He stretched his head from his bedroom door to the end of the hallway on his floor. There, a pendulum clock hung on the wall, already showing around four in the morning. Time flies, Vinny thought to himself as he closed the door behind him and returned to the papers. He rubbed his eyes to shake off the drowsiness before sitting on the floor, bringing the lantern closer. Nothing else remained after these papers, so his hopes were high.
Five sheets in total. Not old, but the creases from folding were clearly visible. No apparent order to them. He spread them across the floor, squinting at each one until he noticed a word written in large letters at the top of one sheet, like a title.
"Sub-skills"
Below it, chaos. No neat lines, no structure. Words and sentences sprawled across the page in varying lengths, some short, some long, others crossed out entirely. The paper itself was off-white, slightly brownish, and blank of any grids or guides. It looked like notes hastily scribbled during a panic, or maybe a lecture where the speaker talked too fast.
At the bottom of the page sat a large drawing of a hand occupying a square space. Numbers from one to four were marked on each finger, except the thumb.
Alright, looks like I won't remember anything about this either. Reading it is the only way, he thought with a tired sigh.
He picked words at random. They were scattered everywhere, some even upside down, so trying to deduce an order felt pointless.
—accelerate thought process—two → five times—glucose consumption ↑—prolonged? nerve strain—
—restoration of prior state—injury reversal—limited? unclear—
—physical condition perception—observable only—
—symptom analysis—cause determination—observation or auditory—
What a mess. He squinted at another fragment near the drawing.
—trigger via numbered fingers—pinky (1) / ring (2) / middle (3) / index (4)—
His eyes darted back to the hand diagram. The pinky was labelled "1." The ring finger, "2." Middle, "3." Index, "4."
He stared at his own hand.
Then, slowly, memories began to surface, more like flashes than an actual clear image.
Supernatural abilities.
He had supernatural abilities.
Vinny covered his mouth, a cold weight settling in his chest. Is this what the Church was after? Is this the source of the 'miracles'? He thought back to the diary. {Vinny} had refused to answer the Church's questions and hid its notes in special ink.
What if they find out...?
He shook his head, forcing the thought away. Focus. You need to understand this first.
He turned to the second sheet. More fragments.
—(1) Acceleration—thought speed only—body remains normal—movements attempted? risk of self-injury—deactivation requires conscious reversal—intention over motion—
—glucose replenishment necessary—sugar's tasty—effective.
—headache, nausea, nerve fatigue—NO sustained use—
The third and fourth sheets were similar. Scattered notes on the other abilities, crossed-out theories, half-finished observations. {Vinny} had been experimenting and testing limits. Trying to understand what he had.
The fifth sheet was different. Older, more faded. Just one sentence, written in the centre.
I don't know where they came from.
Vinny stared at it for a long moment, then set it aside.
He looked back at the diagram. His hand. The numbered fingers.
Warleen's appointment was in a few hours. If these 'sub-skills' were real, if they actually worked, maybe he had a chance. The third one, 'Comprehensive Vision', lets him perceive someone's physical condition. The fourth, 'Analyser', helped determine the cause. Those could be enough to fake his way through a checkup, or at least buy time.
But first, he needed to know if they actually worked.
He glanced at his pinky. Number one. Acceleration.
His finger hovered over the paper for a moment, hesitating. What if this goes wrong? What if I can't stop it? What if—
He tapped it lightly against the page.
Something shifted inside him, not painful, just... present. Like a gear clicking into place.
Then the world crawled.
The flame in the lantern barely flickered. The papers on the floor seemed frozen mid-rustle from a draft he couldn't even feel anymore. His own breathing stretched into a long, slow hiss.
Oh boy.
He tried to look around, but his neck moved at an agonising pace. His thoughts screamed ahead while his body lagged, trapped in treacle. Panic spiked through him. How do I stop this?! His finger, he needed to untap his finger, reverse the motion, something, anything, but his hand was still pressed to the paper and moving it felt like dragging a boulder.
The notes! What did they say? Deactivation requires conscious reversal—intention over motion—
Intention! Not the finger, but the intention.
