The roads leading out of town were narrow and winding. The exact sort of roads that led to a large amount of accidents—though mostly against deer and not other cars. Blind corners were what I had to watch out for. Even with a stronger body, I didn’t trust it to handle tons of steel hitting me at speed. So I stuck to the wooded area just off the road for safety.

  I picked my way through the trees. The road was always in my sight. I kept it to my left for when I found an opportunity to get to the river. I passed through a park, but declined to take off from there—too many people.

  After an hour of walking, I thought I wasn’t going to find anywhere. Then, I crossed yet another driveway. This one was different than the others. I could see to its end, and I saw that there were no cars. It wasn’t the first house with no cars—I’d checked two others so far—but it looked promising.

  I kept to the woods for my approach. If someone was home, I could just return to the road and try another house. As I got closer, I was on the lookout for any movement or animals there to chase me off. When I saw none, I kept going into the back and towards the river.

  The house didn’t have a dock. What it did have were several large gardens. I looked at the fruits, vegetables, and flowers when I walked past. They went down almost all the way to the water’s edge where there was a small gazebo. I peered inside. Seeing no one, I cast Illusion and ran towards the water. Flight lifted me into the air.

  I soared higher until I was two hundred feet above the water. Turning upriver, I increased my speed as high as it would go. I wanted to get to my destination today. There was no way I could afford another night with the money I had on me. Ahead of me, the river narrowed and rose in elevation. It was gradual, but over the first hour of flight, I noticed a large difference. I still hadn’t reached the falls, yet, but they were close, I thought.

  I came to rest where the river split in two. The smaller branch went west while the larger branch continued north. It was the northerly branch that I wanted to take after I recovered enough blood. Like yesterday, I found a suitable place to take a nap out of sight. I made a fluffy pile of leaves and laid down to sleep.

  I woke a few hours later. The sun was decidedly past noon now. I needed to get a move-on. With a running start, I leaped into the air. Flight caught me. I sped up the northern fork and higher into the air than before. The falls were coming, and I didn’t want to accidentally run into something I didn’t see ahead of me. Flying like Superman—lying face down—made seeing ahead rather difficult. But that was the only real way to fly. The other option was to fly like a brick. The one hurt too much. Head first minimized that discomfort—at the cost of my vision.

  Thankfully, the falls were only about two hundred feet and spread out over several miles, so I had plenty of time to fix my height before the next section of rapids. With falls and rapids becoming more common in general, I knew that I was getting close to my destination. The preserve I was heading to was mountainous and would provide plenty of space to get lost in—which I hoped would make finding me rather difficult.

  My blood began to run low soon after the falls, but I kept flying. I needed to fly. I was so close. Blood began to leak from my nose over the next ten minutes. It was then that I decided I needed to land. Even if I wasn’t quite there yet, a night anywhere nearby would be better than dying.

  I found an open spot and came in for a landing. It was someone’s back yard, and they were home! Not ten yards from where I landed was an old man who stared at me with his mouth hanging open. I let the Illusion fall and walked over to him. The situation needed handling, and I needed a place to sleep for the night. I hoped it would work out.

  “Hello!” I waved to the man.

  “Who-What—?” came the garbled reply.

  “Flying’s rough,” I told him. “Needed to land. Sorry ‘bout that. I’ll have to rest a few then I’ll be on my way.”

  “Now wait just a minute, young man,” he said. “You can’t just fly into someone’s yard and not explain how you were doing it! Are you an alien?”

  “Nope! 100% grade A human,” I said with a chuckle.

  “And the flying?”

  “I hope you’ll understand when I say it’s a secret I’ll need you to keep ok?”

  “I guess—If you’ll tell me how you did it.”

  I took the opportunity to make that a binding System Contract. The last thing I needed was him blabbing to other people about what I’d done. That might get back to whoever Grandpa Joe worked with. They would be able to stitch the breadcrumbs back together and figure out where I’d gone. I couldn’t have that!

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  “Well, I flew because of magic. Magic’s coming to the world in a few years, and I’m testing it out.”

  “Magic’s a cop out!” he exclaimed, stomping his foot.

  “Look,” I said, casting Spark. “Magic.”

  A drop of blood escaped my nose.

  “Well I’ll be! Magic you say… That’s certainly something.”

  “That’s why it’s a secret. Can you imagine how much that will change the world?”

  “I’ll bet,” he nodded. “Well, if you need a place to stay for the night to recharge, you’re welcome to the guest room, oh mighty wizard.”

  He laughed at his joke. I smiled.

  “That would be wonderful. I hope I’m not intruding or anything.”

  “Oh, it’s fine. It’s been lonely here without my wife. She passed last year—”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “And the grandkids don’t visit often,” he nodded. “And thanks. I manage. It’ll be nice to at least have some company for a night.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I was prepared to camp out in the woods overnight. This will be warmer and drier!”

