Chapter 16: Second Sense The days after that passed in a blur. Finn could hear the outside world, hear every person that entered the room to feed and take care of him, hear them talk without inhibitions as they thought he couldn’t hear. And with all these little snippets, he formed a general idea of who these strangers were. First, there was Isis. She was the one tasked to take care of him for the most part. And at the start, she had bitched a lot about it. Finn, stuck in his mind, had had no choice but to listen to her rant about how she was ’stuck playing babysitter’ and ’being a nanny’ to someone she barely knew. That had continued for days on end, where he’d listen to her rant, before switching to hour long cursings at a guy called ’Micah’. The guy was lucky these curses were simply words, else, he’d be dead a hundred times over. Finn had listened to Isis fantasize about so many weird scenarios, all with Micah ending up either beaten up, face pressed against the ground, wiped clean of his playful smirk, his cigar forced down his throat... the list went on. If it wasn’t for the fact that Finn had also learned of their master–student relationship dynamic after the few visits Micah had made to his room, he’d have thought the man was her greatest nemesis. But he found they were simply that casual with each other. Micah took all of her words in stride and also fired his with even more bite. The man knew how to hit where it hurt the most. Finn had caught himself mentally cracking with laughter a few times, and if not because he couldn’t move a muscle, he would’ve actually laughed out loud too. He enjoyed days like those. They granted him a brief relief from the ever-present bleak darkness of his mind, even if for a few hours. Since regaining his sense of hearing, Finn had tried as hard as he could to win back the rest of his senses from the presences that held them from him. But no matter how much he’d tried, he hadn’t been able to replicate the same state he’d reached to devour that last presence. All he could do was slowly fight for dominance in his normal state. It was slow... extremely slow, like nibbling at a wall that also tried to reset every single time he let up, but it was all he could do at the moment. He’d chosen to stick to a single presence at a time, so he’d been fighting against this one ever since. It was a slow, lonely fight most of the time, but at least it was interspersed with Isis’ ramblings from the outside. Besides her usual ranting, he’d learned a few bits about the Ossuarist world. Apparently he’d been inducted into the Ossuary... kinda? It was a weird situation. But from what Finn had pieced together, he was in an Ossuarist-owned school where there were others like him. Soul mages who were carefully being taught in the proper ways of soul magic. But Finn’s situation was rather peculiar. While he had been accepted, it seemed it hadn’t been without tense pushback and friction. In fact, from the few talks between Micah and Isis he’d heard, when he awoke fully, he would have to go through a rigorous test to prove himself stable enough to not be a hazard to the other Ossuarists learning in the school. Apparently the school proprietor had vehemently insisted on this, despite Micah repeatedly vouching for Finn’s would-be stability based on his superior ability to assimilate chaotic soul masses. Coupled with the little, petty knowledge Finn previously had of Soul Magic in general, he now had a clearer, though still incomplete picture of where he stood in this Ossuarist world. The time alone in his mind had also provided him the opportunity to call up all the required memories of this world’s version of himself and sort through them carefully. Uncannily, he’d realized both this world and his original — Earth — shared similarities in some areas, while differing vastly in most. The logic being, the closer the person was to him, the more similar they were to the Earth version he knew. For example, his father, mother, immediate family members, and close friends like Rick, were nearly the same as they were on earth, barring the differences that came about from their totally different life experiences. They were still the same for the most part —The way they moved, peculiar quirks, their tastes, natural behaviour... were still the same. But the life experiences that had shaped them into what they were today were totally different. Mostly due to the fact that the world itself was fundamentally different. Here, instead of seven continents, there were only three. Aethelos, where he resided, which was a large unified country-continent on its own. Feraxia, the continent ruled and dominated by beast-tamer tribes and noble families. And Mechanus, the smallest, yet most advanced continent in this world. Split into a whooping ninety-two countries. It was a running joke that only citizens of Mechanus considered their numerous countries as true countries. Effectively, the rest of the world saw them as just cities. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂 In essence, though, for the people Finn knew personally, despite the fact they looked and mostly behaved the same as they did on earth, living in such a world so different meant they weren’t one-for-one the same as their earth alternate. And that was without even mentioning the prime differentiating factor — Mana. Finn, because he was raised in an Arcanist family and an Arcanist-dominated country, knew a whole lot about ’mana’. But that wasn’t something to delve into at this time. Finn’s mind refocused on the presence in his mind again. It had been thirty-three days and counting since he regained his hearing and was able to keep track of Isis coming in to take care of him daily. Ever since, he’d been mentally fighting against that single presence for dominance... and right now, he could feel the last bit of resistance give way. The sense this presence had under lock and key was unknown to Finn. He would only find out after winning. He strained with everything he had, making the last and final push against the presence. And with a final push...