The moss didn't float again the next day.
Or the next.
Lucian spent hours staring at it, willing it to move. But nothing came. No pulse, no glow, no hum. Just the flickering green and the stone's damp breath pressing against his back.
He laid flat on the cave floor, breath slowing.
"What the hell did I do?" he whispered.
Silence.
Except the low hum still lived. Tucked under the stillness. Faint, but steady. Like a quiet heartbeat just beneath the floor.
He pressed his palm to the stone. Closed his eyes.
And listened.
Later—maybe a day, maybe five—he sat cross-legged near the basin, two patches of moss in front of him like houseplants.
He stared at the one on the left.
"Ok Eddy and earl," he said. Then to the right." "I need your help boys?"
He nodded to himself. "You guys ready."
Neither responded, obviously.
"Didn't expect a you guys to reply anyway."
He gestured toward Eddy.
"Alright, Ed. You're up."
Lucian extended his fingers, focusing on the memory from the white void the woman appeared in. That pull. That internal click, like a notch inside his chest lining up with something outside.
He didn't push.
He felt.
Eddy began to rise, Weightless, Spinning and rotating in a circlilar motion .
Lucian blinked, mouth half-open.
"Okay… okay, so I can do that again. Good."
He turned his attention to a pebble beside Earl.
"Now you."
This time, he tried something different. He visualized a point in space above the pebble, like a anchor in the air—then imagined weight falling down into it, as if gravity had shifted its weight.
The pebble crushed to the ground.
Hard.
Like it had been yanked.
Lucian's eyes widened.
"Holy—HAHAHAHA"
He tried it again with a smaller rock, aiming this time beneath the stone.
Again, it slammed into the floor.
Pinned. Unmoving.
He let go—and it bounced back slightly.
Lucian grinned.
"Okay. Okay. That's… something. Not just floaty magic."
He leaned back, letting the hum buzz beneath his skin.
"This is physics," he muttered. "Manipulated. Warped. But not random."
He didn't know the equations by heart, but gravity had rules.
He could feel them, sense them.
Another day passed. Maybe two.
Lucian scratched at the stubble on his jaw and slightly, his hair got longer. His hoodie had officially retired from being clothing and was now a full-time pillow. He hadn't looked at his own self since he's arrived.
He stood in the middle of the cave now, palms out.
Two rocks floated.
Between them, air shimmered faintly.
Lucian visualized a field—small, circular, invisible. A zone where gravity pushed outward, like a bubble where all momentum slowed.
He threw a third pebble into it.
It entered the field—and slowed.
Almost like it had been caught in sticky syrup.
It hovered for a moment, then gently fell.
Lucian exhaled sharply.
"…Stagnation."
That's what he'd call it.
He repeated the test with other stones. It didn't always work. Sometimes they shot sideways or warped around the field.
But he was learning.
Slowly, Without anyone watching….
"Eddy," he said, turning toward the moss patch. "Earl. You guys seeing this?"
Silence.
Lucian chuckled to himself.
"Yeah. Me neither."
Later that night—if it was night—he laid back on the cold stone, hands behind his head. The basin water dripped beside him, each droplet echoing like it traveled forever.
He stared at the ceiling.
His body ached from his training that kept him still sane.
But his mind… his mind was scattered with thoughts.
With numbers. Concepts. Half-remembered lectures from college. Equations about mass and curvature. Diagrams. He couldn't recall everything—but the fragments were there.
"I don't really all of this," he whispered, "but gravity listens to rules. It has laws."
He closed his eyes, and and he succumbed to sleep.
The next day , Heart hammering, sweat on his chest, Lucian sat up, gasping. The stone floor was cold. Always cold. His body ached from where he'd slept—again without meaning to—curled around a moss patch like it might answer his questions, his little friends or what he made them to be.
Eddy and Earl sat opposite him in silence, little green clumps growing lazily by the wall.
"Not my best moment," Lucian muttered, brushing hair out of his face. "But at least you two didn't watch me cry in my sleep. Again."
He stretched his arms overhead, bones cracking. His hoodie now served exclusively as his own makeshift pillow—what was left of it. Torn. Filthy. He was shirtless, wearing only pants and half-tied shoes. Dirt stained his skin. He hadn't taken a bath in… weeks? Months?
"New day. New attempt. Let's see if i can break the laws of gravity…maybe I'm some mad scientist now" he chuckled to himself
He stood in center of the cave.
Focused.
Inhaled, and then he exhaled.
"Okay. Let's think."
He began pacing. Muttering aloud helped, even if it made him sound crazy. Sounded. Right. Still present tense.
"Gravity isn't a push," he began, fingers twitching. "If I remember from those shitty classes, It's the curvature of spacetime around mass. So—if I can manipulate mass—or the illusion of mass—then maybe I can collapse that curvature into a single point, like a air molecule maybe."
Eddy blinked. Earl remained indifferent.
Lucian smiled grimly. "Thanks for the encouragement boys."
He took a breath, steadied his raging thoughts, and imagined a single air molecule in front of him and began focusing.
One point.
One space.
One collapse.
He stretched out a hand, trembling. The hum in the cave sharpened behind his ears. A low frequenc, Like a violen had been tuned wrong.
And then—he pulled.
Not outward.
But inward.
Everything stilled.
Then the caves surroundings bent.
Just slightly.
The moss light dimmed. The air grew heavy. Dust lifted from the stone, pulled unnaturally toward the center of his focus.
Lucian gritted his teeth, sweat pouring down his brow. "Come on—just a small one—micro singularity, like a black hole—"
A pulse rippled outward.
Not visible.
But felt.
Like something ruptured in the air itself.
The moss to his left wilted instantly. Stone cracked beneath him. His ears rang violently, balance tilting like the cave had turned sideways. His nose bled.
A second pulse.
Louder.
The cave screamed.
Lucian collapsed to his knees, vision flashing white. His hand convulsed. Something in his chest burned. It felt like his lungs were getting rubbing alcohol dumped in them.
And then—he heard a faint voice.
Not from the cave.
Not from inside his mind.
From behind him.
"You're… not supposed to do that."
He blinked.
A silhouette.
That woman.
Odessa, he was not sure how he knew her name but nevertheless it came into his mind.
Standing inside the cave now. No longer a vision in the void. Real as can be, Her black gold Accented silk gown shimmered faintly, touched by light that shouldn't exist here.
Lucian coughed violently, blood splattering onto the moss.
He looked up, face pale.
A crooked grin stretched across his mouth.
"Oh… I've finally snapped."
He fell backward with a wheezing laugh, landing flat on the stone.
"Great. Now you're here. Perfect timing, hallucination."
She blinked, head tilting with slight confusion.
"Hallucination…?"
Lucian chuckled, delirious. "Unless you brought snacks, I'm not impressed."
Then darkness took him.
He dreamed of the void where he always sees Odessa, And a silence that wept and echoed.