Chapter 11 vision.
The X-ray ward unfolded in a wide breath. Its walls bore an austere, almost metallic shade of grey. Beneath, the tiled floors shone in uncompromising white, reflecting the glow of the rectangular light panels that lined the ceiling. The clinical brightness was made pronounced by the absence of anything in the wide space besides the large, imposing piece of equipment—undeniably the x-ray machine—which was apparently fixed to the wall. It stretched out like some pale, lifeless, mechanical beast. Its cold, smooth surfaces gleamed under the white lights. Along one wall stood a broad window pane, its glass faintly tinted and delicately speckled, catching and scattering the light in dull, fractured sparks.
To Robert, the room gave off a distinct scent that clung unpleasantly to his senses; a mix of rubber medical gloves... and misfortune.
The doctor silently motioned for Robert to recline on the narrow platform at the center of the machine. Robert's feet seemed heavier than they ought to have been as he stepped forward, shoulders slumped beneath the weight of apprehension. His gaze lingered on the contraption before him. This was uncharted territory for him—his first x-ray scan—and to him, the machine itself looked almost predatory. In his imagination, it was an insect on its back, with all six rigid legs suspended in the air and waiting patiently, ready to snap down at the slightest stimulus. Robert perched on the designated spot with visible reluctance, every movement measured and hesitant, as though he feared triggering some unseen mechanism. A storm of doubt flickered in his eyes.
Miss Greene caught the look and offered a small, encouraging smile.
"It'll be over before you know it," she murmured softly as she took two steps forward. Her hands rested briefly on his shoulders, warm against the chill that radiated from the equipment, and she gently eased him down onto the cool surface of the machine.
"But Miss..." Robert began, but she pressed a finger lightly to his lips.
"Don't speak. Everything is going to be okay," she whispered. Then, after casting a fleeting glance toward the doctor—one that carried more meaning than words—she slipped out of the room, the door closing with a muted click that seemed far louder in Robert's ears than it truly was.
Now alone with the doctor, the silence thickened.
The man moved toward the base of the machine and began adjusting dials and panels. "Relax Robert Manwell, this won't hurt a bit," he said, but Robert couldn't shake the feeling that this would hurt like the world was coming to an end. The machine had a coldness to it that seemed to penetrate Robert's clothes. He did not like the feeling one bit.
"Alright, remain perfectly still," Wizzlehette instructed. Once again, Robert caught that faint tremor in the doctor's voice. He looked down and watched as the doctor's eyes and hand darted back and forth restlessly as he worked, the sharpness of each movement betraying a tension he seemed unable to suppress.
Internally, Wizzlehette was battling with thoughts...
He lifted a hand and rubbed beneath his eye once more.
Williams, you heartless fiend. Sending an innocent child to what could very well be his death? What sort of lunatic arranges harm against a teenager?
Doctor Roy Wizzlehette may not be entirely certain, but he knew that for someone as cunning as Williams to blackmail him into performing this x-ray scan on this poor teen — using that damned recording as leverage (He had only been curious about the taste of human liver... purely for scientific purposes, of course!) — meant only one thing: this boy had to be magical in some capacity. Either a wizard himself, or someone whose body was infused with magical energy in some other way.
And what happens when you run high-energy radiation tech like an x-ray scanner over such a body?
Every wizard worth their sparkles knew the outcome, and it wasn't pretty. But Wizzlehette was backed into a corner. What was he supposed to do—throw away his career, reputation, and freedom for a boy he barely knew?
Tough luck, kid. You messed with someone even more depraved than I am!
The doctor pushed a button.
A low mechanical hum filled the room as the six sleek 'legs' of the machine began to bend over, inching slowly toward Robert's body. When the upper parts were three inches above, they halted. Then, from the underside of each limb, a bright white light ignited, bathing Robert in it's glow that seemed to eliminate shadow and depth alike.
"Lord Valmnar protect you." Wizzlehette muttered under his breath grimly, words barely audible.
On the platform, staring up at the mechanical arms close to his face, Robert seemed to be repeating a similar prayer.
————
Meanwhile, back at Solar Springs, inside the senior boy's dorm, Oliver sat rigidly on the edge of his bed, his posture completely still as though he were holding himself together by conscious effort. To any casual observer—though none of the students in the dormitory seemed inclined to pay him attention—he might have appeared relaxed. Yet a closer look would reveal the restless, almost unconscious movement of his right index finger tapping a slow, irregular rhythm against his knee.
