Chapter 10 - “Circular Roots: Part 2”

Towards the end of his childhood, as he was beginning his teenage years, Kenneth had often been bothered by night terrors and suffered bouts of sleep paralysis. He blamed his stressful upbringing, with his father’s brutal schedule keeping him in survival mode at all times. He was away from his family for months at a time, under the supervision of a diverse cast of specialized instructors that would guide him through formative experiences. His father was grooming a successor that would take the proud family name and push it even further than he could. In his childhood years, Kenneth feared the day would come sooner than he was prepared for due to his father's battle while chronically ill but in recent years, Edward was revitalized and appeared to become more refined with age.

Kenneth finally asked his father about his trouble sleeping and a visit to a specialist was scheduled. There, he underwent a series of tests and sleep studies that ultimately resulted inconclusively. There were abnormal neurological patterns during his sleep cycles, indicating more intense REM cycles than what they typically see but this was not a particular concern from a medical perspective. Edward’s studying of the metaphysical had continued after his brush with the white phantom so many years ago and although he was tempted to ask for assistance once again for the sake of his son, he preferred to give the decision to his son when he was mature enough to decide. This was not out of affection for his son but instead arose from  a fear of spoiling the product that he had carefully but rigorously taken care of all these years.

Edward was unaware, however, that these nighttime challenges were already one foot forward into his son’s journey of acclimating with unnatural, parallel worlds. While Edward was guided hand in hand by a trained professional, his son was exposed by the proximity of his father’s actions, accumulating strange wave patterns that were engrained in his spiritual signature. Kenneth too was unaware of how involved he truly was, with most disturbances logically considered to be part of a dream sequence. It was only when these visions became too tangible to deny that he began to wonder what exactly was becoming of his life.

On one of the occasions, he had awoken with his body paralyzed and only his eyes able to move. From each pore on his body, a gray liquid began to seep out, forming small streams that collected near his feet. The puddle began to take shape and began to form a lump tower, legs-like limbs protruding first as stumps and then walking with a stride; it collapsed in a splash, reforming the shape again and again. It walked over to the edge of the room and twitched wildly as its form finally began to lock into a humanoid configuration. It turned to Kenneth and stared at him with glazed over makeshift eyes that had trouble maintaining their position on the face. Slowly, it began walking towards him but he was unable to react other than stare. It placed its now shimmering silvery hand on his chest and the frame of its body disintegrated into streams of liquid once again, pouring straight into the very pores that birthed it moments ago, until nothing was left. Immediately after it was gone, Kenneth was able to stand as he shot up from his band, jumped to the side and ran his hands over his skin. Nothing remained of the visitor yet it still remained inside.

Kenneth was still too young to grapple with the conflict inside of him but he feared the response that might come from his father if he was aware. His father had put him through so much when everything was perfect; he could only imagine what he might be put through in search of a solution for something as bizarre as his private battle. But even on his own, there was a powerful confidence instilled inside of Kenneth from all the preparations he had already gone through over the years. He recalled the time he spent in the wilderness or amongst monks or under the instruction of academics, focusing one's thoughts in meditation was a common thread between all the disciplines. So he sat in his room before bed and focused his mind, knowing there was a lurking presence somewhere inside that was capable of rendering him immobile. The fear had to be confronted head on and he searched his body, thinking about his arm and flexing the muscles one by one in a controlled manner, waiting for an irregular response. Kenneth did this for months, only occasionally having brief bouts with night terrors and sleep paralysis, still awaiting the return of the liquefied ghoul.

While completing his nightly routine one evening, he entered into a more deep state of meditation than he had previously achieved. It was as if he had slipped into a new plane submerged somewhere inside his mind. He looked outwards with a new pair of eyes. Every inch of the room had a fuzzy texture and the colors shined with saturated tones. Kenneth looked down to his stomach to get a glimpse of what he himself looked like with this new type of vision but where his skin should be was a shining light that radiated like a star in the sky. He brought his hand to feel the light, touching nothing solid at all.

Kenneth continued to try to grab some part of his ethereal body but was unable to find corporeal flesh. Upon further inspection, while pulling his hand away, there was a black slime that stuck to his hand. The blackness of the ooze was so dark that it felt like he would be sucked into it if he gazed at it for too long. He reached in again and again, scooping more of this ooze and flinging it off on the floor in front of him. Just like the liquid being had done before on that most terrifying night, the slime began to coagulate into a humanoid shape, forming a torso, then limbs and finally a head. It appeared to be the same creature from before but a different color in this plane of existence.

Kenneth was able to stand in his illuminated form and confronted the spectre; it stood at least a meter above the boy, absorbing the light of the room with its befouled body. It moved closer and leaned down to be face to face but Kenneth slammed his forehead into the creature’s, pushing back against the procession. It moved to grab both of his arms and again he rebelled, placing his hands on the beings chest and pushing with all of his might. His hands moved right through the body and the liquid solidified, binding Kenneth’s arm inside. The creature then vomited a fluid that was the same color as its body on top of the boy's head. Still he fought back.

