It started subtly. Abraham walked the city streets one afternoon, the sun beating down on him as the chaos of urban life buzzed around him. But as he passed a crowded café, he noticed something strange.
A woman sat alone at a table, staring blankly at her coffee. Her hands trembled slightly, and her eyes were sunken, dark circles beneath them betraying her exhaustion. At first glance, she seemed like any other overworked person, but Abraham saw more.
Around her, the air shimmered faintly, like heat waves rising from asphalt. And then he saw it—a hulking, translucent creature perched on her back. Its form was grotesque, a mishmash of limbs and faces, its many mouths whispering into her ears.
Abraham's breath caught. The aura around the woman flickered a deep, oppressive blue, radiating despair.
It wasn't just exhaustion. This thing was feeding on her sorrow.
Abraham clenched his fists, his heart racing. He knew he couldn't just walk away, but he had no idea what he was supposed to do. The creature seemed oblivious to his presence, too engrossed in its feast.
Summoning his courage, Abraham stepped closer. He reached out, trying to tap into the energy he had been practicing with. A faint barrier flickered to life around the woman, and the creature recoiled, its many eyes snapping to him.
It hissed, a sound like nails on glass, and lunged at him.
Abraham threw up his hands, the barrier solidifying just in time to block the attack. The force of the impact sent him stumbling back, but the shield held.
"Okay," he muttered, trying to steady his breathing. "Time to figure this out."
The creature was relentless, clawing and biting at the barrier. Abraham could feel his energy draining with each blow, the strain mounting. He had to act fast.
Focusing on the ground beneath the creature, he reached for the gravitational force he had felt in his dream. The air around the beast seemed to warp, and suddenly it was yanked downward, pinned to the ground.
The woman gasped, her eyes darting around as if sensing the sudden shift. She clutched her chest, her breath coming in short gasps.
Abraham didn't let up. He pushed his energy outward, crafting a second barrier to encase the creature entirely. It thrashed and howled, its form flickering like static.
But then it did something he didn't expect. It spoke.
"Marked one," it hissed, its voice a guttural rasp. "You don't know what you are."
Abraham faltered, the barrier wavering. "What are you talking about?"
The creature smiled—a sickening, too-wide grin. "You're a pawn. A tool. A sacrifice."
Before he could respond, the creature dissolved into a dark mist, slipping through the cracks in his barrier and vanishing into the ether.
The café returned to normal, the oppressive atmosphere lifting. The woman sat frozen in her chair, her hands still trembling. Abraham approached cautiously.
"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice soft.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide with fear and confusion. "I… I think so. What just happened?"
Abraham hesitated. "You were… being drained by something. I stopped it."
She frowned, trying to process his words. "Who are you?"
He opened his mouth to answer but stopped. Who was he now? Just a guy trying to survive? Or something more?
"I'm… someone who's trying to help," he said finally.
As he left the café, the creature's parting words echoed in his mind. A pawn. A tool. A sacrifice.
Abraham didn't know what they meant, but one thing was clear: his fight was just beginning. And whatever this world had in store for him, he wasn't going to back down.
Abraham had barely stepped out of the cafe before he felt it. The pull. That strange, magnetic force tugging at him like a thread connecting him to something just beyond his grasp. His breath quickened as he stood on the cracked sidewalk, staring down at the ordinary, mundane city street. Nothing was different. The sun was still too bright, the air still thick with the sounds of a city in motion, but inside him, the shift was palpable.
He could feel it now. His powers, raw and untamed, thrumming beneath his skin. The same strange energy he'd felt earlier that day after the encounter with the monster was still there—coursing through him, testing the limits of his body and mind. It wasn't like any other power he'd ever imagined, not some simple gift or ability. This was something primal, something ancient that was tapping into his very essence. He was being transformed. And in that moment, the weight of his transformation settled over him like an oppressive fog.
He walked down the street, trying to process what had just happened. The flickering aura around him, the brief flash of the supernatural presence that he couldn't fully comprehend, had unsettled him. He hadn't even been sure if it was real. But now, he could feel that reality had shifted. It was tangible. And it was dangerous.
As he turned the corner, a sudden, instinctive urge gripped him. He needed to test his abilities further. His mind flashed to the piece of china that had shattered earlier in the morning—the small, barely controlled display of his power. He needed to know how far this new reality stretched.
Without thinking, he reached out, and the first of many strange experiments began.
Abraham stopped in his tracks, squaring his shoulders as he focused on his body. He could feel the urge to move, to stretch, to distort. Slowly, deliberately, he pictured his body becoming lighter, as if his bones were turning to air. At first, nothing happened. He tried again, this time feeling his body lift, if only by a fraction.
His shoes scraped against the pavement as his weight reduced, his feet almost floating above the ground. He held his breath, staring down at his feet, half-expecting to crash into the concrete. But instead, he hovered.
He was floating. Just inches above the ground.
A rush of exhilaration washed over him, followed by a wave of dread. He felt himself rise higher, his body losing its solid connection to the earth. The wind whipped around his face, and for a split second, he felt as if he could just float away, escape everything. He quickly squashed the thought and forced himself back to the ground.
The world felt different. The power he had just tapped into felt unstable. He could almost hear it whispering to him, like a distant call he wasn't ready to follow.
Shaking off the lightheadedness, Abraham glanced at a nearby trash can. Without thinking, he reached out mentally, focusing on the lid. His mind formed a picture of it shifting, solidifying, as if his will alone could shape it.
Nothing happened.
