“Thermodynamics”

        The two agents exited the elevator and began looking for room number six-fourteen where the monk was recovering. It was still to be determined what his current condition was but the doctor that rang headquarters had concerns that required the kind of expertise that these two were known for.

Agent Tobias was seasoned in service, investigating medical paranormalities for over 30-years at this point, seeing the hand of mercy grant miracles to those fighting as well as the destruction of one’s humanity by the very devils they ran from their whole lives. He was not a doctor himself but his diagnosis was just as important when determining causes such as whether the black blood was from an oversaturated diet of iron or the result of an extra-dimensional being occupying their organs, filling their guts with byproducts of transdimensional travel.  The doctors didn’t know they were talking to someone with belief in the supernatural but there was a system in place that connected medical professionals and this branch of paranormal agents in the government who knew how to carry out their investigation without revealing true intentions.

The other Agent was a religious studies professor, Dr. Den Muratan, a man in his early forties that was still somewhat fresh to the live fieldwork after all the years of instructing in a university. He retired from teaching to pursue this new avenue but was very much still involved in his content area, assisting agents whenever there was evidence of religious intervention or people involved with dogmatic predispositions. He had familiarized himself in countless texts, attended tremendous amounts of worship services and came face to face with the most sacred of artifacts coveted by their protective holy-men.

The monk was silently waiting in a room down the hall, unaware of the incoming visit as he sat still and unconscious in a meditative position, legs crossed, palms open and resting on each of his knees. He was brought in by two followers who were the only other people in the room as they awaited to see what the doctors could do for the sleeping leader.

Agent Tobias knocked on the door and the door was opened a few seconds after without a word being said, by a woman who was of a very advanced age. Her eyes hardly opened at all as her skin sagged, clinging onto her skull as if by a thread. The other man in the room was a younger but still old gentleman, with long black hair that was braided behind his head and a beard that pointed in every direction as it ran down to his chest. His eyes wide and his pupils sharp as he looked down into the floor, not yet taking a glimpse of the two visitors.

“Good afternoon, I am Agent Tobias and this is Professor Muratan. We are here on behalf of the medical staff to gather some information about Mr. Lisaks here.”

The woman remained standing and stared at Agent Tobias intently, nodding her head to show her attention. The man moved his glance from the floor to the wall.

“It seems we have a bit of a peculiar case with your dear friend here. We’d like to ask some questions so that we may understand the situation directly before working with the doctors.”

“Are the doctors unable to find the cause of his condition?” The woman asked.

“They’re doing the best they can and would just like to be as prepared as possible in their evaluation. We are specialized in cases like this where the body is doing something not so typical.” Agent Tobias replied.

“Why is his condition so unordinary to you?” She continued.

“Well for one he remains in a seated position despite a loss of consciousness. What was he doing when this happened?”

“He was meditating, just as he does for hours unending each day.”

“What was the cause for the alarm for you to bring him here?”

“I told her not to. He has reached a level unlike we have seen before and we should be more patient.” The other man in the room had finally spoken, still not staring at the agents but cracking a wide smile.

“No! Something this time is not right. You felt it too. The shift.” She shouted at the man.

“Exactly. I felt it too and I've never felt more peaceful. Which is exactly why he shouldn’t have been brought here.” The man said, the smile still remaining.

        Professor Muratan had been carefully observing the two of them to determine exactly what branch of what religion they belong to. The doctor who reported the patient only theorized that he was a monk of sorts, coming from a distant location outside of the city and wearing clothes that indicated a monastic lifestyle of sorts. While looking at the sitting man of unknown religion, he observed his clothing, grooming and any indications of an allegiance to a faith. The so-called monk had long white hair with some evidence of balding from the hairline that had receded about four centimeters back. He had a beard just like the other man in the room but his was braided and tied together at the end with some animal-hide fabric. His clothes were simple and civilian, a t-shirt and workout pants that were both gray and worn to the point that they had faded several shades lighter. He wore no shoes and had no evidence of any tattoos on any of his exposed skin. The expression on his face was just like that of a sleeping person, mouth straight and slightly frowning, eyes closed and eyebrows tipping downwards.