Kenneth tried with all of his might to lift up the swampy beast, moving it a few inches above the ground and then turning his shoulder to drive it back down to the surface with a powerful slam. It splattered into a large puddle, finally freeing Kenneth’s arms in the process and revealing a pulsating piece of meat, the only solid piece that remained. He leaned down to pick it up and once in his hand, the fleshy object began to burn from the light that surrounded it. The puddle on the floor began to boil and turn to vapor that returned to Kenneth’s body, such as the liquid did once before. The vapor covered his body until the light was no longer visible and he opened his eyes. Despite the feeling of having his eyes open the whole time during the confrontation, now he saw the room as it had always appeared to him. He covered his real eyes with hands and then his body, to confirm his humanity once again.

At first, he was unable to feel any different and questioned whether this vision was just a hallucination but the next time he meditated his way into that same trance, he began to cast the slime voluntarily from his body, it no longer moved independently. Using his mind, he could manipulate into a humanoid form once more and then instruct it on where to move about the room. With enough practice, he was able to freely move into this state of mind rather quickly and could improve his piloting of this strange vessel.

He attempted to create the vessel while conscious and in his physical flesh and bones but was unable to produce the same results, relying purely on the meditative method to conjure this extension of his body. He learned that he could even make the figure walk outside of the room and was able to see through its eyes so that he could navigate the rest of the house. The final test was to see what it appeared to be to other people, if they could see it all without being in Kenneth’s special trance. He walked the shadowy vessel into the hallways and down into the kitchen where his father’s private cooking staff would be prepping food for the next day. He peeked around corners but no one seemed to feel that they were being watched. Then he walked through the doors and into the room where four of the staff stood. He reached out and touched the shoulder of the staff member who then stood up and brushed off their shoulder, looking around the room for a perpetrator.

“Is there a draft in here?” The staff member asked.

“Nah, I don’t feel anything.” Another staff member replied.

“I swear something just touched.”

“It’s been a long day. Let’s hurry up and get the hell out of here. I’m beat.”

Kenneth stayed vigilant in his practice over the next couple of years, reading more into concepts of the paranormals by studying reported ghost sightings and possessions as well as looking into religious interpretations of life and after death. This was one area where his father had not prepared him; Edward focused his son’s time on real world applications and hadn’t yet admitted to any of past experiences. Kenneth was not certain whether or not his father believed in the supernatural but he would find out himself in due time.

In his room, now at age fourteen, he was able to create his apparition in a matter of seconds and this time sent it crawling on the walls and into his father’s study where he was seated by the fireplace, drinking from a glass of whiskey to end the evening. Immediately upon entering, his father’s head had turned, sensing the disturbance of spiritual energy in the room but returned to reading a book, brushing off whatever had come into his personal space. Kenneth’s puppet inched closer and then dropped onto the floor, his father once again taking his eyes off of his book briefly. The puppet then walked right behind his father with Kenneth prepared to dissolve it the instant that he was found out but he was desperate to test his father's perception. He placed the puppet’s hand on his father’s shoulder, which then was immediately grabbed and thrown off. Edward Darwinson stood up from the chair and looked right into the face of the puppet.

“Get out, right now.” Edward said sternly.

The puppet remained standing.

“I said get the hell out.” He began to shout, turning his head from side to side to look for the puppet’s exact location. He was able to sense its presence but was not able to see its shape. Kenneth began circling his father with the puppet, still Edward couldn’t pinpoint where exactly it was. He began to swing his fist in the air like he was swatting at mosquitos, hitting the puppet once in his mad and wild tantrum but unable to detain the strange entity stalking him.

“Get out of my house! I’m done with all of you! Leave my family alone!”

Kenneth retreated for a moment, grappling with the thought of his father including him in his concerns while shouting at an unknown threat. It wasn’t often that he felt the care of his father, only following his orders like he was the family soldier. He was so much closer with his mother, getting all his parental affection and support from her. When he looked at his father, appearing helpless for the first time since his terrible sickness so long ago, he felt ashamed for what he had done. Yet as easily as he began to empathize with the man who was helpless to defeat the interfering phantom, he couldn’t forget all the challenges he was forced to go through for the sake of his father. This was the one way that he could push his father back and get some satisfaction that he was not the only one being torn apart and rebuilt. He held out his hand, just as the silvery monster had done to him as a child and began to spread out the puppet’s liquid limbs into tiny wire-shaped streams that surrounded his father before phasing inside his body the same that had been done to him two years before. Kenneth let the puppet fully enter his father’s physical body, which then allowed him to sense another human’s spiritual wavelengths for the first time.

The vibrations of the puppet assimilated within his father’s, feeling so familiar as if they were his own. Yet there was a deeper presence still further into the spiritual network that felt odd to Kenneth. He focused all of his concentration on this alien energy and attempted to let it assimilate back into the puppets spiritual network so he could attempt to identify the source. From the moment that they intermingled, Kenneth began to feel afraid with the overwhelmingly negative force that he had seemed to tap into. The puppet’s body began to tense up and slowly disintegrated the longer that he concentrated on absorbing the wavelengths, finally deciding to end this experiment without seeing it to the end result.

Kenneth was conflicted about his father’s spiritual prowess as he showed awareness but remained helpless when face to face with his own son’s solidified spiritual energy in the puppet. Yet deep inside, a foreign seed with a sinister presence was sown into his very soul. This untapped source of energy would be his prey, becoming another step in Kenneth’s evolution.