Jerry, a couple of feet behind me, stopped. “Dude? Were you, like, in my mind for a while there?” I held up a hand, panting, then gave up and laid myself out on the ground with my feet propped on the tree. “Guess so?” “Shit.” I nodded, wondering. What would— Jerry sat himself down next to me, hands wrapped over his knees. “Good trick. That first group looked like it was about to come after us, then…they lost interest. How long’ve you been able to do that?” My mind was a mostly-dry sponge, still being wrung out but with almost nothing left. “Not sure.” “Yeah? Well…cool, I guess. Here, watch this.” I turned my head, still breathing hard. Jerry, pointing at a rock about five feet away from us. Nothing special; it looked to be about a pound’s worth of granite. “What—?” “Shh.” He sounded…strained. I glanced at his face. His eyes were shut, and his forehead was ridged in concentration. And I could feel something change. In his head. The rock rolled itself out of the ground, pulling dirt and roots into the light as it came.