He closed his eyes, or tried to; it took forever, and then he focused inward, searching for that gear, that presence he'd felt when he tapped. There, he grabbed it mentally, imagined it clicking back, and imagined the world returning to normal speed.
Slowly, agonizingly, the crawl began to ease.
The flame flickered.
The papers rustled.
His breathing evened out.
And then everything snapped back to normal.
Vinny gasped, collapsing forward onto his hands, heart pounding so hard he thought it might burst. Sweat dripped from his forehead onto the paper below. His neck ached. His head throbbed.
Well... that was exhausting.
He stayed there for a moment, just breathing, letting his pulse settle. How long had that been? A few seconds, maybe. It felt like an eternity.
He reached behind his pillow and grabbed the sugar container, popping two cubes into his mouth. The sweetness spread across his tongue, sharp and grounding. ...This is actually quite tasty... His thoughts had burned through his energy faster than he'd expected. The notes were right; glucose replenishment was necessary.
He leaned back against the bed, staring at the papers scattered around him. Four sub-skills, {Vinny} had four sub-skills. And now, so did Vinny.
But where did they come from?
The question sat heavily in his mind. The Church suspected {Vinny} of illegal alchemy. These abilities, whatever they were, may be connected. Were they a result of experiments? A side effect of something {Vinny} had done? Or were they something he'd always had?
The diary hadn't mentioned them. Neither had any of the medical notes. {Vinny} had kept them secret even from himself, it seemed, until he started writing things down just days ago.
Vinny gathered the papers, reading through them again, slower this time. More fragments clicked into place and memories surfaced, brief and incomplete. Vinny had many things to deal with before thinking of his current status: a patient, a diagnosis that shouldn't have been possible, the Church's suspicion, and {Vinny}'s growing paranoia.
{Vinny} you little... Vinny cursed, seeing the mess he had left for him.
Man, I'm walking straight into a fire; things don't seem bright at all. He thought depressingly. Heresy, unauthorised alchemy, soul manipulation, he didn't know much about these things, but any of those charges would end with his head on a pike for sure, which led him to wonder again if these sub-skills are something illegal as well.
But without them, how was he supposed to survive Warleen's appointment? Can someone notice him using it?
He folded the sheets carefully until they were smaller than his palm and slipped them into his right pocket; leaving them lying around obviously wasn't the best option.
I will leave them as last hope solutions... he thought, he preferred to avoid using such mysterious abilities at all, at least not until he tests them carefully.
Exhaling deeply, he stared at the ceiling as he fought to keep his eyes open; his head still throbbed from the Acceleration, and his body kept feeling drained with accumulated mental fatigue.
A short nap would be nice... he mused, glancing at the inviting warmth of the sheets beside him.
No! I have to get up! I still need to plan how to tell the old man about his curse. I need to—
He blinked once. Just once.
And when his eyes opened again, orange and yellow light spilt across his wall.
He jerked upright, heart lurching. The curtains glowed with sunlight.
Morning. It was morning.
I barely closed my eyes! He scrambled out of bed, panic flooding through him. How long had he been out? An hour? Two? He grabbed the lantern, extinguished it, and set it on his desk. The patient's case files went into a pile beside it. His coat, where was his coat?
He yanked open the closet, grabbed his new coat, and shoved his arms through the sleeves as he slipped into his shoes. The door slammed behind him as he descended the stairs, his footsteps echoing loudly in the silence. Everyone was still asleep, which was good since it saved him the trouble of dodging questions.
He passed the kitchen, opened a basket with a cold loaf of bread from last night, and shoved it between his teeth. Keys, he needed his keys! He patted his coat pockets and luckily found them along with some coins, and headed for the door.
His hand paused on the handle.
For a moment, he just stood there, bread in his mouth, heart pounding, the weight of everything pressing down on him.
{Vinny} had, at least apparently, stolen forbidden books, possessed hidden supernatural abilities, and lied to the Church. He also had a cursed patient, perhaps by coincidence, perhaps not. Now, Vinny was the one who had to face the consequences.
He exhaled slowly, then pulled the door open and stepped out into the world.