The indicator moves closer and closer to the red area of the bar. I come to the conclusion that my captors have a sadistic sense of humor. The indicator isn’t close to the red at all and it already felt hotter than a sunny August day. My only option really is to watch it move.

Wait, that is far from the truth. How can I be so short sighted? That guy blasted me with heat and I absorbed it. At the time, I took the heat into me and used it as fuel for healing. Come to think of it, that is how I healed on the medical level. Ok, time to focus. I do not need to heal now. What I need is to push the heat away from me. Should be easy.

Getting into a meditative posture. Which may have been a mistake. The heat is radiating from the walls, floor, and ceiling. My ass burns a little. That is not important though. Moving the heat away from me is important. I focus on it and think of how it felt to pull it into me. That was all knee jerk reactions or maybe some sort of muscle memory. It wasn’t just a matter of will and fortitude. I have to know how to flex this ability.

Concentrating on my breath. Inhale bringing in heat. Exhaling more heat. My senses lock onto the energy. It becomes part of them all. I can see it and not see it. Smell the heat, hear it, taste it, and feel it. Not like I used to, in a new surreal manner. As I hold it in, my internal temperature skyrockets. Then it flows out, and I feel my body cool down. I repeat this again, and again, until I am comfortable with being able to push it away.

On my next exhale I push it outwards like a bubble around me. Careful not to push it too far. Not knowing how the heat would increase around me or how difficulty will increase. Pushing the heat too far away from me would most likely be disastrous. If we are in space then there is a chance what I am doing could expose me to the vacuum. Well there is a good chance we are underground. That just means I would be buried instead. Oh, maybe the halls are on the other side of those walls. I might hurt innocent people. But, on the plus side my ass also cooled down.

Controlling the bubble is like holding back a stream of water with my hand. I feel the pressure on the outself and increasing in intensity. With practice, holding it back might be simple. With practice! If I had done this before I don't remember and this was something that would require months, years, or even decades to master.

Opening my eyes, the walls are glowing red hot. Chuckling as I look at the temperature bar. The red area matched the walls. I stare at the wall, growing impatient and a bit desperate. Please let this end soon. If this is just a ‘test’, maybe if I give up it will end? In my mind's eye the bubble was far away from me, but I can see the heat warping around me millimeters away. The yellow bar starts getting smaller and smaller. Relief hits, it's a timer of sorts.

Unlike the puzzle test these fuckers can only make this room so hot until it became to dangerous. Please let me be right. After all, if they make it too hot, whatever skills a person might use to protect themselves can fail. The poor test subject might die. Meaning me. Please don’t fail Dimitri. Don’t give them the satisfaction of killing you.

Time's up. Seconds tick by, each feeling like an eternity as I watch the temperature indicator. Thankfully it moves and the walls stop glowing. With that, the pressure pushing on me dwindles. The room cools much faster than it heated up. Breathing a sigh of relief and letting go of the bubble. A weight lifts off me.

The few times I brought the heat into me to heal it wore me out, and I expected that this exercise would wear me out as well. That is not the case. Using my abilities like this feels little more than taking a brisk walk. My heart is racing a bit and there is a touch of labored breath. That was it, though. It was possible I could have held off that heat for much longer. I can’t let myself get too cocky. My stamina is different and I don’t know my limits. This heavy breathing could be a sign I nearly reached it.

Sitting back on my hands and pondering what this meant. Needless to say I am stupid. Can’t seem to not get distracted by all the science and weirdness that is going on around me. I realize something as I exhale. The moisture condenses in my breath. There is a whole other side of the temperature indicator. Which is blue. On a side note it's nice to know some things are somewhat universal. Fuck.

Quickly, I attempt to pull the heat away from the room to me. It’s leaving though. Then I tried to hold off the heat from escaping me. This doesn’t really work either, because it makes me feel overheated almost instantly. My skills with this ability are nowhere near sensitive enough to do what I needed to do. All I really manage to do is make the temperature drop faster. No idea what to even try.

