I awoke to the faint drone of something mechanical—distant, constant, like an insect trapped behind a wall.
Sunlight slanted through the fogged glass in weak ribbons, illuminating the drifting motes of dust that hovered in the still air. Outside, the trees rocked slowly, swaying like lungs in a dream. Inside, everything remained silent—except for the low hum of electricity.
Plor hadn't come back last night. Said something about fixing a solar catch. I hadn't seen her since.
I pushed myself out of bed, the blanket heavy with warmth. My legs ached. My shoulder pulled tight. But the pain had faded into something dull, something manageable. Not healed, but no longer unraveling.
The house creaked beneath my steps. Every board, every rafter, I heard every whisper of wind below me, slithering through concrete and metal stilts.
Beyond the bedroom, a narrow hallway spilled into a larger space. The main room. Strange furniture cluttered the edges, most of it salvaged, some just old and worn. Broken tech blinked sporadically—small lights pulsing like dying stars—while the rest lay still, half-covered by scraps of fabric or coils of wiring. The walls were stitched with maps, handwritten notes, and objects that had no name.
A desk dominated one corner, almost an altar of disarray. Tools, scraps, shattered devices. At its center sat a closed spiral notebook, black, marked with a crude symbol: twelve circles, each connected by thin lines forming a dodecahedron.
I stepped closer. It looked hand-drawn, rushed. My fingers hovered above it.
A voice rang out behind me.
"Careful."
I flinched.
Plor stood in the doorway, carrying a plate stacked high with roasted tubers and something dark and spongy—mushroom, maybe. She crossed the room in a few easy strides and dropped it onto a small table beside me.
"That thing's not for beginners," she said, gesturing to the notebook. "Hell, I barely know what it means and I wrote half of it."
She plopped into a nearby chair and kicked her feet up.
"Eat. It's weird, but edible."
My stomach answered for me. I sat and dug in.
"What's your name?" She asked, playing with her hair. "Kind of forgot to ask yesterday, silly me!"
I paused, my mouth full of a dozen mushrooms.
I swallowed. "Kael."
Plor leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, eyes on me.
"So Kael," she said, "you've got a Point and no idea how to use it. Congrats. That makes you… average."
I paused mid-chew. "I don't think nearly dying is average."
She snorted. "No. But having no control? Very normal."
She tapped her temple. "Most people think Points are tools. Levers. Something to grab and pull. But they're not. They're you. The version of you that skips the polite, thinking part."
I frowned. "What does that even mean?"
"You ever think about walking?"
"What?"
"Exactly," she said, grinning.
"You don't. You just do it. Your body handles all the tiny muscle shifts without you giving commands. Points work the same way. They don't answer thoughts. They follow will. Subconscious direction."
She picked up a stone from the floor and tossed it in her palm.
"If your Point is a muscle, then yours is still learning not to punch itself in the face. That flickering you do? It's your power taking its first steps. Like a baby."
I stared down at the tin fork in my hand.
"So… I just stop thinking?"
"If only," she said with a laugh.
"You've got to learn to think sideways. To speak in a language your body understands even when your brain doesn't."
"And you can teach me how?"
Plor's grin widened just slightly, like a fuse catching.
"Maybe. If you don't explode first."
I froze. "That's… not reassuring."
"Neither's the universe, kid."
We sat in a strange silence, filled only by the wind pressing gently against the outer walls and the dull clink of metal on plate. My eyes drifted again to the notebook.
"What do you study?" I asked.
"Points." she replied, her voice monotone.
"Why?" I prodded.
Her grin thinned. Just a little.
"Because they shouldn't exist."
She didn't explain. And I didn't ask.
The food was bitter, earthy, and dense. But it filled the hollow.
When I looked up again, Plor was still watching me.
"You'll start training tomorrow. And that means no more sleeping in."
Her voice was light, but her eyes weren't.
⸻
Later, I followed her outside.