        The old woman was also dressed in similar common garbs, appearing like a caring grandmother who spent her time on busy chores rather than self-care but the smiling man was the one who stuck out as he donned a long, brown, fabric tunic that was oversized, going past his hips quite a bit. There was a notebook that could be seen sticking out from a large piece of fabric that was wrapped around his waste. He was also the only one of the three to not be barefoot, wearing leather strapped sandals on his callused and dry feet. It was hard to gauge from any of the three what exactly their religion was but it appeared more folk-like than organized worship. The agents would reserve judgement until further details were known.

        “I’d like to ask about his meditation practices. Do they ever alter the way he behaves?” The professor asked, looking at the smiling man.

        “No, he remains silent throughout. In our studies, we have been taught how to balance the wave-like nature of the energy around us so that we may drift into the system that surrounds us all.” The woman replied, the smiling man not paying attention to the agent anymore.

        “The system?”

        “Yes. Everything.”
        “Is there anyone he’s trying to contact?”

        “No, that is not what we do. Are you a religious man?”

        “Somewhat.”

        “I see. These are not medical questions. Are you two medical doctors?”

        “We are not doctors but we are experts in assisting doctors.” Agent Tobias had cut in. “We want to understand the events that led to him being in this state. The doctors have informed us that his vitals are ordinary and no cause for alarm. There is hardly any trail to follow so far so we are here to determine a potential event that began this trance-like state.”

“I understand,” she laughed, “Just curious.”

She continued to explain what she knew, “I myself am not too worried that our beloved teacher Lisaks is going to die soon. Can you understand that I have a gut feeling that he has never felt more alive? Even in this state. Everyday, we continue our pursuit of sharing the balance. I don’t know how many gods, if any, are in your religion professor, but don’t they feel infinitely far away? That’s what we call the balance, the distance that keeps us humans from interacting with the rest of the universe. We are living beings that have tipped the scale so far against ourselves that the original feelings of survival are far away. If you are a result of a divine creator, then why is it so hard to feel their touch? Why is faith a difficult battle? It’s been our sacred task to open the balance and let it shift us back towards our original forms. To understand just how far we have moved from where we belong.”

“Do you have any idea what assimilating with this balance will look like? Could this be it? Have you tried to wake him up?”The professor asked.

“Yes, go shake the hand of god and let man rip you away, ha!” The smiling man said with a singular breathy laugh at the end.

“What? I just meant to shake him, to see what’d happen.” Agent Tobias asked the smiling man. He finally turned to Agent Tobias and looked him right in the eyes.

“So then shake him,” he said, smirking ear to ear.

“Minus, stop it. What if this is it? I have followed Lisaks for sixty years so far but we have never known what reaching the balance looks like. That’s why we came here. There’s got to be something that shows whether he is here still, physically as a man, or if he has balanced himself into the system.”

The two agents walked towards the sitting monk, Professor Muratan looking back to the woman as she nodded in approval. They began to whisper their thoughts on the situation so far.

“What’re you thinking kid?” Agent Tobias asked.

“It seems they are in pursuit of a refined state of being such as nirvana. It’s possible he has snapped into a coma-like state but the brain somehow retains enough activity to remain in this position.” The professor replied.

“Self-hypnosis maybe?”

“Doubt it. Doesn’t sound like there was any catalyst to force a hypnotic state. ” The professor's eyes nearly darted to see if the man named Minus was staring at him.

“Have you ever read any stories about someone actually reaching nirvana?”