  “Nothing in that magic tool belt of yours for making a camp?”

  “Not yet, I’m afraid. Working on it, though.”

  “Ah. Well, follow me. I’ll show you inside.”

  I nodded and followed the man whose name I still did not know.

  The house was just two bedrooms and two baths. For this area, that was normal. Compared to the ever larger houses being built in an endless competition for the most corner-cut mansion, it was small. The outside was covered in bare wood that had aged a while, giving it a gray look. The trim around the windows and doors was red. It felt cozy.

  The inside was packed. A lifetime’s worth of memories filled every nook and cranny. I saw pictures of what I guessed were his late wife, his children, and his grandchildren. They hung all over the home on walls and standing on shelves. There was hardly any open space that I could find.

  I dropped my backpack into the guest room. It was small. A single bed, a nightstand, a dresser, and a bookshelf were the entire complement of furniture. The bed was covered by a colorful quilt. The rest of the furniture had the requisite number of family pictures. They were inescapable!

  After dropping my things in the room, the old man—whose name I finally learned was Max—showed me the bathroom where I could take a shower. I gratefully stripped and cleaned myself. A shower after a long, cold day of flying was wonderful. I let the hot water wash away my worries before wiping the water off and putting my clothes back on.

  Max was waiting for me in the kitchen with sandwiches. I sat across from him at his table. I took a long drink of water.

  “I’m sorry,” Max said with a shake of his head. “This is all I’m good at cooking.”

  “I won’t turn down good food,” I smiled.

  “That’s good to hear. So, what’s your story? How’s a young man like you end up a wizard?”

  “Not a wizard,” I laughed. “It’s a long story, and I’m closer in age to you than I am to how I look right now.”

  “Are you now?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Mhm. Magic slows aging significantly.”

  I paused for a moment.

  “Look,” I continued, dropping Disguise Self. “This is how I actually look. Inside, though, I’m retirement age.”

  He whistled.

  “That’s certainly something!”

  “A long journey that started without magic and without a clue. Yet here I am, flying around.”

  “So you learned a lot then?”

  “I guess so. There’s so much I need to figure out, still.”

  “The more you learn,” he laughed, “the more you find you don’t know!”

  “Exactly!”

  I took a large bite of the sandwich.

  “So, how about you, Max? What’s your story?”

  “Signed up with the army after high school,” he said. “Spent the next two decades there, before retiring. A couple tours overseas. Met my wife, married, had three children. Watched them grow up too quickly before we were alone again. We moved up here to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life—especially when we began to slow down. Then she died two years ago. Been hanging on since then.”

  “Sorry—again. How do you deal with death? Not just your wife, but what I’m sure you saw in your time overseas.”

  “Ah, that’s a hard one.” Max said, taking a deep breath. “In some ways, you never get over it. I mean, I still remember the face of the boy I killed. And I say boy because that’s what he was. And so was I. My first deployment, I was on patrol and my buddy was hit. My training kicked in and I returned fire, killing the boy who shot my buddy. My buddy lived, the boy did not.

  “It was justified, sure. I didn’t fire first, and he was an enemy. That didn’t mean it was easy. He appears in my dreams to this day, though not as often as he once did. There were others, too, but he was the first.

  “As for how to deal with it? Well, looking internally helped. Meditation and soul searching. Throw in some self-hypnosis, and I’ve come to terms with what I went through. I don’t blame the boy—we were the invaders—but I also don’t blame myself. I did the right thing for someone of my station. No, the blame falls on the leaders who put me there in the first place. The boy needn’t have died, and my buddy needn’t have been injured. But such is life.”

  He shrugged.

  “Then when it comes to my wife, well… That one still stings. There’s a hole that cannot ever be filled, and that’s what hurts the most. I always have things I want to say to her, but I can’t. Only my memories of how she was can answer those questions, but it isn’t the same.”

  “That’s heavy,” I said. “But thank you for telling me.”

  And I meant it. What he had said gave me some things to think about. Maybe I would be able to banish the scenes from my mind. Like how he was put in a situation where he had no choice but to kill someone, I was put in a similar situation. The time limit and the impact of failure were my leaders sticking me in a bad place. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault.

  “You’re welcome, Edward. It felt good to talk about it—get it off my chest.”

  I nodded.

  “So what’s your plan? Are you leaving tomorrow morning?”

  “That’s the idea. I’m headed towards the preserve. Shouldn’t take more than an hour, I hope. Flying’s pretty quick.”

  “Alright. I’ll toss some snacks in your backpack when you’re ready to leave. Would that be ok?”

  “Sure, and thanks—both for the snack and for dinner.”

  “You’re most welcome.”

  “I’ll head off to bed.”

  “Alright,” he said. “Have a good night.”

  “You too.”

  I went to the guest room. The bed was comfortable, and sleep took me quickly. For the first time in a few days, I slept without worrying about the nightmares… and they stayed away.