He was bothered.
And he could not quite explain why.
Today, the opportunity had presented itself—convenient, easy, and neat; he'd been watching. Poison had attacked and provoked Williams. Predictably, Williams had gone to the principal, probably to report Robert, the anomaly possessing him, and what they had done.
While the teacher was on his way up the stairs to the principal's apartment, Xolomon hastily came up with the x-ray scheme and he'd carried the suggestion to Williams. It had seemed like the perfect chance to truly, truly harm Poison.
He'd gladly followed through with the scheme without a second thought, but now what was this gnawing sense of unrest coiling inside him?
It was persistent and intrusive, like a quiet voice refusing to be ignored.
Was he anxious because he was awaiting some sort of news confirming that it had been done; that Robert was dead or at least damaged badly enough to require lifelong hospitalization?
No... that wasn't it.
But when Oliver examined the thought more carefully, a realization he found most uncomfortable surfaced. In truth, he feared that outcome.
If Robert were to die, the ancestor-soul would simply abandon his body and seek out another descendant to possess. Robert himself wasn't the true target, the ancestor-soul inside him was. Whatever was going to happen if the whole plan went the way it was supposed to would almost certainly result in Robert's death, even if it wasn't immediate.
And if the boy actually died, it would mean that an innocent life had been traded for a goal that might have been achieved another way.
And he, Oliver, would carry that burden for the rest of his life.
His fingers gradually slowed, then stopped completely as the weight of the realization settled fully inside his mind.
This entire plan was deeply, fundamentally misguided.
Oliver pushed himself upright from the bed. "We should stop this, before it's late." He thought to Xolomon. "It's the ancestor-soul you're after, not the boy. This isn't right."
There was no verbal reply, but Oliver sensed the sharp spike of rage and hatred radiating from Xolomon's consciousness. It was a cold, vengeful fury that tightened around his head and chilled him to the core.
Then, without warning, Oliver's body instantly locked up—transforming entirely into an ice sculpture—and in the next breath, disintegrated into a thousand glittering ice particles. The particles swirled, forming a flurry that shot out towards the entrance.
Somehow, none of the students in the hostel saw that happen.
At the same moment, Tom and Zarie were stepping into the senior boys' dorm, engaged in conversation. A sudden gust of freezing wind brushed across their bodies, and then a swirling cloud of ice particles zipped past them, out of the dorm, into the external corridor and out of the blue building. The boys stopped in their tracks, eyes wide as they turned to watch the strange cloud of ice dust streak straight towards the teacher's lodge like a missile. Disbelief and alarm twisted their faces as they followed it with their eyes.
"Tee, did you just see that?" Zarie's gape mouth asked.
Tom nodded slowly, his face pale. "Yes I did, Zarie. Yes, I did." He instinctively reached out and grabbed Zarie's arm—needing the reassurance that what they'd just witnessed was real.
Eyes still fixed on the fading trail of frost, Zarie asked, "Magic?"
"Most likely."
"Whoa... imagine that. A shame principal Carve would cancel us if we include such a thing in the Tazers."
"True. But who says we can't tell 'em all in person?!"
The two boys exchanged a look and shared a grin.
------------
"Poison, you could just take over, beat the crap out of this doctor and get us out of here." It was only a casual thought, of course, but the idea tempted Robert more with each passing second.
But just as he began to imagine the scenario, another thought intruded—Miss Greene was probably standing somewhere just outside the room. He pictured the chaos of a sudden escape, the doctor overpowered, the machine damaged, and then Miss Greene walking in at the worst possible moment. What would she think if she saw him in the form of a giant Earth monster? What would anyone think? He would likely be treated as a dangerous anomaly, subjected to investigation, and forced to spend the rest of his life hiding and running.
"Robert, calm yourself." Poison's voice resonated smoothly in his mind, now carrying a slightly less solemn, almost relaxed tone meant to steady him. "We'll get through this. The outcome depends on how much radiation you're exposed to, and since you're not fused with magic energy the way a normal wizard might be, the effects might not be as severe as we expect it to be. Maybe we could regenerate afterwards. Maybe this x-ray machine wouldn't deliver so much radiation. Maybe..."
"I'm going to die, aren't I?" Robert interrupted quietly, the thought forming with a heavy sense of acceptance rather than fear.
"Don't say that, kid," Poison replied immediately. "We're going to get through this. We will."
Those words seemed to have an easing effect on Robert.
