"I think we'll be fine here," Leif said, finally stopping in a small clearing where the trees opened just enough to let in a pale wash of moonlight.
He turned toward Carrie. "Alright. Last time you said you could move a fire hydrant, which is dense but small. Today we're going to try something with quite a bit more... volume." His eyes scanned the spot and fixed on a target.
"See that rock over there?"
Carrie followed the direction of his finger. A few feet away, half-buried in the dirt and covered in a blanket of moss, was a granite mass.
It was an irregular bulk that would easily reach her waist, one of those rocks that seem to have been in the same place since the beginning of time.
A nervous laugh escaped Carrie. "Leif, that's... that's huge. T-There's no way. It must weigh a ton, at least."
"So what? Weight doesn't matter, not the way you think it does," he encouraged her, his voice calm in the stillness of the woods. "You're not going to lift it with muscles. Forget how big it is, forget its weight. Close your eyes and try to feel it. Don't see it as a 'rock,' it's just... material. It's part of the forest, just like the trees and the earth under your feet. Your power can connect with it."
She bit her lip, clearly intimidated, but nodded.
She took a deep breath, trying to calm the pulse racing in her chest. She closed her eyes, just as he instructed, and extended a hand toward the stone.
All the noise of the forest seemed to vanish.
She felt an electric tingle spread up her arm to the tips of her fingers. She tried to push that energy toward the stone, to envelop it, to force it to obey, to command it to move.
Several more seconds passed and the rock remained as motionless as a mountain.
Carrie clenched her teeth, forcing even harder.
She could feel sweat breaking out on the back of her neck and a dull ache beginning in her temples from the mental effort.
"It won't... it won't move," she gasped, snapping her eyes open. She felt dizzy, exhausted, and profoundly frustrated. "It's useless, Leif. It's too heavy; it's like trying to... push a wall."
"You're using the wrong method," Leif said, shaking his head. He moved closer until he was beside her. "You're trying to force it, to use brute strength. You think of 'lifting,' and your mind calculates the weight and gives up before starting. But it doesn't work like that; it's not pushing or pulling."
He paused, searching for the words. "How do I explain it...? It's more like... an invitation. You have to convince it to move. You have to feel it, and make it want to obey you."
Before Carrie could ask what the hell that meant, Leif extended his own hand toward the rock.
He didn't seem to exert any effort; there was no tension in his face, nor did he clench his teeth. Just a moment of absolute stillness.
First, there was a deep crunch of roots tearing underground. Then, a squeak of stone scraping against the earth.
And then, under Carrie's astonished gaze, the enormous rock peeled off the ground.
It rose slowly, with incredible stability, going up one meter, then two, until it was effortlessly floating at the level of their heads.
It was as absurd as watching a whale fly.
"Like that," Leif said as if he had just taught her to tie her shoes.
Carrie was literally left open-mouthed, feeling completely dry. This was already completely outside the range of what she could achieve.
The rock fell to the ground with a heavy thump that made the earth vibrate beneath their feet.
"Very well," Leif said, dusting his hands off. "Phase one, completed. Now, a little combat training."
He turned toward Lillith, who was crouched a few feet away, completely absorbed in poking an anthill with a twig.
"Hey, Lillith, leave the ants alone. It's your turn to work."
"Finally!" The girl dropped the twig as if it burned and ran toward them, skipping with excitement. Her eyes shone with glee. "Brother, what do you want me to do? Something really scary? Something gross? Oh, I know! Something that will make her scream!"
Carrie swallowed, her gaze darting from the smiling girl to Leif. "Work... on what?"
"It's one thing to move a rock when everything is quiet and you can concentrate," Leif explained, his tone turning serious. "But in a real fight, no one is going to give you time to 'communicate' with the surroundings. You need to be able to use your ability under extreme pressure."
He pointed to the demon child, who was literally vibrating with anticipation. "Lillith is going to create distractions. Illusions. She's going to try to get into your head and scare you. Your job is to ignore everything you see and concentrate on a single target: hitting that rock you just saw float. Hit it using your telekinesis. Understood?"
Carrie barely had time to nod before Lillith let out a sharp giggle.
In a blink, the nighttime forest disappeared.
The scene in front of her eyes changed with dizzying speed. She was no longer in the woods; she was back in the school hallway.
But everything was wrong: the fluorescent lights flickered sickeningly, and the lockers seemed warped, as if they were melting.
