Open Your Mind

Open your mind…

Turn it off, relax, and flow downstream…

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You are walking along a gravel path, bumpy and uneven due to its little use. Green foliage, wooden bark of great trees, all of these surround you as you walk down the path, absent minded, thinking only of whatever your journey may bring, and not caring about whatever that may be. You take a deep breath, greeted by the scent of chlorophyll and pollen, and the undeniable anti-smell of clean air. You can hear the sounds of nature around you, chirps, calls, scuttling paws, even just the rustle of branches against each other, and bushes against the grass. The greenery surrounding you reflects your current feelings, satisfied, content; you feel as though nothing can go wrong.

Though inside you have an unpleasant feeling, one that you find yourself unable to name. Is it unhappiness? Is it yearning? Is it regret? Is it more than one? These questions swirl through your head, as your feet trail down the path. At first, the feeling is subtle, but the further your pace, the more it aches within you. You are unnerved extremely by it is presence. You feel mostly happy, your surroundings are pleasant, such a feeling should not be welcome within you, yet still this feeling persists. Soon enough, this feeling is the only thing in your head.

You do not notice, in this sea of thoughts, that you have stepped off the gravel path, carried on walking into the trees, and are now surrounded by forestry on all sides. Panic sets in as you turn the opposite direction and run, trying to find the path again. Your vision blurs as you run. You carry on like this, for what you can swear was an hour. Too fatigued to proceed, you collapse onto the floor face first. You lay there on the ground, eyes closed, wondering what could have possibly caused this reversal of fortune. That feeling from before returns, even stronger and more unpleasant, and spreading throughout your entire body. You feel a very light touch on the back of your neck. You turn over to see what that touch is. You see lots of little drops of water falling towards you, and splashing on your body. Just when you thought the day could not get worse, it's started to rain.

You quickly push yourself back up and walk at a brisk pace trying to find a covered location to stay until the rain passes. The feeling of unhappiness turns into a feeling of dread, as you still find yourself unable to find a way out. Your pace picks up, slowly at first, until again, you are running at full speed. The rain, almost as if noticing your despair and deciding to amplify it, falls more intensely, and soon you are in the middle of a full on thunderstorm. Rays of lightning strike haphazardly and frequently, as enticing as they are dangerous. Not only that, but they seem to be striking closer and closer to you. You start to fear for your life, adrenalin now rushing through your blood, making you go even faster than before. So fast, that you do not notice the hill drop in front of you. Finding yourself unable to stop, you trip on the hill and roll down it, battering and bruising yourself on the way down. Pain shoots through you like a slug from a .45 every time you hit the earth side of the hill. A few seconds of this battering is all it takes to knock you unconscious, with the last thing you remember being an impact, squelch of wet sand and a white blur.

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You hear the sound of surf in your head. A gentle swooshing, in and out, repeatedly. The sound relaxes you, makes you feel at peace. This however, does not last, as sensation returns to your body as you wake up, and your find yourself laying back on a wet, hard rock floor. You quickly get up, back sore from lying on such a hard material. You take a look around and discover you are by the coast of an underground lake; stalactites hang a hundred meters above your head, and the lake that lies before you is at least 50 meters wide and long.

Although the sight is beautiful, you see no way of exiting the cave, worrying you, and reminding you of what happened just before you got here. You look into the lake, hoping staring at your own reflection will help you think straight. All this does though is reinforce the idea that you feel completely useless and pathetic. You try to tell yourself that you should stay positive, that you should know that no matter how bad things get, they always must get better, but that is seeming less and less true to you by the second.

A blast of air blows past you.

