Sam woke up, not knowing how long he'd been out, other than the groggy time-has-passed feeling that people have upon waking. He was on a hospital bed in a dark room. His hands and feet were cuffed to the metal frame on either side of the bed.
"G'morning," the Ergosphere said as he walked into the sparse room. Even in the shadows, he still had his round sunglasses on.
"You killed Doc Friday, didn't you?"
"I don't kill," the Ergosphere said. "Correction. I don't kill my friends."
"That was you in the fire wasn't, it? In that stupid red getup?"
"Certainly not, and you're hardly one to talk about walking around in a stupid getup."
Sam glared at the Ergosphere. "You've been following me?" Sam said.
"After that nifty little air manipulation trick you did, how could I not?"
"Air what?"
"On that day. When Friday was killed. You saved a lot of lives."
"That was a freak windstorm."
"Nope. It was all you."
"Are you going to let me out of this bed? Or are you going to torture me or molest me or something?"
"It's a safety precaution. I can't have you running off," the Ergosphere said. "Now listen. You summoned that wind with your mind. No, not summoned. You produced it, just by thinking of it. You saved all those people, you got yourself up onto the roof, and then you got yourself out of there when the helicopters showed up. Impressive."
"And you know all this because you were there?"
"I was watching from... a distance. I didn't see what went down when you went inside. I imagine it was horrible."
"Let me go," Sam said. "I'm an American citizen, I have rights."
"Any weird dreams lately? The night before Friday died, did you dream about flying or falling, or a windy day?"
Sam frowned at the Ergosphere but didn't say anything.
"I detected some unidentifiable energy in the area just before the wind hit. It took me forever to figure out where it came from – your brain."
"That's impossible and you know it," Sam said.
The Ergosphere chuckled. "Did Doc Friday ever give you his speech about how the world might still be flat?"
"Yeah..." Sam said. "He had this crazy idea..."
"About a tiny star?"
"Yeah."
"I'm going to take off these handcuffs now," the Ergosphere said. "I'm assuming it's finally dawned on you that if I were going to hurt you I would have done it already."
Sam sat up in bed as the Ergosphere freed him.
"The doc was right, you know," the Ergosphere said.
"About the miniature star?"
"About the world still being flat. About a universe full of impossibilities come to life. About wonders humans can barely comprehend, because they seemingly break all known laws of science and rational thought – at least what humans consider rational."
"That won't happen," Sam said. "We know more than we used to. We understand how the universe works."
The Ergosphere chuckled again. "I guarantee you that the universe is filled with the scientifically impossible."
"Such as?"
The Ergosphere thought for a moment, and then said, "There's this village. It's a rural farming community of about 11,000 people. Simple folk, mostly, but they do have advances in a certain type of technology even I don't fully understand."
"OK..."
"This village exists entirely inside my body."
"What?"
"Through heightened meditation, I'm able to protect my consciousness inside my own body. I pass through a microscopic black hole embedded in my chest which transports me to this village, where I can interact with the villagers. I help them out in various ways and, in exchange, they are able to use their otherworldly tech to temporarily give me skills and abilities I might need on my travels."
"That's ridiculous."
"Is it any more ridiculous than a hurricane-level gust of wind coming out of nowhere at just the right time and place to save a bunch of people's lives?"
"There's got to be a plausible, scientific..."
"Change of subject. In my travels, I once came across an ancient folktale about a man who made his dreams real. Literally real. Like a wordsmith works with words or a blacksmith works with metals, this man was a dreamsmith. I assumed it was merely a folktale, and then I met you."
"I've never heard of this folktale."
"It's from a culture very, very, very far away."
"Fine, I'll play along," Sam said. "You're saying anytime I want, I can just make a windstorm, because I dreamed it one time?"
"I don't think so," the Ergosphere said. "The old stories said the dream was different every day. Every time you have a dream, your mind and body find a way to give that dream a physical reality. Whatever abilities or powers a dream gives you one day will go away when you fall asleep, replaced by a completely different power the next time you awake, and so on."
"Weird."
"It's a gift. You could change the world."
"Why me?"
"Many men and women, great and small, have asked, 'Why me?'" The Ergosphere nudged Sam his elbow. "I'm sorry to have abducted you like this, buddy. But I had to know, and you had to know. I'll take you home now."
"Fine," Sam said.
"It's just that this location is best kept a secret. So..."
The Ergosphere touched Sam's forehead, and Sam fell unconscious again.
# # # #
Next: Transformation.