Poison added. "And if it turns out we can't handle it... well, I could always abandon your body and hop into your sister. Can't give up my mission cus you've gone coocoo or melted into an organic pulp, can I?" It seemed like an attempt at humor, but Robert could tell that he wasn't kidding.
Robert rolled his eyes with a deep sigh.
"Unbelievable," he thought, but was too sober to throw back a witty remark or scold Poison for his brazen selfishness. Instead, he surrendered to the situation with a muttered, "Well, if you say so." He closed his eyes and tried to steady his nerves. He quietly listened as the doctor fiddled with some button and adjusted a few dials.
He heard the man rub beneath his eyes once again.
Then with a sudden jerk, the doctor pulled down a lever.
And then...
Well, there was no then.
But the widening of the doctor's eyes as he stared at Robert certainty qualified as a then.
The very instant the lever was pulled, Robert's eyelids suddenly lit up, glowing with an array of colors — a medley of red, blue, and yellow — flickering and dancing behind his closed eyes. Wizzlehette froze, paralyzed by the sight. His speculation was correct; the boy did have magic in him! The doctor had anticipated a reaction—perhaps a dramatic twitch, or a brief howl of pain—but not this!
Snapping back into motion, Wizzlehette lunged for the machine's controls, frantically trying to shut it down. But even after he'd pushed the lever, the lights continued to dance behind Robert's eyelids. Panic seized the doctor's chest. He had no precedents for this. No protocol. No clue what was happening to Robert. In desperation, he shook Robert, hoping to snap him out of it, but the boy's body was rigid—muscles clenched with unnatural strength, jaws locked, posture straight and frozen like a statue. The doctor's hands trembled. He turned sharply toward the door, anxiety spiking at the thought of Greene—or anyone—walking in at that very moment.
Meanwhile, Robert's skull throbbed with such intensity he felt as though it might split open. A searing pain pulsed between his eyes, sharp and unbearable. With desperate effort, he forced his eyelids open, and what he saw stole his breath.
It wasn't a dream. It was like he was living a movie, but it wasn't any movie he had ever seen before. No, these were memories! And it felt real. Unsettlingly real. He was plunging into a reel of vivid memories, like he was being pulled back through a timeline of his own past, from some of his earliest memories to only a few days ago. He saw himself getting out of his mother's old car on that eventful first day at Solar Springs High School. Then, a shift, and he was singing to his younger sister—then a baby—to sleep on a couch in their living room. Another shift and he saw himself back in 9th grade, walking out of the school theatre with Dora, melted ice cream and quaffies in hand, as they discussed how plays seem to be better than movies. More kept coming.
It was all rushing past, like fragments of a forgotten life flung at him without pause.
But then, Robert felt something had changed, immediately noticing the memories he was witnessing now we're unfamiliar. He was watching scenes he thought were Poison's memories—scenes he couldn't understand. He saw an oddly familiar old man being struck by lightning. He saw mountainous waves and howling tornadoes. He saw fire and destruction; a guttural scream and a sudden burst of blue light.
"Am I dead?" he thought to himself as he kept sinking in this world of memory and visions.
But then he perceived change again.
A presence? No, a voice, or rather a force, like a whisper in his soul, drew his attention. He turned—if turning was the right word—and what he witnessed next, he definitely wouldn't forget for the rest of his life.
First, he saw, with abnormal clarity, Poison possessing his body the night he first heard the voice—a not-so-bizarre sight, a contrast to what he had imagined. The visions kept racing. He saw Xolomon, during their first brawl, hurling Poison' sand elemental form from the pond vicinity towards the hostel. He saw himself playing a board game with Oliver at their classroom. He saw a lightning being. He saw a black-haired teen transform into a monstrous fire elemental, its face warped with fury... wait, this one wasn't his memory, but the setting was in Solar Springs, therefore not one of Poison's ancient memories either. A hunch abruptly made him aware that this was yet to happen.
And there was another one; Robert saw a black-haired girl running through the air. He saw a horde of grotesque, beastly creatures charging. There were flashes of different lights, shadows, and faces he couldn't identify and then, he saw it...
Xolomon, a long, thin icicle in hand, thrust forward and stabbed a girl. The girl was Dora.
But at that point, everything turned black.
"No!" he whispered brokenly, but the visions did not end. Another scene erupted: a massive, winged creature tumbling from the sky, and as if fell, its form contorted and collapsed into Dora's.