The air was thick with moisture, the trees gleaming under the weight of it. The house behind us let out a slow, reluctant groan, like it didn't want to let her go.
Plor walked ahead, hands laced behind her head, whistling something arrhythmic and tuneless. The stilt house loomed tall above the marsh, both elegant and absurd—like a cathedral made of scrap and stubbornness.
The landscape had changed again. Trees twisted in odd directions. The fog no longer blanketed everything—it lingered like a half-forgotten dream, thin and flickering.
"Why does it look so different?" I asked.
She turned slightly. "Hm?"
"The forest. It used to feel… denser. Like it was breathing."
"Oh. I cleared out some of the canopy nearby. Made a perimeter. Also we're further inland now—less salt, fewer mangroves. The swamp here's a little lazier."
We circled the clearing. She gestured toward a cracked solar panel strapped to the side of a tree. The bark had grown around it like a wound healing over glass.
"Still alive," she muttered. "Good. That'll keep the filtration working. Can't have you dying of thirst after all that effort patching your sorry body up."
"Right," I mumbled.
We walked a while longer in silence. Then, suddenly—
"So when do you lose control?"
I blinked. "What?"
"You know. Boom. Zap. Gone."
I exhaled slowly.
"I don't know. It just… happens. Usually when I'm scared. Or exhausted. Or both."
She nodded.
"Makes sense. You're all raw instinct right now. Twitchy power with no leash."
She bent down, grabbed a small rock, and without warning, hurled it at my face.
I flinched hard. The stone zipped past my ear.
She grinned.
"Damn. Thought that might trigger something."
"You could've hit me!"
"Please. That was a pebble. If I wanted to hurt you, I'd use the wrench. Or that cursed garden rake I keep under the porch."
She was serious.
We returned to the house and climbed the narrow ladder to the upper level. The second floor was open and strange—a high-roofed attic where beams crisscrossed above and shafts of light poured through broken skylights.
Dozens of strange objects hung from pulleys—sandbags, disfigured dummies, rusted cages, and strange bladed discs. There were even a few odd items, I couldn't decide if they were weapons or art projects.
"What… is this?"
"My fun room," she said, spinning in a slow circle.
"Took me forever to fix it up. Weights, dummies, targets. The usual stress relief."
She turned back to me, serious now.
"But don't worry—we won't start here. Not yet. First, you learn to stand. Then you learn to walk. You need to ground yourself. Anchor your will."
I hesitated. "That sounds… boring."
"Good. Boring's when you stop dying."
I didn't answer. My thoughts had drifted—back to Arin, to the broken feeling of teleporting, to the space between space where the world snapped and I wasn't anywhere until I was. Screaming. Falling.
Plor must've seen something in my face.
"You've seen something ugly," she said, voice quieter.
"But ugly teaches. If you let it."
"Is that supposed to help?"
"Nope. It's just true."
For the next hour, she made me sit.
No exercises. No weights. Just breath. Stillness. Thought.
She called it Will Framing. Teaching your body how to hear you.
It was harder than anything I'd done in the wetlands. My mind refused stillness. My body twitched and shifted. Every noise made me jump.
We started over. Again. And again.
"Don't force your Point," she said. "It's like pouring water through a funnel. Your will is the funnel. If you try to force too much through at once, it spills out and goes wild."
It made sense in the way dreams make sense—half-formed and slippery.
Later, as we leaned against the railing, sipping filtered water, the fog rolled thick below.
"What's your Point?" I asked.
She didn't look at me, an ominous grin lit up her face.
"You'll find out the hard way."
Yeah, that sounds fine.
I frowned. "You said you've studied Points. You've seen a lot?"
"Yeah, seen enough."
"Anyone else teleport?"
She tilted her head. Thinking for a moment.
"Some. But all in different ways, some people can swap with objects, some can even turn into light. Anyway I'm tired, big day tomorrow get some sleep."
With that she left, and I made my way to bed.
That night, I slept peacefully .
Maybe it's not too bad here…