“There are countless unverified testimonies, none in the last hundred years or so but a few of them have stuck with me as potentially evidence of something at least. The one that kept me up at night for a while was the woman of Galvladi, whose death resulted in a mass revitalization of the agricultural output of her village. Rumor has it that she was a medicine woman and spiritual guide for the hillside village. Storms would saturate the fruitless soil with water until they brought on a landslide that would destroy their homes. They felt a powerful connection to the mountain where they resided, never leaving despite the troubles that came. After a particular catastrophic season, the woman decided to dedicate her spirit to the soil, digging a hole in the ground and sitting there in meditation until life returned to the ground. She sat there without eating for nearly a month, it’s said, entering an ascended state of concentration that somehow delayed dying. But eventually she did die. She fell over from her sitting position and collapsed to the ground. The stories say that not a moment later, the crops that had been planted and failed to sprout had begun to rise from the soil at last. Trees that leaned downwards from weak roots had formed new grips in the dirts, leaves growing from every branch. Grass, flowers, vegetables, fruits, they all erupted and provided a bountiful harvest that would be unending for years to come. No more droughts, no more famines, no more landslides as the vegetation had compacted the soil enough to withstand the storms.”
        “And you believe any of that?” Agent Tobias protested.

“Can’t help but be curious. I visited the village myself and saw her statue, one that supposedly none of them built. They say it’s her body, turned to stone as she served her purpose in bridging the gap to this world.”

“It wouldn’t be wise to try to crack off a piece of that for a sample. Does it sound like the system she’s talking about? It seems like thermodynamics but there’s the problem of conservation. If that story is true, some source of energy is not accounted for that provides the input.”

“I agree. No reason to speculate or give credibility to the theory at the moment”

“Yeah, no stone statue yet. Our guy must not be all the way there yet if he is reaching paradise.”

“I wonder, the Galvadi woman spent a month in meditation. If he’s in the process, the energy could be accumulating from another plane. If that’s the case, then he would be acting like a dam, allowing this ‘balance’ to match the wave patterns of this life before he can seep out.”

“I say we try to wake him up then. If he doesn’t, tell the doctor to send them back home and let us watch him back where they came from.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I’ll tell you over lunch.”

The two agents excused themselves from the room, telling the woman and Minus that they would be conferencing with the doctors to devise a test that might wake up teacher Lisaks. The woman nodded with dim confidence while Minus continued that same uneasy smile, closing his eyes and leaning back into the hospital chair.

The agents met up with one of the doctors that had so far spent the most time with the monk and listened to the unremarkable medical results. Blood pressure, white cells, oxygen level, all of it seemed to be totally normal for a man of his age.

“How old is he anyways?” Agent Tobias asked the doctor.

“Well here’s the thing. None of them have IDs but they gave us their full government names. They seem to be very off the radar with little information but if we are to believe the birth record that we found of Lisaks Summerzasen then he’s one hundred and eight years old.” The doctor said.

“Hmph, he’s old as hell, that’s for sure, but there’s no way.” Agent Tobias protested.

“That’s what the paperwork says.”

“Who knows. He could’ve been born in a barn for all I know. Professor, look all three of them up real quick and see what you can find.” He slid the papers that the doctor had collected their information on.

“So did you find anything interesting during your examination?” The doctor asked.

“Not really. I think that smiley bastard needs a psychology examination though.”

“It was very odd when they came in. That old woman had the old man on her back, tied to her like he was a sack of rice. They just dropped him on the floor, still in that sitting position.”

“Did you try to move his arms?”

“Yeah but there was resistance as if he was holding back. He’s so frail so I don’t want to forcefully adjust him. Especially when he’s a medical anomaly. A few other doctors have come by to take notes and pictures. I think we might be publishing a paper whenever we find out what’s going on.”

“If it’s interesting. Might be something boring after all is said and done.”

“That would surprise me. Then again, nothing ordinary has happened today.”

“Something else happened besides the old man?”Tobias eyebrow raised.

