Ability

Darkness was everywhere. The world seemed to be made out of ink. There where neither stars nor planets visible in this space. Kalvin however, like he was in space ,was floating in place. There did not even seem to be gravity in this space.

If the world where he had previously been, contained his consciousness, this one contained his existence. Suddenly, a red mist entered the space. The mist,unlike how a normal gas would behave, did not spread out in all directions. It simply remained in one place, not even moving in the slightest.

Seeing the red mist, made Kalvin inexplicably happy. Usually, the surroundings turning black and all his senses alongside his body disappearing would worry him. This however felt natural. More natural even than when he was in his body. It was like this was how he was supposed to be.

Another feeling quickly came however. Emptiness. When observing the nothingness around him, he felt sad. Only when gazing at the mist did he feel slightly happy. This happiness however was quickly overwhelmed by the desolate feeling the void gave of.

He wanted to fill the entire void with the mist. This would make him happy. For a while he gazed at the mist, not knowing what to do now. It felt like he had been simply gazing at the mist for ages.

Then there was light. Kalvin opened his eyes to a red sky. Slowly the tranquility he had felt faded away from him and he realized what was currently going on.

"What the actual hell was that?"

is all Kalvin managed to utter after finally having regained his senses.

This is when he realized where he was.

"I am back."

Not much time has passed. Even though he was in that space for a long time, the fire did not seem to have spread much further than when he just killed the moth and absorbed the red mist.

"I wonder what that mist did to me."

Before it was time to wonder about such a thing, first Kal had to evade the fire that was slowly approaching him.

Since in this world there did not seem to be any fire fighters, if he was unlucky, the whole block would burn down.

While he had solved one problem, that being the moth, he had already created a new one.

So before he would be burned alive he would rather quickly leave the place.

Making his way away from the gas station and in the opposite direction from his home and the flames, he went in the direction of the hospital.

While previously with his injuries he felt exhausted after walking for too long, now he felt a bit more energetic. Even the wound, which had been bandaged with the pieces on his shirt, was giving of a tingling sensation.

Weirdly, it seemed to be healing at an accelerated pace.

"I would bet money, that the weird mist has something to do with this."

He was obviously right. Just like how the moth had healed its wing quicker than normally possible, he now was healing more quickly as well.

"If I got the power of regeneration from killing the moth, do I also have psychic powers now?"

Standing still, he concentrated on making a pebble he saw on the road fly.

He imagined the pebble to be floating, like how he had seen Characters in movies do it. However the pebble did not even move a millimeter.

"The moths ability also seemed to have only worked within a certain distance and increased in strength the closer it got."

Picking up the small stone and holding it right in front of his face, he once again focused in making it float in the air.

"Come on, please, please, having psychic powers would be so awesome."

As if the pebble had received his pleas, it actually began to move. Even if it was only very slightly, it did move.

"Oh my God. I did it. I F*cking did it. Holy sheeeeet."

"I am a psychic hahahahahahhah"

Kalvin was excited by this revelation. A lot excited.

"Now nothing shall stand in my way, I shall become unbeatable with my new power!!!"

Then a headache came.

"Ouch"

and the pebble fell on his palm.

"Damn, lifting a pebble sure has never felt this exhausting."

Kalvins newfound ability seemed to give him a headache when used for too long. Too long in this case being about two seconds of time.

The headache however faded just as quickly as it appeared.

"It seems like my ability comes with an extreme concentration as an requirement. Judging by what the moth was able to do, there is still some room to grow. As I remember though, the moth also somehow used its wings to exert its powers. Otherwise when I damaged its wings, it would not have fallen to the ground."

Recalling the moth once more, he once again realized how lucky he was to even be alive.

"One mistake and I would be dead. I truly got lucky. Had anything gone just slightly different, the moth would have one."

Not wanting to think on what might have happened anymore, as even the thought gave him shivers, he continued walking away from the gas station. While he was already far away, he would rather not take the chance.

