Remember More

Chapter 41

REMEMBER MORE

CHAPTER 41

Yan jogged over to stand behind John. "Wow…" She meant Zhang.

"So, that must be him…" He turned and looked at her. "…right?"

She knew whom he meant. "Well…"

John screwed up his eyes. "I thought you said he wouldn't look like that! You said…"

Her eyes widened. "How was I supposed to know?"

Zhang took a step closer to them. He cast his gaze down upon the two wee ants by his feet. "Are you ready, John?" Again the booming voice. John and Yan's shoes buzzed.

John craned his neck up at the giant. He gazed deep into his eyes.

Those eyes.

John thought of Atlantis. He thought of the underwater chamber. He thought of what he had looked like then, after he changed, which Yan had been good enough to describe for him in detail after it was all over and they had made it back to the beach.

John dipped his head. "I'm sorry…" He bit his lip. "…I can't. I'm so sorry, I just…."

"What are you afraid of?"

John kept his head down. He shook it.

"Don't be afraid." Zhang smiled. "Trust me. This will work."

Zhang lifted one hand. He stared into his open palm.

A ball of power began to swirl and build up within it. Like a whirlwind, like a hurricane but in miniature, it began to build and go faster, spinning around on itself, getting stronger, more concentrated, more focused and defined and clear.

And yet it wasn't fire this time. It wasn't anything like fire at all.

There were no flames. There was no light, no heat. In fact, it was the very opposite of all of that. It was nothing at all. But a pure nothing, the absence of absolutely everything.

It was a black hole or something like it, a kind of singularity, powerful enough to swallow up entire stars but now the size of a volleyball and hovering, wavering up and down over Zhang's gargantuan hand.

And like a black hole, it began to draw all things into itself.

First, it was the air. John only noticed it as a cool, gentle breeze in the night that brushed by his face and then fell swirling into the hole.

But then it picked up some more.

Now, loose debris from here and there on the ground near Zhang, leaves and bits of dirt and pebbles were swept up by the wind and thrown in there as well. Anything that wasn't nailed to the ground was being plucked up and flung into the centre of the nothingness. And it kept building. The gusts that whipped by their faces now were like when you stuck your head out the window of a car racing down the highway at top speed.

Fighting the wind all the way, Zhang took a step toward John. "Call up your qi." He got down on one knee. He held it out toward him, the black orb.

John backed away. "No." He shook his head. "No, that's it. I quit. It's over. This is as far as I'll go…"

"No…" Zhang grit his teeth.

John held his hands up, warding off evil. "No, it's too dangerous. I will not…"

"No…!"

"I'm sorry, Zhang, I just can't…"

"No!"