“Nothing as fascinating but just several surprises. Good ones actually. Patients on the brink of succumbing to their injuries or diseases are somehow making remarkable recoveries. Two separate patients were in last rites protocols with the preachers on duty but somehow are pushing through. I even heard about Dr. Morrison’s patient in emergency surgery, a gunshot victim with three bullets in his abdomen. He came in with so much blood already lost, he shouldn’t have made it but as we began the blood transfusion, his body had already been clotting in ways that slowed the bleeding down to unnatural levels. I mean it’s technically possible but was just statistically unlikely.”

“Count your blessings. Sounds like this hospital has been touched by the hands of god today. You should get back in there while the iron is still hot.”

“Ha, maybe you’re right. I’ve called one of the other doctors to come speak with you about their thoughts too. I’ll get back to work for the time being.”

“Sure thing, take it easy doc.”

The doctor walked away, taking a long sip of his coffee before tossing the paper cup into the trash bin. Agent Tobias looked at the professor, their expressions nearly mirroring one another.

“Hands of god indeed. So did you find anything about this sweet little congregation?” Agent Tobias asked.

“Well I confirmed the monk's birthday and found one old newspaper article that’s been scanned into the town’s library archive. When he was in his twenties, he retreated into a cave and openly invited anyone who wanted to learn his meditation practices to come join him. He was more or less seen as a kooky, harmless spiritualist.”

“I guess he stuck with it all these later. We have plenty of records of old people that put up a fight against the aging process but never really find anything concrete. I think we can try to squeeze out some of his secrets if he wakes up.”

“Should we really bother with waking him up? Monitoring him back at his home actually sounded like a pretty solid idea.”

“No telling how long it’d actually take. We could be stuck in there with those folks for days, that smile included. At least here if we do something then he’s hooked up to machines that will give us any signs of trouble.”

“Let’s do so before the doctors come back, just in case we have something extracurricular that happens.”

“Don’t count on it. These things typically end with a surprise pants shitting and nothing else.”

“If you say so. I guess all my days with you so far haven’t really shown me much yet.”

“Patience. We have to see all the leads to their end. The weird days I've had when something truly paranormal appeared often made me wish for the boring dead ends.”

Agent Tobias informed the professor of how he intended to wake up the monk, both agreeing that the plan sounded fairly reasonable. They walked into the room, now only occupied by the monk and the old woman, whose name the professor had confirmed through the doctor to be Ahyoka.

“Hello again, is it just you now?” Agent Tobias asked.

“Yes, my partner Minus does not do well in the city. He has gone back to our home to await the result.” She informed the two of them.

“That so? We heard you brought him here yourself, that’s a pretty impressive feat.”

“We train our mind and the body follows. It wasn’t too much.”

“Well we have a plan that we’d like to try if you’re okay with it,” Agent Tobias began to explain, “I have with me an EMF emitting device, it produces electromagnetic force that is. If he truly assimilates with some type of energy field, then my plan is to introduce some dissonance that might cause enough interference to snap him out of this trance.”

“Couldn’t we just wait here until he wakes up by his accord?”

“He can only go so long without eating. It’s possible that he’s gone too far and has unintentionally locked himself in a trance. This is a harmless nudge.” The professor said.

“Or he has achieved his goal of total balance.” She proposed.

“If that’s the case, then my device is pointless. If he has drawn enough energy that he can stay amongst the massive field that dictates life around us, then we stand no chance. Think of it as just another test.”

She hesitated several minutes, deep in thought without saying a word to either of them. Agent Tobias was an experienced paranormal investigator and these simple tests were enough to debunk any hoaxes as well as confirm true spiritual anomalies. At this point, there was no doubt there was at least something unusual about the situation. Agent Tobias downplayed the potential scenarios that he really had in mind but he had to keep Professor Muratan grounded. He was still new to the field and the excitement that comes with speculation can cloud someone’s judgement.