This blast of air feels far too strong to be a natural cave draft. You shrug it off as an odd occurrence at first, but then the blast of air blows past you again, even stronger than before. Before you even have time to think about thinking about what could have caused it, you get the answer flying towards you and landing only a few meters in front of where you are standing, causing you to fall onto your back and yelp in pain. You try to get up quickly, but this only makes you yelp in pain again and fall back down, resulting in even more pain. You attempt to get up again, this time slowly, to try and see what had made you fall over. You finally stand up. Before you, stands a massive silver-white bird-like creature, with navy blue spikes coming out of the area surrounding her eyes. Her wings split at the ends, into four rounded square segments, and what seemed to be an extra of these segments underneath the wing, resembling a thumb. Along her back, two rows of rounded square protrusions. Finally, her massive tail ended in two small navy blue spikes, opposing each other. Seeing this massive beast in front of you, you think this is the end. Though you try to hold it back as much as possible, tears begin streaming down your cheeks. You see the beast move her head towards you with her long neck, until she is face to face with you. You sit down in a crouched position and put your head down, and accept your fate as today's dinner.

However, the beast just stares at you. Consistently. Noticing this, you bring your head up again and face her. You see her eyes, and they seem to be full of not hunger and instinct, but instead worry. She rubs her beak against your face, trying to wipe up your tears. You are perplexed, and tilt your head at the beast, hoping she will understand this as confusion. In response to this, she also tilts her head, as if to either copy you or to also demonstrate her confusion at you. She then smiles and nuzzles your chest, trying to cheer you up. It is only now that you realize who this creature is, you had heard of them only in legends and tales, you never thought you would see one in real life. This was one of the creatures known as Lugia. You feel terrible for having thought that she would devour you, and bow your head down again.

In response to this, Lugia picks you up by your shirt collar with her beak and flies you over to the other side of the lake, landing and placing you down gently down on the ground. You land sitting down, and the Lugia lands just in front of you. You are now in a medium sized crater, this seems to be where Lugia rests, it resembles a nest, only without the wood. The inside of the crater is smoothed out, and so is comfortable to sit on. You lie down and try to relax a bit, glad to know that you are at last safe. All of a sudden, you see a Lugia's head staring at you in the face again, eyeing you curiously. You laugh and sit up, to examine the Lugia more closely. This is one is much smaller than the one who met you on the other side of the lake, about the same height as you sitting down from his feet to the top his head. He chirps happily and flies onto your lap, and then proceeds to lift himself above you and land on top of your head and rest there. You laugh as the Lugia curls up and accidentally wraps his wings around your eyes, making you unable to see. The Lugia realizes what he's done and giggles lightly, taking his wings off your face. He flies back down and lands in your lap, curling up there instead and falling into a peaceful sleep. You sit there and gaze at the life sleeping upon you, and gently pick him up.

The Lugia from before walks over to you, and observes you, with what you have now figured out to be her young, smiling to you. Lugia gestures a downward motion with her head, a gesture which puzzles you at first. Lugia repeats the gesture again, first nodding towards the youngling in your arms. You then realize she wants you to put the young Lugia down on the ground, and so you do so. The Lugia nods, confirming your intuition. She then gently picks up the youngling and places him on a stalagmite with the top curved inwards in the shape of a hemisphere, like a bed for the young Pokemon. Then Lugia turns to you. You smile at her, still unsure as to speak your thanks to her or just gesture it to her. Unbeknownst to you, she reads your mind and sees what you have been through. Shocked by this, she embraces you with her wings, surprising you.

Your mind is about to think how odd it is that she's given you a hug, but instead your mind is filled with serenity and peace. You feel all the worry and anxiety from before wash away, a wave receding in your thoughts. Lugia bends her head down, still smiling at you. She touches your chest with the tip of her beak. A bright white light emanates from this connection, you focus in on it as it flows through your body, making you feel a feeling unlike any you have felt before. As the light flows through your whole body, it beings to show itself on your skin, making you glow a bright white. Your sight is blinded, as you feel body changing, painlessly. You feel yourself getting lighter; a weight tethered to you cut off from the wire connecting it to you. You can't tell what changes are happening, but you just let go and let it happen, that same incredible feeling echoing throughout.

