Phantasm 1: For the Light of the Stars (one)

"I really don’t have a choice, do I?" she said at last.

"No," he said. "Not if you want to be free."

"Freedom. That’s something we all have. All I ever wanted was to be normal," Laura said sadly.

"Not everyone is free, not as free as others. Some are slaves to themselves, some are slaves to others, some simply don’t know what it means to be free but they’re slaves nonetheless. And you never were normal. Not like the rest, not like anyone else. You should know that by now. You were different. Always. You never did fit in. You’ve always known that, you’ve just never wanted to accept it."

"Yes, I know," Laura said. "But that doesn’t mean that I can stop wishing. Or that I can lose hope."

"No. It doesn’t," Silverburgh confirmed quietly, as if he disagreed but didn’t want to be seen to correct her.

People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something that one finds. It is something one creates.

Laura was determined to leave without saying goodbye. She couldn’t bring herself to bid farewell to those she loved. If she did that, it would seem final. She planned to return when she had completed her training. She was trapped with abilities she could barely control and did not understand. They could, in their own way, very possibly destroy her, so Laura had to attempt to master them. She also hoped to shed the last of her gullibility and naiveté along the way. To say goodbye would mean she would have to explain to them, something she was not willing to do. Something she could not do.

This was, truthfully, a path and not a choice for her to follow. If she continued here she’d never fit in, only by gaining control could she be approachable. Only through understanding her capabilities could she disguise them.

Ironically, that was a dream forever out of reach, like a goal that could be seen but could never be touched, infinitely unattainable. To gain that degree of total control, she’d have to nurture her gifts. And to learn about them (or to even learn from them), she would have to shed the last of her doubts. By doing that, she’d cease to be the same person she had been.

Laura felt that she was at a cross-roads in her development, and whatever she did would change her life. Yet a part of her was happy this had come to be. This part of her had known she was special, gifted, for as long as she could remember. She was powerful, stronger than anyone else, able to tap into the only true types of perpetuity — the soul and the mind and what was within the heart. She’d always wanted to know how far she could go, if only things were a little different, if only she was normal. This part of Laura had encouraged her to experiment and reach out, to forget her wish to be normal and to embrace what she had, this part of her was curious to find out how far she could go and how far she would allow herself to be pushed. The mind knew no boundaries when it was truly free. She was free to explore the auras of all manner of men and women.

Temptation.

The thought came to her as a whisper in her ear. Temptation had always existed, it was the wind whispering through the trees, the water crashing against the rocks, the voice of life communicating that power affected all things and could not be ignored. The battle of the inner spirit, the inner-self that spoke of right and wrong, good and evil, the conscience that existed within everyone. The voice that tested, explored, probed. Temptation was already before her. With great power comes an even greater responsibility. Humanity had lived by that motto for centuries. Even as the phalanxes of mighty empires rose and crumpled, the intelligent and wise survived to tell the tales, to tell how not to make the same mistakes, voices of the past echoing prophecies of the future. They had faced their temptations and turned away. Laura knew she would have to do the same; she could see the evil inside everyone she touched and she could not let herself be corrupted by it. No matter what others like Silverbur gh said, it was not her role to judge but to search, to witness, to observe.