He focused harder. His brow furrowed, muscles tightening as he forced his mind to move the metal object. The moment his focus snapped, a blur of psychic energy gathered around the trash can lid. With a heavy thud, it lifted from the ground. Abraham let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding as the lid hovered in front of him, a glowing aura of psychic energy barely keeping it aloft.
He extended his hand, and it followed, floating a few feet away, trembling slightly in the air.
But it wasn't enough. He couldn't hold it for long, and the strain quickly became evident. His focus wavered, and with a sudden flicker, the lid dropped to the ground with a clatter, rolling across the pavement.
He cursed under his breath. His abilities were raw, unrefined. He needed more control.
The street was fairly empty at this hour, the dull hum of traffic in the distance punctuated by the occasional passerby. One man, carrying a bag of groceries, glanced at him curiously. Without thinking, Abraham focused on the man's emotions, feeling a strange pull in his chest as his mind reached toward the man's aura.
The feeling was subtle at first, but it began to bloom inside him—the sensation of fear, flickering like an ember. Abraham concentrated harder, willing the man's emotions to intensify, to swell. He could feel the air thicken, and before he realized it, the man's body stiffened. His pace slowed. His eyes darted nervously.
Then, it hit Abraham—an overwhelming wave of dread, sharper than he had anticipated. His stomach churned as the fear he had induced in the man began to spiral out of control. Abraham's mind screamed at him to stop, but the sensation was intoxicating, pulling him deeper into the vortex of emotion.
The man, now visibly trembling, dropped his groceries and hurried away, glancing over his shoulder. The fear was no longer just in the man. It was within Abraham too, a secondary, mirrored fear of something he couldn't name.
He had to stop it.
Abruptly, Abraham cut off the flow, his breath ragged as he forced himself to sever the connection. The fear dissipated quickly, but the aftershock left him reeling. It was overwhelming—too much to control.
Needing a distraction, Abraham looked up, and instinctively, he willed his body to rise again, lifting off the ground without thinking. His legs curled beneath him, as if his body were naturally becoming lighter once more.
He hovered several feet above the ground, this time focusing his thoughts on the space around him. Slowly, he began to alter the gravity of nearby objects, watching as a distant soda can levitated, hovering mid-air before he sent it crashing to the ground with a flick of his wrist.
Everything felt unstable. His mind was still struggling to contain the surging powers within him, and it was becoming harder to focus.
The hunger gnawed at him again, sharper this time, more insistent. He couldn't ignore it. He couldn't ignore the urge to push further, to continue testing what he was capable of.
And yet... his instincts screamed for him to stop. His powers were wild, and he had barely begun to understand their nature.
There was so much he needed to learn. And so much he needed to control.
Abraham paused, staring at the empty street in front of him, his mind clouded with uncertainty and awe. He had only scratched the surface of what he was becoming, but already, the stakes were growing higher. His powers would be a blessing—or a curse. It was up to him to decide which. But for now, one thing was clear: he wasn't alone in this. And that terrifying, monstrous presence from before? It was only the beginning.
Whatever lay ahead, Abraham wasn't sure if he was ready. But it was too late to turn back now.
After the cafe encounter, Abraham's mind raced with both excitement and dread. The world felt… different now. There was a sense of weight, as if the air around him had thickened, almost as if it knew something he didn't. He tried to push aside the feeling, but it lingered, gnawing at the edges of his thoughts. As he walked down the busy street, he became acutely aware of the haze, that invisible barrier between what was real and what wasn't. It was as if the mundane world was cloaked in a shroud, and it was fraying at the edges.
He reached out instinctively, his fingers brushing against the metal frame of a nearby street sign. A tingling sensation ran through him, a pulse of energy that made his skin prickle. Without thinking, he focused. The sign vibrated, and the air around it shimmered slightly. The metal groaned, bending inward, as if it were nothing more than putty in his hands.
A car screeched to a halt as the street sign twisted in on itself, its solid shape warping into a new form. The sign shrank, its dimensions twisting in ways that shouldn't be possible, before it collapsed into an elongated, compact form, now no bigger than a soda can. The world seemed to ripple around him, but no one noticed. The crowd was oblivious to the quiet power that had shifted reality, even if just a little. The object in his hand was no longer just a sign—it was a testament to his control over the world around him. He let it drop, feeling the sensation recede.
His breath was shallow, his mind buzzing. He had done this. He had just manipulated the very fabric of something inanimate. His abilities were growing more tangible by the second, but with them came an uncertainty—how far could he push this power without causing something disastrous?
He moved forward, his hand now reaching out to other objects in his path. He willed the concrete beneath his feet to stretch, elongating it like taffy. The ground beneath him bulged and stretched, and his eyes widened in realization. The potential for destruction was limitless. One wrong move, and he could bring the entire street down.
But then, a new sensation struck him, colder than before. His breath hitched, and the air around him seemed to darken for a moment. He froze, looking around. Something was… watching. He couldn't see it, but he could feel it.
His mind began to flash with vivid images of the entities he had barely begun to understand—the supernatural things that existed just beyond the veil of his perception. His powers had already begun to attract their attention. The more he pushed himself, the more they would notice. He felt his stomach growl with hunger, a constant reminder of the toll his abilities took on him.
Despite the weight of his thoughts, he couldn't ignore the strange feeling—the sense that something powerful was just out of sight, hidden behind that fog between the worlds. His heart pounded. He was marked. The unseen forces in the world were waking up, and they were drawn to him.
"I'm not ready for this," he muttered under his breath, but he didn't have a choice. There was no going back now.