2 With Power

"Where am I?" Jacob muttered, surprised at his surroundings. He sat in a meadow, among trees instead of bikes. He felt dried blood sticking to his hair, explaining the nasty headache that plagued him. Though, not even that could distract him from the wonder around him.

The meadow was gorgeous, more so than anything else Jacob had ever seen. The grass was a deep green, fluffy and comforting. The trees tall, their giant canopy stretching far into the distance. The clouds above were abundant and white, though he couldn't see the Sun from his little clearing.

"Anybody out here?" Jacob called, but apart from a few rustles in the trees, it went unanswered. His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he needed to get home for dinner soon. There was one problem with that, though. Where, exactly, was home?

Jacob reluctantly left the clearing. He had to figure out where he was and how Todd dragged him here. He found most forests ominous, but this one was a pleasant surprise. He found a few bunnies jumping around here and there, but they mostly left him alone. Sunlight streamed in from holes in the canopy, illuminating a path for him to follow.

He walked for hours, a testament to his recent running practice. It was only when the Sun started to set and the light started to dim that he felt his heart race. Nowhere near civilization and in the middle of the wilderness, Jacob was in a situation he found himself grossly unprepared for.

He climbed a shorter tree, resting on one of its thicker branches. Back against the trunk, he surveyed the ground for potential predators. Fortunately, he didn't see any from his arboreal refuge. That fact didn't do much to ease his racing heart.

"Dad always said that meditating helped him calm down," Jacob muttered to himself. Not a big believer in the practice himself, Jacob felt himself swallow his objections and begin to meditate as he imagined most people did. He imagined himself drawing in molecules of air, of the different gasses that made it. And then he watched them complete a circle around his body before being released back into the air.

Seconds turned into minutes, and minutes stretched into hours. Each moment was a struggle to focus on the motes flowing through his body. Before long, the moon was high in the sky, casting a silver glow. Jacob opened his eyes as he exhaled one final time, noticing as a breeze accompanied it.

"What the heck was that?" he wondered, having never experienced anything quite like it before.

He tried to recreate it. He took a breath and exhaled. Nothing happened.

Then he tried to imagine the molecules again, as he did when meditating. Now when he inhaled, a breeze brushed against his face. When he exhaled, the breeze reversed. That couldn't have been coincidental.

"No way…" Jacob breathed in wonder. He pictured the motes flowing away from him gently. A breeze rustled against the trees. And now he pushed them harder, creating a gale that ripped leaves from the trees around him and cast them to the forest floor. The act left him surprisingly tired, but exhaustion couldn't combat the grin on his face.

Jacob had made the wind move. Jacob had magic!