And then she saw them. Chris and Tina, the girls who had tormented her at the dance, walked toward her, and they weren't alone; a group of mocking faces followed them. Their voices were not normal; they were sharp whispers that seemed to come from everywhere, repeating the worst things they had ever said to her, amplified.
"No!" Carrie instinctively backed up, bumping against the trunk of a tree that, to her terrified senses, shouldn't have been there.
Fear was a physical blow, an icy punch to the stomach that stole her breath. Her deepest fear, instantly invading her.
"It's an illusion, Carrie! It's not real! Concentrate on the rock!" Leif's voice boomed in her ears, distant, as if he were shouting from the other side of a tunnel.
Carrie bit her tongue so hard she tasted the metallic tang of blood. The sharp pain was an anchor that held her to reality for a fraction of a second.
She knew it was fake, but the terror racing through her veins felt unbearably real.
She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself not to look at those twisted faces, and unleashed all her mental energy in a burst of panic.
A crunch echoed in the clearing.
The surge of uncontrolled telekinesis had completely missed the target. Instead of hitting the rock, it had struck a nearby sapling, splitting it cleanly in half as if it were a twig.
"Not bad for a panic reaction," Leif said, his voice sounding much closer now. The illusions had vanished. "At least you reacted with force. But you missed the target. Again."
Lillith didn't even wait for the order. She laughed again, delighted with the result, and the forest dissolved once more.
This time, the ground beneath Carrie's feet turned into a black, pulsating mass. Dozens of viscous, oil-colored tentacles sprouted from it, dripping a foul liquid.
They lunged at her from all directions, cracking in the air.
Carrie let out a choked scream and leaped sideways to dodge the first attack, stumbling over a real root.
Pure panic seized her, making her mental power erratic and useless. She waved her hands frantically, and a handful of stones and branches from the ground lifted and shot out... but they only passed through the tentacles as if they were nothing more than smoke.
"Stop reacting to them!" Leif's voice came from the side. "They're fake, Carrie! You're wasting your power on shadows! Your target is the rock. Concentrate only on what's real!"
His voice was an anchor.
Between gasps and repeated failures, something in Carrie's mind began to click.
She went through a hell of illusions: snakes, drownings, her mother's face in the hospital. But with every new vision, she began to understand the trick.
She discovered that panic was like static; it dispersed her power in all directions without any effect. But when she forced herself to breathe, when she pulled her attention away from the terrifying images Lillith presented and channeled that adrenaline toward the single solid object in the clearing... her telekinesis felt different.
It became denser... more potent than ever.
Finally, Lillith, perhaps sensing that the old tricks were losing effectiveness, decided to up the ante.
The illusion of a gigantic spider, the size of a house, dropped right in front of her.
It had too many eyes, all black and shiny, and the snapping of its chelicerae sounded too real...
This time, Carrie did not back up an inch.
She stood her ground, fixed her gaze past the spider, focusing on the dark silhouette of the rock.
Instead of running from the terror, she absorbed it.
She transformed all the fear of that night, all the rage of years, and all the frustration of her failures into a single, pure intention.
"GET LOST, ALREADY!"
It was a scream that had been held in for too long.
Coinciding with her voice, a visible shockwave, a pure distortion in the air, burst from her body toward the rock.
BOOM
The rock simply disintegrated.
The force pulverized it, sending fragments in all directions, raining stones onto the clearing.
And as if a switch had been flipped, the illusory environment dissipated. The spider vanished, and everything returned to the quiet nighttime forest.
Carrie was panting, her chest rising and falling erratically. She was completely drenched in sweat, and her legs were trembling so violently she could barely stand.
But her eyes... her eyes shone in the darkness with a fierce intensity.
She had done it.
"That," Leif said, walking up and handing her a bottle of water which she took with shaky hands. "That was good work."
Lillith also ran toward them, jumping with excitement and lifting her head toward Leif with an expression that screamed "Praise me!".
"Brother, how was it? Did you see my spider? It was incredible, right?! Was she very scared?"
Leif glanced at the mess Carrie had made. He let out a resigned laugh and merely ruffled Lillith's hair.
The night breeze blew through the clearing, bringing a touch of coolness that felt wonderful against Carrie's sweaty skin and helped dissipate the exhaustion of the training.
She looked at the two standing beside her, the tall, calm boy and the smiling demon child.
The last trace of fear remaining in her heart vanished, replaced by a sense of security she had never experienced before. And, for the first time in a long time, she felt a genuine anticipation.
________
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