"...Do you consider yourself a man of faith?" The question hung between them, stale, confusing, unexpected.
Luke leaped to give an answer but the words failed to leave his mouth. "...."
Why couldn't he speak. He was sure he had an answer. He was sure he had reconciled this question of faith before.
Yet, in the face of his greatest adversary, he was drawing a blank. Was there some form of psychic manipulation sprinkled into his question. Was it meant to throw him off his guard—make him more suspectable to DeLark's twisted influence.
Lukehiem took a deep breath. He reminded himself where he was, in an unfamiliar sea of greeny, bordered by glass and mysterious paintings. When lost it was best to trace your steps or start from the beginning. Navigate the recesses of your mind with a methodical swiftness.
So he had to ask himself some questions. He had to be firm in his answers and speak them with conviction. He could do that—he had done so many times before.
What did faith mean exactly in this context?: What did he mean by faith? How did this insidious man interprete faith?
"What exactly do you mean by 'faith'? What are you really asking me about, DeLark?" I had to ask, I had to be sure.
The insidious bastard smiled, his face contorting like he was laughing at me. His eyes where curved in unhidden mockery. My fist itched once more—it was begging for the sweet release of knuckles against flesh and that deplorable smirk.
"What is faith you ask, well in my opinion..." He paused glancing briefly at my clenched fist. "...faith is the cyopsis of conviction. A firm belief in abstractions or in something or someone exhualted above yourself. Lukehiem, do you have anything or anyone you belief in—something you blindly trust? Perhaps a religious doctrine or a way of life."
"No." The answer came swiftly. So swiftly that the ever smirking snake paused in shock. His eyes drifted to mine and flashed with an emotion so foreign, that I sucked in a sharp breath. Jonathan's eyes—they were pitying me.
"Luke~" My name rang out from his lips, his eyes locked with mine. And then I saw it—a look akin to fatherly compassion, like an exasperated father gazing at his wayward son.
Disgust pooled in my stomach and bile gathered on my tongue. My fist quivered once more and my tongue worked, I wanted so badly to spit on his face and land that bone crunching blow.
His expression morphed again, this time into something grave, weathered, something old. It was a sharp contrast to his youthful face, yet it felt like it belonged there and his eyes reflected that same old truth.
"Your lack of faith is both a blessing and a curse. It simplifies my agendas but also obscures the truths you seek. It is also an impossiblity—no one can lack faith, no one can lack belief. Not even you."
The anger I expected to feel at his words were nonexistent. Calm crashed over me like cold water, sobering me up. I waited patiently for him to speak again. Curiosity blooming despite my feeble attempt to suppress it.
"You believe in something," Jonathan picked up one of the macarons. "You have to." He said it with a finally that unnerved me.
The macaron in his palm was tossed up, it soared a few inches before being pulled back by gravity into his palm.
"You believe in what your senses tell you, don't you? You believe in the laws of physics that bind this macaron, pulling it back into my waiting embrace." He tossed it once more. "That is belief, it is faith that gravity stands true with every rise, every fall."
Lukehiem stilled, watching Jonathan continue throwing and grabbing the baked snack over and over again.
"No. It is not faith, it is acceptance. It is the annahme of a law that holds true in any situation. It is assimilation of an uncontested, fundamental edict of this world, this existence.
My senses hold true, delivering information in quality you could never comprehend. And I do not have faith in this ability. I have trust in it and the depth it offers.
That is different. Trust not Faith!"
"Is it?" The Macaron was oscillating faster now, being thrown and captured faster. "Are you sure you should trust those senses of yours. After all you don't even know where they came from, you're absolutely clueless of their origins—your origins."
Jonathan stretched out his palm to me, beckoning me to observe the rhythmic dance in his palms. A challenge, a silent question of Luke's trust. Luke hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second, then he reached out with his mind and met the challenge head on.
Lukehiem's mind wrapped around the sugary treat, then he calculated. The numbers and formulas spawned in his mind in a familiar motion, information drifting towards him. The mass, weight, density, volume were first, a preliminary understanding of the subject.