My ears sting with the pain of the cold. Fingers and toes are going numb. I start to do jumping jacks in an attempt to generate my own heat, but with every inhale I feel my body grow colder and colder. Starting to shiver so badly. To hard to keep moving. The impulse to curl up into a ball is overwhelming. If I can only put up a bubble to keep that heat in. I’d rather over heat then feel this cold.

Frost forms all over me, the walls, the floor and the ceiling. A weak bubble extends out of me, but I’m still freezing on the floor and the cold is forcing me to drift unconscious. The bubble fails. With blurry vision, I look at the timer bar on the wall.

Hope is not in vain. The timer has run out and the temperature is already rising according to the indicator. I use all the effort and will I can muster to pull the heat around into me. Warmth enters my cells. Sensing some damage I wonder if I should heal. Under further consideration it is not serious. Some surface damage, but nothing that should impede movement.

Though the indicator keeps moving, the room doesn’t get any warmer. I am feeling better, so I stop warming myself. The frost melts away and the moisture that makes it up is absorbed into the floor. I could have drank that water.

Unfortunately pulling the heat into me did take some effort. Again the room was like nothing happened in it. I made it through an intelligence test of some kind and a temperature test. What was the purpose of that. Endurance, adaptability, or just plain torture. Matters not since now I’m growing tired. I don't know what was coming next and a concern of how much of this I can take is haunting my mind.

My eyes dart around the room. The previous tests had some sort of visual signs of what was happening. So I expect there to be another one. Can’t let myself get caught off guard agi…..

Something hit me in the back.

“Oh come on. What the hell was that?” I complain. Turning to find nothing. Another hit this time in the leg and again not a damn thing. My perception drew my attention to the wall. Visually, I can't see anything on the pure white wall, but my perception tells me a ball is forming. No, not one. They are forming all over the room. I take a precious second to look harder and find they are made from the same metal as the wall.

One of them flew at me. I jerk my body, it wizzes past my shoulder. More shooting out of the walls. Twisting my body around I narrowly escape each projectile. The faster I move, the faster they shoot at me. A couple hit me now and again. In a blink I remember automatically running through the hall. I decide that thinking about what is going on is not the best option. I let my perception and instincts drive my movement.

Success! My plan is going great and I feel like freaking Spider-man. I am almost having fun. A split second frozen time allows me to understand what is about to happen. Too many balls flying at me. There is no way I can bend or twist my body. Several of them would end up hitting me.

I catch one in each hand, kick one, and try to dodge the rest. A couple still hit me, but the balls stopped flying. The ones in my hand feel as smooth as the table top. They ripple and I barely manage to drop them before spikes form. The balls fly at me again and I try to go back to going with the flow of my perception. It isn’t nearly as effective this way around.

Time to restrategize, quick. I slap one ball away hard and it hurts. When I punched that big oaf it didn’t hurt. That is because I shifted the kinetic energy. So I slap another ball and try to focus on the energy. I could feel the kinetic energy building on the balls as they flew towards me. But I’m not able to do anything about it. That is until the ball came in contact with my skin. The force had to hit me, then I could push it back at the ball.

Letting the balls hit me now. Right at the point of impact in the briefest of contact with my body. The momentum of the balls shifts away. It isn’t a fully effective way of doing things. The strikes feel more like being hit lightly with a dodgeball then a hard metal one. So progress.

Alas it is not enough. The balls flew at me faster, harder and they were getting bigger. I kept trying to dodge and convert the kinetic force. I get hit in the gut and it sends me flying. The rebounding impact of the ball made an almost deafening noise. How much force are they being thrown at me with? I had hoped that by finding my limit it would mean the end of the test. Nope.

The balls flew and I did my best, but I was knocked around the room like a shoe in the dryer. One comes straight at my head. With my arms outstretched putting all my fear and will into stopping it. A half dome forms around me. Centered at my palm. Like a tinted window. The ball hits it and I sense the energy ripple safely out. I can make a shield. Amazing. The excitement distracts me too much. I sense a ball less than a foot away from my head. Back to black.