"Judas fisting Jesus that was close."

The calm of meditation had left Mitch entirely. All he felt now was a panic so strong his mind was buzzing. He backed away, watching as a few dregs of vapor floated away from him; forming a vaguely human silhouette.

"What. The. Fuck."

"Breathe. Think. Think and breathe. Breathe, then think."

By the time Mitch's heart had slowed to a rate less than that of a snare drum, his lizard brain retreated, and his mind regained rational thought the pearlescent mist had faded completely.

"Ok, so, you are Misty Man. Every cell in your body farts out imma-make-your-world-my-bitch mist."

Suddenly Mitch feels weak; like he had downed a black beauty or a handful of Adderall and was coming down after three days without sleep. His knees gave out, and he collapsed onto his side where he started twitching; his breathing short, rapid, and irregular. Was he having a seizure? He never answered himself before he blacked out.

***

He must have been out for a few hours: when he woke the sun had moved significantly and was on the verge of setting. It was a rather spectacular dusk, but it was lost on Mitch. After a moment of disorientation passed he could not help but start to worry. What was this all doing to him? He backed into a corner of the roof and held his head to his knees. He refused to panic again, but there was still a low boil of fear in his gut. This method was the only thing he had found so far that seemed to have an effect on his ability to handle the energies that were flooding back into the world. If he couldn't use this method, he was totally fucked.

After a while, he realized thinking about it more wouldn't get him anywhere and laboriously made his way back to his apartment: his whole body in pain.

He managed to reach his bed where he fell unceremoniously, barely getting the covers over himself before lapsing into a more natural sleep than the unconscious of before.

***

The morning bane (sunlight) woke him. He felt worse than he had after his post mortality bender. As gingerly as possible while still conveying his utter displeasure at the continued existence of the world Mitch threw a pillow over his eyes and attempted to go back to sleep. Unfortunately, he was entirely unsuccessful. Damn bladder.

After giving in to the demands of his body, he headed back to his room fully intending to continue to deny reality. On his way, however, he noticed that the plant that he had used to evaluate the efficacy of the formation that had ended up being successful was still going strong. He walked up to it and looked at it for a few moments. Its leaves were still a vibrant green, and its stems were much thicker than they should be: in an almost bonsai-like manner.

"What do you know that I don't?" he asked of the plant aloud.

Deciding to take it out of the formation for a closer look he broke the circle and grabbed it by the soil, lifting it carefully.

The moment he pulled the plant from the mist within the circle it started twitching and writhing. Mitch dropped it in shock. By the time it hit the floor it had already started wilting, and within another minute or two it was nothing more than ectoplasmic goop soaking into the carpet.

Mitch stared, mouth agape, completely unable to process what had just happened.

***

Mitch had moved, but he was still staring at the now-mostly-dry spot on the floor where the plant had disincorporated from his bed. It had just dissolved.

He had reached the conclusion that the mist was like a drug. After one's body had gotten used to it, the dangers of its absence outweighed those of its presence. Although the withdrawal symptoms were much more immediate than any drug he had ever heard of.

Also, he had decided that he did not want to become goop. He very much did not want to become goop.

His stomach growled.

After that was taken care of, he felt a bit better and had decided on a course of action.

He needed to know what was going on inside himself better. The best way he could think of to learn what he needed to was to go back inside of himself: which meant meditation while NOT inside of the circle.

This course of action also appealed to the portion of his mind that was still hoping he would never move again.

He sat on the bed in a traditional cross-legged position and began to let his mind wander as he had done the previous day.

Three tries later, and he had garnered no success other than a brief nap.

Deciding just to get comfortable he lay down and gave it one last go. He promptly fell asleep.

He started to wake again around dusk but still felt tired and didn't bother to move. As darkness fell, without thinking about it, he found himself settling into that quiet space beneath his thoughts once more.

Much more slowly this time his perception made its way down into his torso. As he had more time to observe he had a chance to take in the organs, muscles bones and etcetera that he was passing through. The thing that stood out to him was that they all seemed to have an extremely dim orange glow to them.

Eventually, he found himself back outside of a vessel and once again he reached out and touched it.

This experience was much different than the last. The inside of the channel was nothing like what he had expected based on his experience the previous day.

Previously, it had been mostly smooth sailing with just an occasional bit of turbulence, but this time as soon as he entered the channel it was almost continuously turbid flow. It was so bad it was legitimately disorienting. Mitch was batted about by the whirlpools for a while until whatever he was made of when he was in this state felt battered and bruised.

When he finally found a short stretch of calm, he stopped himself and stayed within that area for a while as he thought. It seemed to him that these things must have something to do with whatever was making him feel like he had the most epic hangover of all time. Considering that he had felt fine when there were much fewer of them, he decided that whatever these were was most likely not good for him.

Unpleasant as it was, he already had a way to deal with the events. So, he set to work. Extending his consciousness into the nearest, largest whirlpool he reached arduously for the seed at the center until he touched it and it shattered. He then watched as the dependent aberrations collapsed one after another running off into the distance. And so he continued for a while.

Whirlpool after vortex after maelstrom fell apart under his ministrations. He lost count of how many Keypools he had destroyed. He started referring to the eddies that had dependents as Keypools; a portmanteau of Keystone and whirlpool.

Time had no meaning in the state he was in, and he never felt tired or bored. Again and again, he broke apart disturbances wherever he found them.

After an indeterminate period, he found that no matter how many times he went down the passages he never encountered any more perturbations.

He spent some more time exploring and observing how the now undisturbed fluid flowed around the passages, and how the passages connected, and where each let. He had built up a fairly reasonable, he felt, mental map of the labyrinth.

Eventually, when he felt there was no more which he could accomplish he started moving back up toward his head. He didn't know for sure, but he had a feeling that if he went into his head and made an effort, he would be able to return to ordinary consciousness with relative ease. He had to wander around for a while within his fleshly brain, but he finally found a place that seemed to have a resonance with his current form.

He had thought it might take just a light push or something, but it required a massive effort to force his way through the barrier, even where it was thinnest. Why was it so easy to enter but so difficult to leave?

Finally, he broke through where sleep grabbed him violently and dragged him under.

***

He had no idea how long it had been since he this all started when he awoke.

His first order of business was an exceptionally hearty breakfast followed by a good stretch.

He felt good. Terrific, if truth be told; nearly euphoric. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so refreshed.

Finally, when he was ready for the dramas of the real world to make another appearance in his life, he turned on the tv.

The channel that popped up was on a news program. He settled back to see what drama was unfolding. Cable news: the best infotainment once could ask for.

Almost as soon as he settled in he popped back up to his feet wearing a this-is-the-bad-kind-of-surprised expression.

He flipped through several channels not believing his eyes. It had to be a typo; it had to be.

When he could no longer deny the reality he sat heavily back into his couch.

It had been nine days.