Black Mist: Budding [on hiatus]

1. Sinking into an Abyss

Alastair felt like the world was closing in on him--the air seemed to be pressing in on him from all sides. Yet he was numb, his surroundings seeming to recede from his consciousness. It felt as if his brain was soup. Thick soup, pouring from a big spoon.

I should sit down, he thought. He looked around and found he was already sitting. His body, unlike his brain, moved too fast. He decided to test this, to move his hand. His hand was already waggling in front of his eyes. His body was ahead of his brain, and his head was pounding.

Alastair had lost Control. He stumbled through the last several days barely Conscious of his surroundings. There was so much that brought him to this breaking point. Alastair and his mother had continued in their silent battle at home, all because Alastair broke his father's nose in defense of his mom. "Don't take him back, or I'll leave." That was all he had said to anger her. Then there was all the crap that happened at school. Alastair had wallowed in self-pity ever since the death of one of his favorite Magic teachers, Mr. Bennett, back in May. He had witnessed the murder, sort of. Bennett had been stuck in a black choking cloud with some government agent who discharged his gun, killing the young teacher. To say the least, Alastair was traumatized. But it wasn't just that. Jackson, the funny, caring Potions and Poultices teacher had betrayed them all. It turned out that he had been the one to cast that dark mist and, some felt, to cause the death of Bennett. He fled the school before anyone could question him, and Alastair took it personally. One teacher dead, another a traitor.

But worst of all, the girl he loved, Sarah, loved someone else. He had lost her to the bullying jackass Mason. Not that he had ever really had her, not as anything more than friends, anyway. And not that anymore, either. He was miserable, and all of this misery led him straight down a dismal path.

His new friend Keira dragged him swirling into a hazy world of magic and madness. She had introduced him to Amping, which is taking Amplification Potion just for kicks. Amp is used to give practitioners of magic a little boost, but it is highly addictive and dangerous. Alastair never would have used it before, but he was overwhelmed by his grief and anger. The Amp blurred the lines between reality and fantasy for him, and fantasy was so much better. It was all about escapism.

He hadn't seen much of Keira during those first few weeks of summer, but last Thursday, just after Fourth of July, he saw her smoking in front of NYU's Main Building, her usual entourage looming quietly behind her.

"Hey, Ala-stair," she said. "Are you ready to cast with us?"

He did not hesitate a moment. "Yep."

"Nice! You are going to trip. We've still got some Amp, and we're gonna go up to the top of the Empire State Building. Casting up there is like nothing you've ever experienced."

Alastair had only had Amplification twice before this: the first was a small dose before going to the art museum back in December, and the second was in the Sanguine Solution he took afterwards because his arm had been slashed, and he had lost so much blood. Both times, it was as if he could feel the magic tingling in his veins. He had felt floaty and heavy at the same time, as if nothing could be stronger than him while he was drifting off to the clouds. Even though a voice deep inside him protested, Jackson was Amping, look where it got him, the thought of using it again excited him.

"Let's go," he said coolly.

"Go where?" Maggie asked as she rounded the corner. Alastair was supposed to go buy the books for his summer classes at NYU with her.

"No place," Keira said. "See ya, Chipmunk." She ran her arm through Alastair's and pulled him away. Jonathan, Keira's tall quiet friend, gave him a dark look that Alastair interpreted as jealousy. He enjoyed the fact that Keira liked him. But even more, his ego loved that she liked him enough to make another boy jealous.