The kid was spasming. He was thrashing around in the bed. His heartbeat had sped up a lot and he was sweating buckets.
"What's happening to him?!" I yelled at the doctors. "We don't know, this is our first time working with someone who's actually bonding with an artifact. You do realise how rare that is."
I realised I was going a bit too far. It was extremely rare for someone to meet the requirements to bond with an artifact, let alone actually start the process.
Leo was calming down, and when he stopped moving he started oozing out a black liquid. It enveloped him and turned into some kind of cocoon.
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"We are in your head. I need to train you so you are actually outputting the basic power that I can output." the pen said.
"Are you saying that your previous users weren't outputting a lot of power?" I asked. "NOT A LOT?! Not counting Homer and your dad, no one has even used 5% of my power! Your dad though, he could output 10%, he was very proficient. And of course Homer, he literally just was partly responsible for the downfall of the gods."
At the mention of my dad sadness flooded me, the memory of his burnt body flashed before my eyes. "Please don't talk about him." That's how I dealt with grief. I pushed it down as far as I could.
"Why? I thought you'd want to remember him, you know, to accept that he's gone."
"Stop, stop, STOP!" I yelled. If a pen could look surprised, you would definitely see it. "I don't understand. Why don't you wa..." she started speaking again but when she saw the look in my eyes she stopped. That's because my eyes showed a pain that was deeper than the ocean.
"Ok, I won't talk about them." she said. I could hear that she was growing more hesitant.
The tension could be felt. She quickly changed the subject, "You need to start training. We need to get you in tip top shape. Your body is now in a cocoon and when you train your muscles in this world, you will actually train your muscles in real life."
After that, I started training. It was hard, every time I gained even the tiniest bit of strength my training got harder by that same increment.
Time passed slower in this place so Even though 2 years had passed inside my mind, only 1 month had passed in the outside world.
"It's time for you to learn how to use me." the pen said. I had been working towards this day for the past 2 years, so hearing that was finally ready was heaven. My body been sore every day, in the beginning it had been so bad that I hadn't even been able to sleep.
And yes, even though I was inside my mind I still had to eat and sleep. That was because if I got used to not eating and sleeping it would pose problems once I woke up.
"Hold me. Now, stab yourself in the arm with me." she said. I was surprised but I did it anyway. I mean, how bad could it be right.
Terrible pain, that was the only thing I could think about. The pen was turning into some kind of liquid and had started entering my bloodstream.
It might have been a few seconds, it might have been years. I didn't know. All I knew was that I had experienced pain that I can't even describe today. It was so bad that I had fainted even though I was inside my own mind.
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One month, I had been visiting the kid for one month every day. I don't even know why, I just did. Maybe some part of me hoped that I would be there when he woke up. Maybe I hoped that I had found someone that would have intel and that's why I wanted to be there.
It doesn't matter. But that day, screams could be heard from his room. Screams, agonizing screams. My body still goes cold when I think about them. The pain he was going through must have been unimaginable.
"What did you do?" I asked the lead doctor. A team had been stationed there to observe the fusion process of bonding with an artifact. They wanted to see if they would be able to understand artifacts better if they understood fusion.
"We don't know! He just started screaming. The cocoon also started pulsating so it's probably a part of the bonding process. It also might be his body rejecting the artifact. That's the problem, we have no information about the bonding process."
The doctor seemed to be just as concerned as I was. I just hoped that the kid would be fine.