Chapter 5 – The First Step
The next day passed quietly.
Daisy and Johnny were both busy with coloring books inside, and Sister Mary had her hands full with two toddlers who had managed to get spaghetti in their hair—again. No one needed watching for the moment.
So Thomas slipped outside.
He walked across the lawn with measured steps, until he reached the old oak tree.
The broken branch from yesterday still hung awkwardly, half-snapped and swaying in the breeze. The grass below it was flat where he should have landed—hard.
Thomas stood there in silence, gazing upward. The sunlight filtered through the leaves, dancing in shifting patterns across the ground. He remembered the feeling of falling—the rush of wind, the twist in his stomach, the inevitability of impact.
But then... nothing.
Just sudden stillness.
His feet on grass.
It didn't make sense. Not if he were just a normal child.
He crouched slowly, his small fingers brushing the spot where he had reappeared. No burns, no magic circles, no marks. In his old world, space magic had always come with visible signs—glowing diagrams, intricate geometric sequences suspended in air, runes carved into silver rings or ancient staffs.
But yesterday, there had been none of that.
Just instinct.
A reflex.
"I didn't calculate anything," he muttered to himself. "I didn't summon a sigil or align a ley line... I just... wasn't there anymore."
That thought disturbed him as much as it excited him. In his old life, he had studied magic from the outside—watched enviously as those with talent carved glowing lines into space, as they manipulated dimensions like artists painting on air. He had memorized their methods, written entire treatises on their logic, even founded a merchant guild that helped finance magical expeditions.
But he had never been one of them.
He had never felt space.
Until now.
He stood up again, brushing off his knees. The air was warm, still. No one was watching.
He took a breath.
"All right," he said softly. "Let's try this."
He closed his eyes and imagined himself... gone. Gone from here. Standing a few feet to the right. He pictured the grass underfoot, the air against his cheek, the sound of a bird chirping from the branches.
And then—
Nothing.
He opened one eye.
Still standing in the same spot.
"Okay," he said, undeterred. "Again."
He tried again. And again. Over and over. He focused. He clenched his fists. He even tried jumping into the motion—anything that might trigger the instinct again.
Still nothing.
Thomas sat down with a sigh, frustration creeping in. "Maybe it was just a fluke," he said bitterly. "A dying branch. A stroke of luck."
But even as he said it, he didn't believe it.
No, he knew something had happened. He just didn't understand the trigger.
He leaned back against the tree, eyes closing, letting the memory play out in his mind like a scene from a dream.
He'd been falling. There'd been panic—but also clarity. That desperate need not to hit the ground. The wild instinct to be somewhere else. And then... safety.
He hadn't thought. He hadn't planned. He had felt.
Emotion, not logic.
That was the key.
Thomas stood up again.
This time, he didn't try to calculate it. He didn't try to plan the movement like a spell formula. He just focused on the memory of falling—the surge of fear, the spike of willpower—and channeled that into a single, vivid intention:
Be. Somewhere. Else.
And then—
A ripple.
Like a wave moving through the world around him.
The tree twisted slightly in his vision, and for a heartbeat, everything felt weightless.
When he opened his eyes—
He was standing three feet to the right.
He gasped.
He turned in place, looking back at the spot where he had stood just moments ago. The grass was undisturbed. No flash of light. No swirl of wind. But he had moved.
"No way," he whispered.
He crouched, placing a hand to the ground. It was real. He was really here. He'd done it.
Not with symbols.
Not with incantations.
Just—pure instinct.
Pure space.
And it had responded.
Thomas sat down, giddy. His heart raced in his tiny chest, and his smile felt too wide for his face. For the first time since waking up in this new world, he felt something he hadn't dared to hope for.
Not just safety.
Not just survival.
Potential.
He lay back in the grass, arms spread, grinning at the sky.
"I did it."
The words were barely a whisper, but they carried the weight of a thousand wishes from a former life.
He had never been chosen before. Never been special. He'd studied magic from the outside, envied those born with the gift, and tried to replicate it with machinery and logic.
But now?
Now it was inside him.
Space was no longer a locked door.
It was a thread in his hands.