Ch. 2

Johnny opened his eyes, but saw nothing. Everything was black. He blinked, or at least he tried to, but nothing happened, nothing changed. He lifted his hands to feel his face, but felt nothing, sensed no movement. Johnny tried to move his legs, but he could not tell if he was accomplishing anything. He couldn’t feel anything; he was simply awake to something without having a clue as to what it entailed. He did not know if he was alive or dead, he just knew that he Was.
For a long time Johnnie’s mind raced, but he came to no conclusions. He had no distinct thoughts or impression, he was simply conscious. He felt bound but could not feel his restrictions. He couldn’t remember who he was or how he got to where he was but he knew he was somewhere, he knew he was someone.
Johnny wanted to close his eyes to make it all go away, but there was nothing to leave. He wanted the blank void of sleep or death but nothing came. How long he was in that state, Johnny could not tell. There was no reference for time or space. He was conscious without comprehension, but he knew that he didn’t comprehend. It was maddening, yet he could not go insane for he couldn’t compile enough of his thoughts before he forgot what had made him so angry and scared.
When the light came, Johnny didn’t know. It didn’t appear it was simply there. He didn’t notice when it became brighter, so he couldn’t welcome the change. The moment it changed he couldn’t remember it ever being different. It had always been that way.
With the growing light Johnny began to see more things, but as soon as he saw them they seemed to have been present since the beginning of time. He saw walls and as the light grew brighter he saw more walls. He found that he was surrounded by them and though he could not see past the wall, he sensed there were more behind them. The light continued to grown and Johnny focused more closed on the walls. The more he focused the more detailed they became. He didn’t move closer to the walls, but he could study them and notice every detail as if the were inches from his face. It was as is if his consciousness had grown and expanded past his former restraints until tit fill the space created by the walls.
He studied the walls surrounding him without turning his head aware of all them simultaneously but without moving his head, because he had no head. As he studied the walls, he came to the conclusion that they were somewhat fresh. He didn’t know hwy he thought that, but they were newly built. As Johnny sensed that he was filling the space and he wanted to move outward still, but he could not. The walls stopped him. So he pressed against the walls. He pressed until he felt one of them crack. He looked to the wall and studied the new fissure, miniscule as it was. It seemed to him that there was pattern to the crack itself and how the separation had occurred. A sense of vague understanding filled him and he knew how to press the other walls for the same and perhaps greater result. He once again expanded himself towards the walls and he was immensely satisfied to find them cracking. The more they cracked and separated, the more Johnny understood them, and as his understanding increased, the walls seemed to fairly crumble at his whim. Finally they broke and wasted away as if they had never been, and to Johnny they never had. All he knew was that he was surrounded by walls.
Johnny began the process again. He knew he had expanded without knowing why or how. He simply knew. The walls fell quicker now and with more ease. With each set of walls that fell, still more were there to take their place, albeit it in a more spacious configuration. Still, Johnny was getting good. The walls fell almost as easy was if he was walking through them and now Johnny knew or felt that he was walking. Without really noticing, Johnny became more aware of himself and other things as the walls fell. Feeling, sensations, thoughts and memories came flooding back and were clearer. As his memories came, he became more and more frantic to break the walls. But he became calmer still, because he knew he was in something, he knew that the walls held him from somewhere. He knew he could get Out.
Johnny became more aware of his body. With the breaking of each wall, he sensed a new part of his body; his head, neck, shoulders, chest, arms, hands, hips, legs, knees and feet. H knew every piece of his body like never before, and then began again. The walls were numberless and so became his sense until he was aware of every particle of his being; every blood vessel traveling in every capillary. Ever skin cell arrayed across his body was known and understood. Then came the Control.
The walls had changed. Johnny did not understand these walls. Some were old, but some were new. The new walls that he encountered, he broke after some time spent in study. With his new awareness Johnny could pick and choose which walls to break. He broke all the new walls and found that with each on he could control more of his consciousness, his being.
He would gain control of more of his thoughts, memories and feeling until he came to another wall, then he would break that one and gain more. Over and over the process was repeated, more and more control, more and more power. Finally, Johnny found walls that didn’t encircle him but something else. Those walls looked and felt familiar but he still didn’t understand how he could break them. When he began to push these walls, a new and terrible feeling whipped around him, knocking him back. Now Johnny knew what these walls were holding back. They were holding Pain. Johnny looked over eth walls, being careful not to press against them. Looking in, he saw a distortion in his vision. It constantly writhed and twisted in a serpentine way, rolling into itself and pulsing in the air. Johnny realized that it was something broken. That’s what had sent Pain into Johnny. That’s when he realized he had made these Pain walls himself. Having made these walls, he was sure that he could make others. He had power. Maybe, Johnny thought, enough power to fix that which was broken.
As soon as that thought had been conjured up in his consciousness, Johnny felt an energy surge from him, up and over the walls. He saw the energy weave itself into the distorted space within the walls and the twisting and spinning began to assume a more structured pattern until it disappeared completely.
Johnny had learned a lot from Pain. Now he knew he could rebuild the walls he had broken. Now he knew that some walls were necessary, that some were protecting him from broken things. So Johnny looked for more Pain walls. When he found them, he fixed them until there were no more.
When the last of the Pain walls and distortions of space were gone, Johnny noticed a huge wall that encircled everything that Johnny had explored and everywhere he had been. He approached the big wall but couldn’t see over it. Yet when he pressed against it he heard sound. This was a new kind of sound. I wasn’t the sound or noise of memories, grown faint and seemingly stale, but these sounds were being made as he heard them. As soon as Johnny heard them, he could hear them again, but the sounded different. They sounded old. Johnny knew what was on the other side of this wall and he knew if he broke it he would be Out. But Johnny didn’t want Out. Not ye. He was curious about he old walls he hadn’t broken yet. He wondered what things he could unlock when he broke them. He liked the power; he liked the control, so he turned from the out wall and began his study of the old walls. He pressed them until they started to crack. When the first wall cracked, pain rushed into Johnny, so he built Pain walls around the old ones. He had a sudden thought, and wondered if the energy that had dispelled the distortion, the broken things, could fill the cracks he had just caused.
Again, as soon as the thought had formed, the energy flowed over the pain walls and filled the cracks, causing the Pain walls to dissipate on their own. Johnny studied the old wall again and found that the substance that had filled the crack was exactly like the walls he had made by himself. Exactly like the substance that he could create and dispel without pain or even effort. Johnny began his experiment. He built Pain walls around the old one that had been cracked before and began to press the old wall from outside the Pain walls. It cracked but Johnny was blocked from the pain and he used the energy to fill the newest crack. He repeated this process until the old wall was no longer old but new. It had been cracked and the cracks filled with the substance that Johnny understood, that he could create and destroy. In a moment of triumph, he broke the wall. What came was magnificent. What came was control like never before. Johnny could control a part of himself that he never knew existed. What was better was the realization that he did not have to always control it, but he could build and rearrange his walls to his own design, to his own purposes. Johnny was excited. So many old walls, he thought, so much control. Johnny began to work.