Please don't eat me

Please Talk To Them

  If you talk to anybody outside of this room – 

  I shook my head, trying to clear my mind of that night as I stepped into Chakra. I'm not here for that. Not right now. I felt a buzz in my pocket and pulled out my phone to see the fifteenth unread message Ming had sent me. Ever since Tuesday morning, she had sent me message after message wanting to speak to me. Wanting me to explain things. Every one of them I ignored. Even if I knew I couldn't do it forever. 

        – or any of them discovers what happened tonight, then I will kill –

  Yeah, me, my friends, and everyone I love. With the only loophole I could find . . . the only loophole being –

  I rubbed my face, trying to calm myself, and plastered a smile on my face to greet Larry with. I walked through the hallway, getting to my training room, and breathed in deeply before opening it and stepping inside.

  "Conrad," Hector nodded to me in greeting from his seated position on the floor.

  "H – hello," I greeted back as I put my bag down.

  "Sit here," he gestured to the spot in front of him and I obliged, taking off my necklace as well. There was a moment of silence, where he just sat in front of me with a calm look on his face. What did he want from me? His eyes were closed, and his legs crossed. Was he expecting me to start meditating? It was all we had been doing for the past few weeks. So I crossed my legs, closed my eyes, and started to focus on my chakras.

  "You've been quite stressed recently, haven't you?" Hector suddenly asked, cutting my focus and I looked at him.

  "I'm sorry?" I asked, having perfectly heard his question.

  "I understand that what I've asked you to do wasn't easy," he continued. "Fixing that card is no simple task."

  My head lowered, mind flashing back to the torn card. "It's okay. I just –" Couldn't say I was working hard. After what happened at Jasper's party, I couldn't even touch the card.

  Hector breathed out heavily through his nose, as if making up his mind on something, and then spoke. "How far have you progressed with the card?"

  "I – uh, I'm still working on it."

  He grunted in acknowledgement. "Then bring it here next week. You can finish it off with me."

  I nodded. He was disappointed in me. I couldn't sense his emotions, but I just knew it.

  "For today, we will be doing something different."

  "Is it not meditating?" I asked.

  He shook his head. "What can you tell me about your Crown chakra?"

  Oh. "The seventh chakra? Um, yeah?" Come on, all that time spent researching them couldn't be for nothing. "It is your connection to the outer world and the universe beyond. It's what allows you to perceive other people, places, and the world around you. Right?"

  "Perceive?" Hector asked.

  "Isn't that right?"

  He thought about it for a second. "Remember, Conrad, your Chakras are quite conceptual and vague. It is you who gives them weight and definition that makes the most sense to you. So there's nothing wrong with saying it is perception. But a more commonly used word would be connections."

  He lifted his hand and caught some spiritual energy, twirling it through his fingers. He interlaced his fingers, then splayed his hands apart, and I saw a coloured web sitting there. "Everything is connected, Conrad. In one way or another. From the smallest flap of a butterfly's wing, to the most violent push of a hurricane. Every action you make has an impact, whether big or small, on the world around you. It's those connections that I'm talking about, Conrad."