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From: Joseph Tudor
Joseph lay in his casket and projected his senses outward: Outward past the layers of dead skin, outward past the highly polished wooden lid, outward toward the freedom of his laboratory. Tearing free of the last constraints of his immortal body the consciousness of Joseph looked around and could “see”. Not the projected image of the room as the mind saw it when “thinking” about it, but as it actually was, at that very instant! At last he had succeeded in achieving the awesome ability of projecting his conscious mind outside of the limitations of the flesh. The corpse in its velvet lined bed smiled.
Holding himself “together” was very taxing. If his mind wondered too much he would start to lose form and flow back to his body. Only by careful concentration could he even look around the darkened room. Slowly with effort he was able to slowly turn in place and look back at his coffin. A silver-white rope stretched back from where the “consciousness” was to the body inside the casket. Reaching out a “hand” Joseph was able to “feel” the chord; an elastic tether that he knew he must keep from being broken or cut. If this line was ever separated from his consciousness and his body he could become “lost” and never find his way back to his body.
Turning back away from the tether Joseph tried to take a “step” forward and found that only with the greatest of efforts could he “stretch” the chord a foot. How was he to travel if he could not move? His studies had indicated that this was a very rapid form of transportation. Not instantaneous, like teleportation might work, but like a very fast car, or an airplane. So how was this possible when it took all his will to take one step? Looking back over his “shoulder” he saw that he was about six feet from the casket. How had he ended up so far from his body? He thought back.
He had been working on thinking himself out of his body for awhile now, and had been unable to get his “consciousness” to move out of his mind. He could “free” his “consciousness” from its anchorage in the mind easily enough, but then it just sat there refusing to budge. Then tonight he had visualized the lab just like always and had “projected” himself into the room beyond, just like always, but this time a rainbow-hued tunnel had seemed to open before him and he had flowed through it and here he was. Maybe that was the way all movement was here. You thought of a place, then the chord would stretch and connect there, and then your consciousness flowed there like water down a drain.
With thought came action and Joseph thought of his leather chair in the study above his head. The tunnel appeared and his “consciousness” poured down the pipe and into his chair in the study. He knew his “consciousness” was using this analogy of the tunnel, pipes and water to give itself references to cope with what it was actually doing, but at the moment that was second in order of importance. More important were learning how to use this ability, and its limitations.
Sitting back in the chair there was no resistance to his form when his back “touched” the cushion, it just kept going through the chair. He could not squeeze the armrest with his hand nor cause the chair to move at all. He felt that like walking he could perhaps affect the chair but he did not want to tax his reserves too much at this time so did not try. Instead he carefully took note of the time and then willed himself to his leather couch in the Church. Checking the time now, he noted the difference in times and since he knew how far it was from his house to the church he estimated that he “traveled” about five hundred miles an hour. With that bit of information tucked away he then realized that he could “hear” the music, and “smell” the cigarette smoke of the place around him. Looking around he spotted Miss Semingsworth, and her ghoul? Talking. Casting his senses forth he could not “see” this persons aura, so he slowly eased his mind into hers and watched her thoughts for a while. Yes her name was Mason, a Harvard Graduate and a devoted friend and confidant of Lucille.
Joseph then turned and followed the tunnel back to his body, and though “early” slept the sleep of the dead.