A Short Walk Across Eternity

Breathing is so important.

I've only done this a few times before, and the first time I pulled this off I found myself at the bottom of a pool. Coughing up chlorine for a minute, and sneezing out the rest over time. The trip was short though, whipping back home once my sinuses stopped burning. Still learning the ropes of this nee ability of mine, and you would thinking being able to teleport would be easy.

"Just think of a place and go." I always thought from reading comics, and new age websites. The sites would say 'Visualize' or something hippie like that.

But that's not how this works. Kind of, in short distances it works exactly like that. In fact, how I figured out my ability was just really wanting to cross a street. Claire was there, and I had decided to spill my teenage emotions into asking her out. I was so excited, so ready, my heart thumped in my ears, thighs clenched to move, fist balled up in resolve, her face becoming my only singular focus and then it happened. The four lanes of street between us became a few inches from her face. The screaming happened immediately, not from her but from me as the stop sign next her had gained my right ring and pinky finger. First lesson I learned, I can teleport into things and things will usual pull parts of me out. Second lesson, once I teleport, I whip back to where I started after a couple of minutes.

The first time I teleported a long distance though, I was my first year in college. After the hospital stay, I didn't try out my ability again for years. I had a habit of missing classes a lot and was about to fail out of intro to Psychology, which would boot me back home. So I tried again, visualize the room I wanted to be, I had my clothes on, and books ready. The class was across town but I thought all I need was to see it. to focus on it.

I dropped in, ten feet above the pool and crashing into the water with startled gasp. I did it, sort of, you see what new age hippie and comic book writers forget is that the Earth moves. Nothing is really in it's same place, and though my ability can help me adjust, the more space in between me and my destination, the less precise I am. For the next weeks I lock myself in the library of the college. Geometry and physics were never my strong suit but now they seemed necessary. I questioned professors, online forums, and even other students on everything I could.

Let me tell you, testing out thermos is a lot easier when you can physically do them. Though I only did a few tests, I could reach further and further out. I think my record is Ghana. Each teleport though whipped me back, the further out I went the quicker the whip back, and the harder I felt it. In fact, the Ghana trip almost knocked me out. Although as I was whipped back I saw a glimpse of something, it wasn't clear but I believe this is the space I've been traveling to When I teleport.

I wondered why the whip back was happening, I asked around again. Of course not saying that I was teleporting from California to Ghana, but using using the formula as an expression of particle movement through medium.

"I would suspect you're now hitting dark matter, based on what you've done here." My professor mused over my work, "But is everything okay Vince? You're grades are...well incredible. But your friends haven't seen you after class. You just seem to disappear. In fact, have you been eating lately? You've lost a lot of weight."

"Oh, of course. Yeah. I've just had a big project I'm working on. And I'm glad that you noticed the weight, I've been trying out Keto diet." I deflect the best way I can. Patting what used to be my beer gut, though I had lost more than I thought. "Speaking of, I got to head out and finish up work for tomorrow."

Rushing out of the classroom I knew what I had to do next. Dark matter, a binding and mysterious force in our universe, the stuff that keeps galaxies from falling apart. That's what I've been traveling through, that's what's been pulling me back, and I saw it! So I can travel to it.

I need a suit, just because I can travel through the dark matter, doesn't mean I can stay there. Duct taping together my roommates work gloves to a jacket and sealing up his motorcycle helmet, I hope the limit air will be enough before the whip back. Standing in the middle of my apartment, I take a deep breath, and focus on that one fleeting image I saw. One last trip, one last test. Finally I feel a hard lurch at the base of my back yank me forward.

Breaking through the world is an amazingly scary thing. I float in the middle of what I can only describe as fractal fluids. Each billowing, breaking and reforming tightly as they radiate and absorb colors. Light jaggedly dancing at odd angles in-between floating fissures, monolithic in shapes as they shift and contort. All of this engulfing me, the suit doing what I could only call dissolving as it blended itself with my surroundings. The helmet giving way to this realm of dark matter as I held my breathe. Ignoring how my body felt like frozen honey, both solid yet malleable as my bones bend and wound themselves in different directions. My lungs unsure of how much oxygen was left in them as they twisted themselves endlessly as I floated.

I hoped the whip back would take me home, but it never did. My eyes looking out to the fracturing and fluid rainbow abyss in front of me. It was hauntingly beautiful. I try to hold my breath for as long as I can, my ability offering me one more gift as I started to focus and my body returned to its nature sate. But now I float, naked and alone in this wonderous void, clutching tightly to the remaining oxygen I stole from earth.

Breathing is so important.