He dove deeper, the structure of the snack, the monoliths under it's quaint form, derived from sugar crystals and backed ingredients. Once he'd gathered enough—a deep understanding of the snack that not even the hands that contributed to it's making could ever hope to achieve—he stopped.
Lukehiem continued running the calculations: the force, speed, trajectory of which Jonathan's palm launched it, the friction of which it brushed through the air. All values consist and familiar.
Then the final step. He observed with microscopic detail, the familiar deceleration once it reached the peak it's momentum could carry it before gravity won the battle and pulled it down. It was the same, it was always the same. The pull of gravity and the macaron's acceleration down into DeLark's waiting palm.
Lukehiem watched this dance over and over again. And even though he knew nothing would change that the values couldn't change he still found comfort in them.
He was right, he knew he was, but this confirmation of an absolute law an still left him tense. Perhaps it was the conviction with which Jonathan spoke or the drivel about doubting himself that had stuck.
Jonathan had a knowing smile playing on his lips. "It's not over yet Lukehiem. Keep observing until your doubts are churned asunder."
Lukehiem wanted to reply that he had no doubts, but he held it in. It wouldn't hurt to indulge this snake in his games for a while longer. So he observed, tracked the macaron's movements and reaffirmed the laws and sensations that he shouldn't have doubted at all.
It was all too familiar at first, to the point of being monotonous. Then a there was a shift, an impalpable shift. A change so subtle but impossible to ignore. Something was off, something had gone wrong and it horrified Luke.
The weight, density and speed hadn't changed. Those fundamental values that defined the macaron's very existence stayed intact. Yet, against all odds there was a distortion. He scrambled to understand this strange distortion, to resolve it with other phenomenon and theories within science-bound logic.
Then he understood and his mind quaked, his body going cold at the realisation.
Gravity.
The very force that remained unchanged since the inception of being. It had changed, become inconsistent. His hands wandered over to rest over his heart, the familiar erratic beats assured him this was reality, that he wasn't hallucinating. He didn't believe it, couldn't believe it.
Lukehiem's mind was quaking even faster now, spiraling into despair and fear. It screamed at his to shut off his sense of the world, to retreat behind the safety of his own skull. It didn't want to understand anymore, but he didn't look away, didn't shut them off.
His trust in the very abilities that had guided him for years was waning. His trust in his very self was dwindling before his very eyes.
Then the sensation abruptly cut off. Jonathan caught the macaron one final time, jolting Luke from the abyss of his own making. And with it relief came, everything shut down. His hearing, sight, feeling and metaphysical perception. He was isolated to the vastness of his mind to recover, to fight a battle he didn't want to.
"Lukehiem!" Jonathan's voiced reached him. But that shouldn't be possible, he had deprived himself of every sense.
"Lukehiem!!" The call came again, more urgent. Luke snapped out the prison he'd confined himself to and glanced at Jonathan.
Jonathan was seated in the same posture, his arm still outstretched clenching the macaron. Only seconds had passed, or perhaps it was minutes, maybe hours. Luke wasn't sure anymore.
"I can't have this." Jonathan muttered to himself then sighed. "Snap out of it Lukehiem. If you can't even handle this how do you think you'll be able to bear the truths you seek."
Jonathan was right. As much as it painted Luke to admit it Jonathan's words made sense, but also didn't. How could he trust this man. That distortion of physical laws could have been faked. Maybe he had been influenced by Jonathan's abilities without even noticing. The man could bypass his mental fortifications and relay messages to him without his notice after all.
Jonathan watched with interest as the erratic, bloodshot, pale blue eyes before him shifted and cooled, like they had been doused by glacial ice. There was still doubt and fear but also something else. It brought a smile to his lips and he struggled to contain his excitement.
"Good, you've resolved yourself enough. That was faster than I initially expected. This is going to be fun Luke, lots of fun." With that said, Jonathan gave one final squeeze and destroyed the macaron into powder and cream.