Her voice echoed through the chaos he could perceive—ghostly, desperate.
"Robert!"
"Dora, no!" He cried out as he caught sight of the fire elemental falling after her. Its molten hand seized her by the ankle, and as it did so, a long object slipped from her grip, spiralling away. The elemental's flaming fist morphed into a blazing sword of fire and stabbed downward at... "No."
Robert's eyes snapped open.
"You're alive!" Wizzlehette gasp, completely taken aback. Robert bolted upright, chest heaving, and eyes wide with horror and utter confusion. Panic flickered across his face as his mind struggled to piece together where he was and what had just happened to him.
Wizzlehette, frozen for some seconds, quickly reached for the machine's controls, fumbling to shut it down, while glancing nervously at Robert who he was certain should not have been able to sit up—let alone be alive.
But this made no sense. How?!
The boy clearly had magic energy in him. The procedure should've ended in disaster. Robert was supposed to be dead. If not that, then at least reduced to a shell of himself—his flesh melted, his mind shattered, and his body irreversibly damaged. But neither of those seemed to have happened to the boy Doctor Wizzlehette was staring at now. No melting skin. No liquified organs. No signs of madness.
Wizzlehette stared in disbelief.
How could that be?
Robert's eyes, wide with panic and fury, immediately locked onto the doctor with searing intensity. Without pausing to think, he sprang up from the scanning platform in a sudden, explosive movement. In the same moment, he lunged forward and seized the doctor by the collar with a grip that felt impossibly strong, dragging him backward and slamming him against the nearest wall. The force of it nearly lifted the man off his feet!
"Tell me why you did this!" Robert's voice broke out in a strained, shaking bellow. His entire being — from his expression to his posture — trembling under a violent mix of anger, fear, and deep, overwhelming confusion.
The weight of everything he had just seen was crashing down on him all at once. His mind reeled with the vivid, overwhelming visions that had bombarded him during the scan, especially the later scenes—the ones he was certain were not memories. The machine, instead of trashing his mind or hurting him, had somehow caused him to experience something entirely different. A torrent of unnerving scenes. Now, it seemed he'd merely had a very vivid dream, but no, he couldn't deny that it had all been real... that they had all happened or were bound to.
Strangely, despite all mental turbulence, a part of Robert's mind was astonished to find that the x-ray scan had no effect on him physically. He could not detect any pain or injury.
But then, what was he doing now?
That other part of his consciousness stirred with confusion. He could feel the sharp pressure of rage and intense disorientation, accompanied by a restless, almost desperate need to obtain something he could not clearly name. For a moment, he had an abrupt flash of self-awareness.
He was grabbing the fabric of the doctor's coat and pinning him against the wall. But why was he doing this?
His mind quivered. A wave of blinding confusion.
He felt driven—compelled—by a singular, overwhelming urgency to get that thing.
But what was the thing? Infact, where was he? What was he doing? Why was he so angry? What was happening?!
"I was just... I was just doing my job," Doctor Wizzlehette pleaded, pale as paper and visibly trembling. He looked like he'd just wet himself.
Hearing the doctor's voice, Robert felt his anger flare, sharpening the confusion that already clawed at his mind.
"Doing your job, huh?" he snarled. His hand twitched, and without conscious thought, he conjured a twelve-inch jagged shard of rock shaped like a dagger, and pressed it to the doctor's throat. The dagger's surface resembled a fusion of hundreds of spikes. The cold edge bit into the skin just enough to make the man freeze, his breath catching as panic surged through him. A single wrong move, even a gulp, might end it all.
Wizzlehette opened his mouth to speak, but his voice caught in his throat. All he could do was stare at Robert, pleading desperately with his wide, terrified eyes. Robert himself was glaring intensely at the man, his expression horrifying, like he'd gone savage. In that moment, he hardly looked like himself at all.
"Tell me... who told you to do it!" Robert felt a faint ringing in his ears. More confusion still. Told him to do what?
The doctor's lips quivered. "You're... you're a wizard!" he managed to gasp.
"Tell me!" Robert roared.
—————
"What!" Mr. Williams shot to his feet, eyes glued to the laptop screen on the reading table, his face contorted with disbelief. "He's unhurt? That's not even remotely possible!" he shouted, looking around at his bedroom as if the answer to such impossibility was concealed under his four-poster bed, or the gigantic wooden wardrobe, or behind those brown-painted walls. He gathered himself and settled back at the reading table, fixing his gaze back at the screen. The surveillance footage clearly showed Robert—very much alive and well—pressing the doctor against the wall of the x-ray room and barking furious questions.