But Tobias did begin to feel tingling in his limbs just thinking about what if the hospital’s lucky streak with patients was directly correlated with the revival of a monk blending into a nirvana like state. The department hardly ever has successful research related to the afterlife or spiritual entities other than pestering poltergeists or flickering flashes that result from leftover brain activity. He’d get his name in the books certainly if this man hidden in a cave ended up being the next spiritual great.

At last, Ahyoka gave her answer to the two. “Do as you must. I will begin my own meditation to see if I can detect changes of note in the system.”

“Thank you for your trust, ma’am. Let’s begin.”

The dial on the device was turned slowly by Tobias, one notch at a time to let the increase in EMF frequency rise gradually. The professor looked on as Ahsoka sat in an identical position to the Lisaks. There were no sparks in the air or magical lights glowing, just the silent movement of waves in the air from the box in Tobias’s hand to the area where the monk sat still. Still the frequencies rose, looking to cause any gap in concentration of the monk so that he would finally awaken from his intense meditation.

Ahsoka, from her sitting position on the floor, slumped over on her side and began to cough. The two agents turned to look at her as she reached her hands around her throat and coughed more intensely. Blood and spit began to fall on the floor and she began to speak.

“...” she tried to speak while fighting through the fluids rising from her throat. “I’m…not compatible…”

The professor ran to her side to help sit her and yelled for a doctor. Her face began to swell and her body convulsed with ugly twists and turns. The professor called out to her to get her to try and stay still but as she looked him in the face, her eyes slowly rolled backwards and she finally came to a stop.

“I’ve turned it off. There’s no way this device should have affected her. It’s focused solely on him.” Tobias said to the professor.

“Yeah but she was focusing on him. Did she tap into something?” The professor replied with trembling in his voice. “You don’t feel that Tobias?”

“Feel what?”

“That shift in the air? It feels like we’re in a totally different room.”

“You’re freaking yourself out. I need you to come back down, ground yourself.”

“No, this feels so heavy. How do you not feel that?”

“Oh god, what is happening to his face? Shit, I’m starting to sweat.” Tobias looked at the face of the monk, wiping the sweat off of his brow as the stress from the situation finally took hold.

The monk remained still as could be but the skin on his face began to puff around his eye sockets and below his mouth and down to his neck. Tobias ran his hands over his arms, feeling the goosebumps rising and beginning to sweat profusely.

“Hey I think I feel it too. I think he might be waking up.” Tobias said.

“Yeah, it feels like the air is going to be too hard to breathe soon. What could’ve changed?”

“If he is really in a state of harmony with this so-called ‘balance’ and she tried to tap into his field, then does that mean an incompatibility ends…like that?”

“Maybe your device snapped him out of it?”

“No way, it’s meant to knock off petty possessions or annoy hoaxers that are playing dead but like I said, if he’s really locked in with the force she claimed he was trying to reach, there’s no way I could have done a damn thing! Where’s a doctor anyways?!” Tobias began to shout as he walked over to the door and threw it open until it collided with the wall.

The hospital had begun to stir as nurses and doctors rushed to tend to patients that were not so lucky as the ones that the doctor had described earlier. There were nurses doing compressions or using defibrillators on patients in several of the rooms. Even walking out of the room, the pressure that Tobias felt in the air could now be felt here as well.

“Hey Professor, how do you think the story ends with the woman in the village if there’s no soil around her? Where does the energy go?” Tobias asked.

“Well nature is a superconductor of spiritual energy. There’s no resistance.”

“And humans in concrete buildings?”

“There’s evidence of humans that can conduct and transmute spiritual energy to some degree but that’s less than one percent of everyone on the planet. Elite martial artists, generational scientists, dedicated spiritualists and genetically gifted freaks of nature. People are so in tune with their body or biology that the waves achieve superposition.”

“How many of those folks do you think are in here?”

