First lesson

The dim lighting revealed no details of his environment. Plain gray floor ran further than his eyes could see. The horizon line was missing, and the sky was indistinguishable from the ground below. Nepal found no source of light. The scene was unbroken save for a man dressed in loose fitted robes one might find worn by a martial arts instructor.

“It took you long enough,” the instructor said.

“Cheshin?” Nepal asked.

“Good. You can tell who I am,” Cheshin praised.

“Why are you so hard to see?”

“I should say something really smart like, 'because you are not seeing me,' but that cryptic mystery stuff can be skipped in these lessons.”

Then Nepal remembered, “lessons.” The lessons just began. Cheshin asked him to close his eyes and open his mind to think of nothing at all. Concentrate on nothing and relax. Then the disorientation, and he was here. “This feels like a dream,” he informed.

“You can clear this up by trying to find me. Do you remember what I look like?”

“Yes.”

“Focus on that. Picture what I look like and superimpose my image on where I am standing.”

Nepal thought about it a moment, and when he had it a relatively clear in his mind, he refocused his eyes to see Cheshin. The martial artist blurred and grayed out to almost invisible. Liquid washed off the paint covering Cheshin, and underneath the layers, a light shown on him, forcing out the details. “I can see you now. Much better.”

“Excellent,” Cheshin said. “Now, I'm going to hide from you completely. Find me.” And Cheshin bolted to the right with blinding speed. He circled Nepal several times until all that could be seen was white wispy lines, and then there was nothing. Cheshin had disappeared. “Find me,” came the voice.

“How?”

“Like you did just a moment ago, but this time try to place my image where I might be located. This will give your mind something to focus on. The nice thing about the mind scape is that the world turns around you, not the other way around.”

Nepal again set the picture of Cheshin in front of him. When it didn't settle and clear, he knew his prey was not there. “Prey,” he thought. The hunter was seeking his prey. This time the image played out in the air and Nepal moved it casually, looking for a good spot to hang it. “It's almost like putting a picture up in a room, but instead of decor, it was following a trail.”

“Exactly.”

Nepal pulled the image in closer and over to the left, but the image wanted to move to the right. He felt it tug like a magnet. “There!”

Cheshin's faded into view. “Yes, this is going very well,” he said, obviously pleased.

“Is it always so gray in here?”

“I'm glad you asked. It's not really gray. You have to fill in the color, if you need it. It's only gray because you're passively re-seeing the psychic background noise in your head. Sometimes, it helps to add a fresh background to accomplish things. Peoples minds play out different scenarios when they dream. Like you said, this feels like a dream. In dreams people become accustomed to familiar settings. They adapt to new environments without thinking about it, but sometime they trip up. They impose their own version of things on their mental landscape. You can do that, too. Only you can do it on a conscious level.”

“Right,” Nepal affirmed. “How?”

“Like you did with finding me. Put a picture up. Even better, put a chair right here for me to sit on.”

Nepal looked to where Chesin was pointing. He brought up an image of a lawn chair, striped green and white. He tried to hang it, but it didn't stick.

“Don't try to hang it. Chairs sit on the ground.”

He tried again, this time setting the chair a foot away from where Cheshin stood. It came to life, appearing out of thin air. “WOW!” Nepal was thrilled. “That is fantastic.”

“Alright, alright, don't get too excited, yet. There's more.”

“More?” Nepal.

“Do you see that the chair remains, even after you stop concentrating on it? That's because you already believe it to be there. The rest is all subconscious. Let's try something harder. Place us in a picture of a park,” Cheshin instructed. “Someplace you have been before.”

Too excited, Nepal couldn't think of any park he had ever been to. He knew there were many parks he had visited, only none of them came to mind.

“Have one yet?”

“No, give me a second.” An image of a park off Elam Road, the one with the creek that separated it in two, floated up. There was a nice set of trees where people could go eat and enjoy a cool spring day. Nepal had visited that park last year.

“Now?” Cheshin asked.

“Yes.”

“Imagine being there. Paste the park all around you. Position yourself in the park with the grass and landscape just where you want it to be.”

Paste? Nepal would rather paint the setting he wanted. It was easier that way. A few seconds later, the gray melted into greens, browns, and blues. As Nepal transitioned into a new setting, it felt perfectly natural to modify his world. A branch here, water over here, and dirt right there. Suddenly, he found himself standing in the park. Trees, grass, and even a creek beamed to life as he painted it.

Cheshin walked over and clapped him on shoulder, “you're pretty good at this.”

“This is getting easier, I think.”

“Good, because it's about to get much harder,” Cheshin warned.

“I'm ready.” Nepal was confident he could do whatever comes next.

“I'm going to attack you with something. You may not know what it is, but it will come to you in a form you may or may not be comfortable with.”

“Attack?” Nepal wondered.

“You were being attacked when I first saw you. Do you remember that?”

Nepal remembered, “yes. Yes, I do.”

“You must have been feeling something taking place. Something happening to you or to your body.”

“Yeah, I remember it was like cold icy bugs crawling on my skin.”

“It shouldn't be like that kind of an attack, but you will feel something. Your mind might interpret it differently than I do, but you will recognize it as an attack.”

Apprehensive, Nepal agreed. Cheshin wheeled around, twisted and became a misty cloud. The mist spread out and covered the park in a haze. Nepal could smell a fire was burning and started to choke on the smoke that masked his landscape. His heart sank as sadness came over him. As soon as it seemed like there was no hope left in the world, the mist vanished and Cheshin stood before him.

“Sorry to hit you with that one,” Cheshin said.

“What was that?”

“Like I said, I'm a better empath than anything else.”

No longer depressed, Nepal still felt a residual sorrow tucked deep in the park, waiting for him. “I still feel it a bit.”

“It's hard to turn emotions off and on. You need to learn to defend yourself,” Cheshin explained. “You ready to learn how?”

“I don't know if I'm ready or not, but I'm willing to find out.”

“That's not good enough in this case. We'll take a breather.”

Nepal and Cheshin found themselves back in House Thero. They were drenched in sweat despite the cool temperature of the room. The clock on the wall, Nepal noted, had passed no time at all. They must have been gone for a minute or two at the most.

Nepal poured the last of the water from the pitcher into the glass. Not nearly enough to quench his thirst, he drank it eagerly.

“I'll get us some more water,” Cheshin left the room, not waiting for a response.