The days after the hospital felt normal—almost disappointingly so.
Homework returned. Chores reappeared. Alan grumbled about the boiler again, and Elaine made him warm milk before bed like nothing had ever happened.
But Isaac wasn't the same.
The thoughts he'd had in the hospital clung to him like cobwebs he couldn't brush off. That moment—the wind, the invisible push, the feeling—still lived at the edge of his memory like a bright, buried shard.
It didn't leave him.
So, not long after he got home, Isaac began testing it.
He started slow.
At night, when the house was quiet and the lights were off, he'd sit on the carpet in his room with a crumpled bit of paper in front of him. His eyes would narrow. His breathing would slow.
And he'd focus.
Not in a vague, "wishful" way. It wasn't hope that filled his chest. It was something sharper—like when a string on a guitar is just about to snap. That pressure.
He remembered the panic from the car. The overwhelming emotion. So, he tried to recreate it—but not the fear. Just the intensity.
Sometimes nothing happened.
Sometimes he felt dizzy and frustrated.
But sometimes, just sometimes, the air around the object would grow... still. Like the calm before a storm. He couldn't explain it, not even to himself. But he knew it meant he was close.
Weeks passed.
Paper turned into coins. Coins into pencils.
Each night, he'd sit cross-legged in silence, meditating for at least an hour. It wasn't anything fancy—just breathing, focusing, grounding himself. And then he'd start: the paper, the pencil, the pressure.
By the second month, the pencil would wobble.
By the third, it lifted—just a centimeter off the floor. For three whole seconds.
He nearly shouted out loud the first time it happened. But he held it in, shaking with disbelief.
He wasn't imagining it.
It was real.
It didn't feel like using his hands. There were no sparks, no glowing runes. Just... will. Like his mind was reaching forward and grabbing something intangible, like trying to catch fog in his fingers.
But the effort left him drained.
Mentally, it felt like lifting weights he couldn't see. After each session, he collapsed into bed and passed out like he'd been running for hours.
He didn't mind.
In fact, he loved it.
It gave him purpose.
Every night became part of the routine:
Meditate.
Focus.
Try.
Fail.
Try again.
Sleep, utterly exhausted.
By the time he turned ten, Isaac had gone from floating pencils to spoons, then books.
Nothing heavy. Nothing dramatic.
But it was real. And it was his.
He hadn't told anyone. He couldn't. How would he explain it? To them, he was a quiet, smart kid who liked reading and kept to himself.
They had no idea what happened in his room each night under the pale light of the moon.
When he turned eleven, it all came together.
He could now make three objects float at once—about the size of thick books and keep them up for a full minute, if he didn't push himself too hard.
It was precise. Fragile. Requiring intense focus.
But it was control.
Something he never had in his last life. Not over school, not over his path, not even over his screen addiction.
Now, he had something no one could take from him.
Something he built himself.
It wasn't magic.
At least… he didn't think of it that way.
Not yet.
It felt more like a skill. Like drawing, or coding, or learning how to ride a bike. Except it used everything: his mind, his focus, his patience.
Sometimes, when he was really deep in it, he could feel a strange warmth coil in his chest—like the air around his body thickened slightly. Not hot, just... aware. As if something old and silent was watching, waiting for him to grow strong enough to notice it.
No manuals. No teachers. No incantations.
Just will.
Just practice.
And every night, when the house slept, Isaac returned to the floor of his room, breathed deep, and slowly, steadily, made the air obey.
One floating object at a time.
End of Chapter 4