated like gospel, it was the power of momentum. The more air that moved, the more it wanted to move, the more that what was left wanted to join into the forming cyclone. My heart raced as the room around me became ground zero for an indoor tornado. I was going to pull it off this time.

I reached out, squeezing as much of the moving air as I could and pulling it towards me, giving the windstorm the occasional push to keep it spinning. As it grew smaller and more dense, it spun faster, centrifugal force threatening to break it free from my mental grasp.

"No, nope. Not this time," I grunted.

As I squeezed, I pressed down from above, like I was trying to fit an invisible spring into an invisible box. The tight swirl in front of me compacted to waist-high, then down to my knees as I moved it closer. Just a little more, and I could...

I took a step up, and the swirling air pushed to leave the confines I had imposed, shaking the cyclone in all directions. It almost knocked me off, but I regained my balance, focusing hard to hold the mass tight. I was going to get it this time. My heart raced as the jet of air at the heart of the mass buoyed me up, trying to flip me over by the extended foot. I leaned into it, balancing myself on the column of air, then brought the other foot to...

My phone rang. Startled, I lost concentration for only a split second, but it was enough to undo everything. The compressed cyclone burst outward, throwing everything around it - including me - outward in all directions. When I hit the wall behind me, I let my body slump to the ground. I wanted to grab the phone and throw it through the window, but the effort of containing the cyclone made it difficult for me to even crawl to the nightstand where the phone was sitting. I growled as I pressed the answer button, trying to ignore the sound of loudly chatting people in the background of the call.

"Ah crap, did I catch you trying to fly again?" Keola asked. His question was eager, innocent, and at the moment, infuriating.

"Mmhm," I said, managing to bite my tongue.