The weeks bled into months with a rhythm that was both gruelling and satisfying. Living with Sasrir was like having a live-in, brutally honest critic who was also a part of my own brain. His presence was a constant mirror, and the reflection was… illuminating.
It started with the small things. I'd flop onto my bed after a long day of theory classes, mentally making an excuse to skip the Academy's state-of-the-art gym. 'What's the point?' I'd think. 'I'm not going to build a superhero physique in eight months. My power is mental, anyway.'
A wave of cold, patronizing distaste would waft from the corner where Sasrir sat, silent and still. He didn't need to say anything. The emotion was his, but the source was all me. He was the embodiment of that shortsighted excuse, and feeling it reflected back at me from a separate entity was like a splash of cold water. It was stupid. It was the kind of lazy, defeatist thinking I'd supposedly left behind.
The Curator hadn't given me this head start just for me to show up to the Dream Realm with the same soft body I'd had in my old life. I had time, resources, and the best nutrition money couldn't even buy—it was provided by a terrified government. Wasting that was an oversight of monumental proportions.
So I started. Not with weights, not at first. That felt too much like a chore. I went back to basics, to things I'd actually enjoyed in my previous life. I signed up for the rock-climbing wall, relearning the feel of chalk on my hands and the burn of holding a difficult pose.
I hit the Olympic-sized pool, the mindless, rhythmic laps of swimming becoming a moving meditation that shut up the constant analytical noise in my head. I I ended up in the Forgotten Shore, I would need to know how to swim for sure.
After about a month of that, the gym didn't seem so daunting. It became a logic puzzle. This machine targets this muscle group, this exercise creates this kind of functional strength.
It was slow, frustrating work. At fifteen, and after a lifetime of decent but not exceptional nutrition, I was starting from behind. There were no miraculous growth spurts, just the slow, stubborn accumulation of effort. I'd look in the mirror after a month and see barely any change. But Sasrir's silent presence was a perpetual goad.
He judged me for my weakness, openly scowling every time I neared quitting. The best thing about him? While I worked out, he would read up on all the theory for me. He could spend hours at the desk, flipping through old books and electronic screens, to the point I wondered if he was actually a Reader and not a Secrets Suppliant.
By the five-month mark, the logic puzzle had paid off. The boy who'd arrived at the Academy was gone. The softness had been replaced by defined muscle, a broader set to my shoulders, a strength that wasn't just potential anymore—it was real. I wouldn't be winning any physique competitions, but I no longer looked like a stiff breeze would knock me over. I looked like someone who could survive.
It was more than physical. That same ruthless self-audit, sparked by Sasrir's existence, extended to everything. I scrutinized my study habits, my social interactions, my understanding of Essence Every lazy assumption, every fear-driven avoidance, was dragged out into the light and dissected.
It was like if Sin of Solace was actually good and helpful, rather than the master rage baiter that he was. Still, Sasrir was quite the vicious shit-talker when he wanted to be too, as after a altercation between me and some Legacy lackey, he had exploded with a series of cuss words I wouldn't dare repeat to my mother.
For a second, I thought he would directly jump out of my shadow and strangle the ignorant bastard, but he managed to restrain himself in the end. Still, my flickering shadow told me we needed to have a chat.
"It's because of my Listener powers" he explained once we alone in my dorm. "I've been hearing things lately, the rustle of Memories and Echoes, the hum of Essence running through circuits, and their are a few abilities related t sound that do my head in. It's fine at first, by by the end of a week I feel like breaking someone's neck."
"Sounds like you need to vent," I sighed, rubbing my face.
"Yeah, no kidding I need to vent," Sasrir muttered, the shadow he was leaning against seeming to drink the light from the room. "It's like having a constant, high-pitched whine in the back of my skull that only I can hear. Every footstep in the hall is a thunderclap.
I can hear the hum of the fluorescent lights. I swear I can even hear the rustle of that idiot's cheap polyester jacket from earlier." He shot a dark look towards the door. "It makes me want to peel my own ears off. Or his."
I leaned back in my chair, processing this. The Hanged Man Pathway's Listener sequence was all about listening—to secrets, to the unseen, to the whispers of the spiritual world.
It made a twisted kind of sense that it would come with a massive sensitivity to sound. A classic supernatural trade-off.
"Sounds like the Curator tweaked your Sequence," I mused. "Maybe gave you the sensory overload of a Listener but paired it with the negatives of an Ascetic from the Eternal Aeon Pathway.
You know, the whole 'endure immense suffering to achieve inner peace' thing. Since you can turn off the Listener power normally, he made it so mundane sounds are enhanced instead?"
Sasrir let out a short, humourless bark of laughter. "Sounds like something a right bastard would do, so probably."
I thought for a moment. "We need to find you an outlet, but we can't exactly just let you wander the hallways at night to practise by yourself. The cameras would pick you up, and blocking them out would just raise alarms. I can try and get a dummy target memory if I can?"
"If that's our best option."
I couldn't get a dummy in fact, but I was allowed to take a sturdy punching bag back with me. It had a self-repair function, though that was the effect of an Aspect because the bag itself wasn't a Memory. Whoever had the ability to repair things was probably filthy rich working for the Government, since Sasrir's trashing recovered within an hour.
He seemed much more content afterwards, but I still mentally checked myself that my shadow wasn't as friendly as he appeared to me: he was potentially balancing over the abyss at any moment.
...
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