At last, the light fades from your eyes, and slowly, your vision goes from blurry, to faded, to clear, to even better than it was a few minutes ago. Everything looks more detailed, more vivid, more alive. Even the rocks which at first seemed only wet and dull before now reflect moonlight in a beautiful pattern. You suddenly remember what the moonlight means and look up, noticing that there's an opening in the top of the cave where moonlight is pouring in. It reflects with a silver glow on your white skin. You rewind your previous thought and realize you did just say "white skin" and you look yourself over, realizing what happened when you felt like your body was changing: Your form is that of Lugia's. You rush over the lake, subconsciously using your newfound wings to propel yourself to it more quickly. You look at your reflection in the water, where a white, bird like head with navy blue spikes surrounding both of your eyes. You turn around to see both the Lugia, ecstatic at your transformation. Lugia gestures with her head towards the opening of the cave, and both the Lugia take off into the opening, calling for you to come with them, you now being able to understand their sentiments from their chirps.

You wonder to yourself how on earth you try to fly, but as you experiment flapping your wings, you find the knowledge comes to you as if it had always been there. With every flap higher towards the opening, you grow more and more confident, finally reaching the opening and entering the night sky.

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You see the two Lugia up ahead, waiting for you, instructing you to come with them. You do so, and you fly in a formation of three onwards, in no direction except wherever you end up taking yourself. As you cruise through the night sky, nothing else fills your mind but pure joy, propelling you to keep going and giving you the wind beneath your wings. You a feel a light drop on your beak, surprising you and breaking your train of thought. Then another drop falls. Then another. Then more and more, until you look up and realize the source of the drops: it has started to rain again. The rain feels so different now, to how it did running through it on the ground, hindering you and bringing you down. Now, you care not, the rain is your domain, you own the sky. Each drop of rain on you is only another another rush of excitement, shock waving through you, charging you with energy. The minutes turn to hours, and hours turn into endless time, just cruising the sky with no other thought. Even as you are slaloming through lightning bolts and trying to imitate the graceful aerial maneuvers performed by the two awesome creatures, fear never crosses your mind, you have no reason to be fearful, this is yours, you own the sky.

Soon enough however, you reach land and being cruising over the beach, then the forest covered mainland. As you fly over the forest and being inching near a town, you begin to wonder if people can see you. Then you realize that most people are sleeping, and you are so high up, you could easily be mistaken for another bird Pokemon. This worry off your head, you observe the quiet town. Save for a few graveyard shifters, there's no one else around. You take odd appreciation for the beauty of the scene, the minimal amount of lights on, the tiny little dots that are people walking by, likely going home to get some well deserved rest, and the moonlight bathing the architecture and reflecting in the river. You see the two Lugia looking at the scene as well, awed at the simplistic beauty that rested beneath them. You think to yourself that they must not risk flying outside the sea much, they must really care about you to fly this far out with you, you wonder why they felt the obligation to save you like they did. You recall now, that white blur before you went unconscious, it wasn't your mind whiting out, it was Lugia. You feel at a loss for words, not knowing how on earth you can even begin to thank him, for saving you, for this amazing experience, everything. You see the two Lugia start a descent, into an unpopulated clearing save for one house. It is only as you approach it that you realize whose house it is: it's yours. Lugia must have read your mind and guided you here. You begin slowing down mid air, until you are at a steady hovering pace, gently lowering further and further until you touch down on the ground.

You turn back and observe the house, exactly the same as it was when you left it. The young Lugia curiously takes a peek inside the house by the nearby window, fascinated by all the common household objects. You laugh as you walk over to him, telling him about what each object does. Curiosity satisfied, he goes back to his mother, wondering what to do next. The large Lugia calls you over gently, you come to her. She places her beak on your chest again, and you feel the transformation begin to recede. Soon enough, you are back to your normal self. The two of you stand there for a moment, unsure of what to say. Until you hear an auratic voice in your head:

"Thank… you"

You tightly hug the Lugia's neck (The only part of her you are able to hug with your current size), unable to contain your emotion. The Lugia simply smiles again, telling you that she promises to visit you again sometime. With that message, she departs, as silently as you took off with her, and heads back home with her young in tow, looking back to you with a grin, heading into the horizon, where the sun is rising. The orange light bathes the ground, and reaches you. Though you spent most of the previous night awake, you do not feel tired at all. In fact, you feel better than you have felt in ages. You feel something brushing against your hair. You pick it up, it is a silver feather. Happy, and feeling refreshed and relaxed, you enter your house.

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See the meaning of within.

It is being.

Open your mind...