“Unless you’re hiding something wonderful from me, I’d say just one.” The two men looked back into room six-fourteen

They walked back in and gazed upon the expanding monk as his sitting position had finally begun to change. His wrinkled skin was now smooth as it expanded around his limbs and puffed like a grotesque inflated flesh balloon. His once closed eyes were forced open, the inner force in his body pushing outwards.

“It’s probably pointless but we should warn them.” The professor suggested.

“Was I wrong to try to wake him? All these years, I’ve only found scraps. Why does it feel like we’re standing at the feet of a sun?”

“Cities are filled with life but restricted humanity. This place probably never stood a chance at integrating with the energy he’s holding inside.”

The skin on Lisaks body had begun to tear and rip off of his body, floating in the air in suspended motion as each piece of flesh drifted into the air.

“So in nature, the balance brings life to the dead.” Agent Tobias said.

“And in cities, the living are in the way of nature’s course.” Professor Muratan.

“Welcome to the compost pile.” Tobias placed a hand on the professor’s shoulder.

They took one last look at each other and faded away, the blast from the inside of room six-fourteen washing away their bones, muscles and flesh into nothingness.

Room by room, floor by floor, the hospital was erased by the radiant flow of energy that was roaring out of the remains of the old man. All those inside the hospitals, patients, doctors, family members and friends, had no indication of the raging blast that would come and go, taking their lives before they could realize what was happening.

Those outside of the hospital were no safer. The shockwave moved past the wall with ease, sending massive chunks of steel and cement into neighboring structures and the busy streets as cars crashed into each other to unsuccessfully dodge the raining rubble. The circumference of the blast covered nearly the entire block, consuming all the main structures of the hospital, two convenience stores, a lumber provider and a truck dealership. People walking the city sidewalks were victims of the balance just as well, merely touching the light resulted in total deconstruction, down to the atoms of their inner intestines.

An amalgamation of dirt, concrete, wood and blood suspended in the air in a gnarly cloud, a ghost of the all mayhem that signaled the finality of the devastation. From the ground, blades of grass began to sprout through the asphalt and gravel, showing signs of new life that would replace the old.

Out of all the life that was erased from moments ago, two sandal clad feet remained on the edge of the blast radius. Minus had stood in the face of the eruption, staring forward with his hands behind his back, hair blown out of the braids that had bound them before. His premature exit from the hospital gave him the position he wished for to witness the final moments of his teacher’s existence, appreciating the culmination of all Lisak’s preparation to become part of the balance.

Their philosophies differed however, Lisak surrendering his physical form to join the collective while Minus sought to be the hand that moved the pieces, bringing balance to the world sooner than later. In his eyes, humanity’s self destructive behaviors accelerated their fate but it would be decades to come before the final breaths were taken. Once the planet was freed from their dominance, nature would return and eventually evolution would bring about a new world order. One different from the reserved madness that Minus saw today with all primitive intuition ignored and withheld in the name of subservience and mandatory social contracts.

Now he had drank from the cup of the balance, letting the waves of the blast assimilate into his spiritual DNA by proximity. Lisak was a reservoir that had reached capacity and had to spill but Minus wouldn’t let the energy become saturated now that he could feel it forcefully moving inside his body. The balance would flow from his flesh and reshape the world as it saw fit. He may not be the designer but the messenger would be playing its part.

The sirens rang throughout the now empty streets. Cries for help would soon fill the air as people came back into consciousness. The agency that had sent Tobias and Muratan to investigate a mysterious medical case would have more questions than answers, confirming they were right to investigate but now burdened by their failure to prevent a disaster.

When discussing what information to leak to the press, a historically large and undetected gas leak was all they could come up with. Plenty of people would rightly question the validity of the report but the only person who truly understood what had happened was already back in the cave where he had been everyday for all the years before. It was back in this cavernous temple where he had mastered all of his meditation techniques before that he would soon craft new techniques that could begin a great reshaping. The smiling man never stopped smiling and soon, the rest of the world would smile even less.