"Nearly there now folks!"

"urgh", one of my new classmates, walking along next to me was muttering, "s'all right for them, they're able to create dry bubble spheres for themselves. It'll be nice to get back and dry off near the fire".

As much as I agreed with him after walking for half an hour in what could only be described as some of the worst weather I'd ever seen, I couldn't help but wonder what he'd expected when he'd agreed to be part of a class of final year magic students learning about lightning. I tried to comfort him by patting him on his sodden shoulder and asking him,

"Hey, even if no-one will ever call lightning from their fingertips again, as Maglit (the first magician) did, I can't wait to study it! What what amazing things do you think we'll be able to do with this once we've finished?"

I got rewarded with a slight grin for my efforts.

"Well, I'm doing my project with a couple of masters who've made progress on creating something that creates a nearly permanent light, but they need someone to understand lightning better, so I got asked to come along here" he replied. "Anyway, I hear you're working on, what are they called? Magnetoids?"

Before I could reply, our conversation was cut short as we approached a long thin metal rod stuck vertically into the top of the hill and one of the Professors started speaking.

"Sorry for bringing you all this way in this terrible weather!" — She looked far more excited than apologetic — "But if you want to learn about lightning, if you want to learn about where magic itself comes from, this is what it takes!"

She made us gather round the rod and put on our blackout googles before repeating what she said earlier about safety, reminding us again that we should all be OK as long as we don't do anything stupid.

"Remember, all you need to be doing here is feeling it, I'm not expecting you to call lightning on your first week, after all. It's an incredibly difficult group effort at the best of times, so progress here will be much slower than what you're used to. It takes five of us, who have been doing this for years, to call it from the sky and we're virtually in a thunderstorm".

We put on our earmuffs as, behind me, I could sense her linking with the other masters as she started working her magic. Why was my arm tingling like it only ever does when I was working with magnetoids? What would link them with lightning? Concentrate, I told myself, but this only intensified the tingling sensation. Then sudden fire in my arm. There was screaming. It sounded like my voice. Someone yelled for a medic. The ground slammed into my knees. The magic in my body was pulling me apart.

Through the tears and googles I could vaguely register sparks flowing from my hands.

From nowhere, the professor was next to me, grabbing my arm and pointing it at the rod, channelling energy through me. She was trying to push the magic out of my arm! She broke off, swearing at the sparks now angling towards her.

"You need to let it out! I don't have the energy or power to force your magical block open"

"I don't know how". I was gasping, struggling to speak. I tried copying what she'd tried on my arm, but all I succeeded in doing was creating more sparks. The burning sensation just kept growing. Then...

The world was filled with light as the sound, although it was to sound as this lightning was to a flickering candle, blasted through me. My magic responded as a wave, as my body reacted to the thunder and I understood what the thunder said to me. Sheer magical power exploded from my hand towards the sky, only, the magical power was lightning.

I knelt in the muddy grass, staring astonished at my hands, unable to believe what had just happened. For the second time that day, the ground rushed up to meet me.

I groaned at the headache in my head. Immediately, I heard someone running towards me.

"You're awake! It's good to see you regain consciousness." It was an unfamiliar voice.

"Where... Where am I?" At least I was warm and dry now.

"The hospital ward. I'm afraid that you suffered some major burns in both hands, but we'll get you going again in no time"

At the mention of burns, my eyes flicked open to see my hands wrapped in bandages.

"Do you remember what happened?" The voice, turning out to belong to a medic at the bottom of my bed, said.

At this, the memories came rushing back.

"Did I... Did I really do that?"

"Oh yes, you produced lightning from your fingers, it's all everyone can talk about! But you still need to recover, so I'll leave you to get back to sleep."

^{This is my first attempt (outside of school/uni) at writing anything longer than a Haiku and it turned out to be longer than expected, so feedback would be most welcome}

posted over 4 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Mithrandir24601‭ staff

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