From behind Williams's bedroom window, crouching in the balcony, Oliver silently watched the laptop screen. His heart hammered in his chest as he struggled to make sense of what he was witnessing.
"How in the world is that even possible?!" He thought. But he did not allow himself to feel relieved. Robert survived that? What sort of luck did he have?!
Xolomon's cold, deep, loathsome voice suddenly filled his mind.
"Incompetent fools!" the ancestor-soul snarled. "Well, it's as they say; if you want something done right..." And the next moment, Oliver's body dispersed into a powerful gust of wind and surged away from the balcony and out of the school.
—————
"Tell me, who was it?!" Robert roared, teeth clenched in barely contained rage. His eyes blazed with accusation as he towered over the doctor—yes, Robert was slightly taller than him—who remained frozen, clearly unwilling to betray the identity of the person who had orchestrated the whole thing...
Wait.
The identity of the person who had orchestrated the whole thing!
The instant that thought crystallized in Robert's mind, the intense swirl of disorientation, fear and anger tearing through his head vanished, as though his mind had found an anchor, something to steady itself against. His awareness focused. The haze thinned. His breathing evened.
He was himself again. He knew where he was. He knew what had brought him there.
Still gripping the doctor's collar, Robert's mind settled on one anchoring certainty.
Lector Williams!
It was him.
He'd orchestrated the whole thing, and Oliver was involved in some capacity.
Slowly, Robert looked around the room, at the large piece of equipment and then at the doctor.
He was back.
—————
Outside the ward, Miss Greene stood quietly against the opposite wall, her brows drawn together in quiet contemplation. She'd been waiting in the corridor, observing the quiet flow of activity around her — the passing footsteps, the cry of a distressed child being carried by her father, a nurse carefully guiding a pregnant woman along, a motionless man lying on a stretcher who she was almost certain was already beyond help — unaware of the activities beyond the closed door in front of her.
However, ever since they'd left Wizzlehette's office, a persistent feeling that something wasn't right had nagged her. An unease about the doctor it was, especially considering his haste to order an x-ray scan on a patient based solely on claims of hallucinations. Now, Greene might not be medically trained, but she knew enough to be quite sure that any competent medical professional would normally begin by investigating more common explanations first—such as psychological stress, possible substance exposure, or even simple dehydration. But doctor Wizzlehette had asked no follow-up questions, performed no preliminary assessment, not even an attempt to understand Robert's condition beyond the whole hallucination report.
Nothing about that felt normal. Either the doctor had decided to be slack in his job today or something else entirely.
Wait, Robert had been inside that ward far longer than a standard x-ray scan should take.
Sensing that there'd been a serious misunderstanding, Miss Greene reached for the door handle, turned it, and pushed open the door.
"Excuse me Doc—" she began, stepping into the ward—only to halt in her tracks. The sight before her stunned her into silence. Robert was standing there, slowly loosening his grip on the doctor's collar, releasing the terrified man from what had clearly been a forceful, emotionally charged hold.
"What's going on here?" The question was directed at the doctor. But none of them gave any meaningful response. Robert wiped his forehead and looked downwards while Wizzlehette straightened his coat and sniffed. He then rubbed his eyes and adjusted his glasses.
Miss Greene's voice was more cautious and uncertain as she asked again, this time looking at Robert. "What's going on here?" But her words faltered as her eyes locked onto the object clenched in his hand.
The jagged rock dagger he had conjured.
The weapon shimmered faintly under the lighting of the ward, its surface carrying a dark brown, earthen tone that suggested it had been formed from compressed soil. A subtle metallic glimmer occasionally reflected off its rough, mineral-like texture.
"That..." Greene muttered, astonished. "Where did you get that?" Her eyes remained fixed on the Earth dagger, her breath growing shallow as she looked from the weapon to Robert's face in utter disbelief.
Robert shot a sharp threatening look at Wizzlehette, who had witnessed him conjure the weapon. The doctor understood immediately that he had to remain silent if he wished to continue living.
"Teacher, I can explain all this." Robert tried to downplay the situation with a hurried lie, but Miss Greene raised a hand, cutting him off.
"I know," she said.
"You do?"
"Yes, I—"
A sudden, thunderous crash shattered the tension as the window exploded inwards, and a massive figure made entirely of ice burst into the ward.