After another ten minutes of walking, he stopped in his tracks.

"I think I should practice my ability."

Having resolved himself to training, he sat down on top of a car he found and started levitating the stone.

Almost half an hour had passed. While he was constantly levitating the rock and recovering from his mini migraines, the time he could hold the pebble in the air for did not seem to change at all.

Kalvin was not demotivated though. He had just discovered to hold supernatural ability's, so of course he would not quickly grow tired of using them.

A perceptive observer however would indeed notice, that from his first try up to this one, the time the pebble floated in the air seemed to have increased by about half a second.

Though it did not seem like much, if the moth, that had from the time of its birth up till now, trained its power in a similar way, were to see this improvement, it would probably question who of the two was the real monster.

Kalvin however knew none of that. All he did was lift the pebble and endure a small headache short after.

For him this action seemed to be strangely addictive.

All of a sudden, while Kalvin only had the pebble in his eyes, the scenery changed and instead of a pebble he now only saw an odd ceiling in front of him.

*Beeb beeb beeb beeb beeb*

Out of instinct, Kalvin hit the alarm clock on his left, causing it to stop releasing the annoying sound he loathed so much.

"So it was all just a dream?"

Honestly, Kalvin felt weird. He had just had the must exiting time in his life, jet all of it had just been a dream.

"I guess I finally understand how Saitama feels now."

Disappointed, Kalvin tried getting up. However, just when he wanted to push himself up however, he noticed a small wound on his right arm, that had slightly stung when he tried lifting himself up.

It was clear what this meant. Together with his torn clothes and his missing weapons, ther ewas only one possibility

"It was real."

He recalled everything that had happened that night with almost perfect clarity.

Unlike the dreams he usually had, he did not forget everything right after waking up.

"Does that mean..."

Immediately he rushed to find a sufficiently small object around his apartment, while putting the chairs and drawers he had used to block the doors aside.

Rummaging through a few drawers he found a small paper clip.

Concentrating on it like he had on the pebble previously, he concentrated on lifting the paper clip currently lying in his hands in the air.

Though it was slightly more difficult due to the different weights of both objects, the paper clip being a little bit heavier.

In the end, the paper clip still floated in the air though.

"Your a Wizard Kalvin",he quietly muttered while staring at the paper clip with fixation.

The second after however, the clip dropped into his palm again, the familiar feeling of a headache approaching him.

***

This morning was quite different from the others he had experienced the first half of the week.

First thing in the morning he had called in sick at his work. He explained that he had not slept well due to nightmares connected with the murders in his building. His Boss, being quite reasonable, accepted this excuse, netting Kalvin two days of free time.

While he had slightly exaggerated the trauma he had received from these murders, he still was mostly telling the truth, the only real lie being that he had not slept well.

In fact, contrary to what he had experienced in the dream, he had never slept better. He felt as if his mind and body had even grown stronger than before the sleep. This made it so, that he felt exceptionally fit after waking up. He did not even drink a coffee to properly wake up and get out of bed.

The actual reason he called in sick today was, that he would not be able to concentrate on his work today anyway. Instead he would use the next few days to experiment with his newfound ability and to get himself a new weapon for the next night.

While he did not know if he would meet a creature similar to the moth, preparation would always be beneficial for his chances of survival. It had helped him beat that nightmare moth and it would help him beat whatever else he would face in the future.

Today was full of plans for Kalvin and he would do his best to complete them accordingly to grow stronger, survive and maybe find out more about that different world he was pulled into.

Resolved, he pushed himself up from the table, where he had just made himself breakfast and a cup of coffee (just because he did not need it to wake up did not mean he did not love coffee.)

"Ouch, damn it"

His arm also still seemed to hurt, the tingling feeling having disappeared from it after leaving that world

"It seems my healing ability does not work on this side."

Guess I will also visit a doctor. Better make sure it does not get infected.

Still resolved but with slightly less force, he pushed himself up once more and

eft the building to pursue the goals he had set for the day.