Holden's dramatic transformation and change in lifestyle seemed to have been the astounding result of a lottery of twenty thousand pounds that he had won nearly a month ago, which he deserved, I believed, considering how he had sagaciously unlocked my psychic abilities and telepathic powers, and the potential peril in which he had placed himself during the process. He led me inside the small room behind the counter, where my powers had been revealed to me. The room looked the same, except that a new set of couches had been placed there and instead of the tiny green bulb on the wall, a small but glowing chandelier hung from the ceiling right at the center. He offered me a large mug of the finest French Vanilla coffee that I had ever tasted, as I gave him a detailed account of the events that had occurred which he listened attentively.
“I understand the whole matter, Ellie,” he said, as I finished narrating and sipped the last drop of coffee. “But how can I possibly be of assistance to you in this matter?”
“Well, Mr. Holden, I need your help to unlock the full potential of my psychic and telepathic abilities. I need to break into the London Police Criminal Intelligence Headquarters, to find out whether my friend Matt is innocent or not. And if he is, I bet my life I’ll prove his innocence and get him out of prison,” I affirmed, hoping for a look of approval on Holden's face, but astonishingly none came.
“But, that’s impossible Ellie,” he declared, standing up and turning his back on me. “Reaching the full potential of one's psychic powers takes weeks or even months of continuous practice, and just cannot be attained within hours or overnight, for that matter,”
“I have complete confidence in my abilities and absolute faith in you, sir. You were able to unlock my powers when they had just surfaced, with your incomparable knowledge and sagacity. Surely, we both can pull this off too,” I stared at him tenderly, with desperate hopefulness. “Don't think about me, but at least do it for the sake of a person who may be guiltless, and just a pawn of some conspiracy while your support can perhaps save him from punishment and be vital in proving his innocence,”
My sincere words had a drastic impact on him, as he sighed slowly and turning towards me he looked for approval and said,
“Follow me, this is just not the place for training a telepath,” and led the way outside the bar. My heart leaped with joy at his gesture and I blindly followed him. He turned right from the bar and moved into a tiny empty lane full of rubbish cans that smelt disgusting. Shifting his direction towards the wall on the left, he placed his palm on a certain point on the wall, and pressed it lightly, causing that point to slide into the wall like a panel, as a result, a small area of the wall slid aside automatically like the doors of a lift. The place appeared completely dark from the outside, but as soon as we set foot in there, white light blinked automatically from the ceiling with each step that we took, thus, illuminating our way across what appeared to be a prolonged tunnel. As we approached the end of the tunnel, the lights turned off automatically, thus, exhibiting the presence of motion sensors across the area. At the end of the tunnel, Holden placed his palm on a hand scanner attached to the wall, which approved the access, and a ray of light punctured through the panel and scanned his right eyeball. ‘Access granted. Welcome, Mr. Sebastian Holden' sang the panel and another door slid aside to lead us into a spacious elevator that carried us underground. A few seconds later, the doors of the elevator clunked aside, and a colossal hall came into view.
The hall seemed more like a military training arena with four mannequins standing orderly in the right corner at the end, and tables placed in line with each one at a certain distance, with a gun lying on each table for shooting practice. At the exact center of the arena lay a massive professional discovery course for soldiers, which sent shivers down my spine as I possessed a tremendous fear of heights. And on the left corner lay a medium-sized maze, for soldiers to practice stealth and warfare tactics. My eyes traveled towards the enormous ceiling, where huge Ak-47 type guns stood or were attached, I couldn't make out due to the terrifying height. Witnessing this humongous warzone, predominantly right below a busy London Street full of ordinary shops and people, caused numerous doubts and questions to linger across my mind about Holden.
“I thought you said that you were a parapsychologist,” I expressed questioningly, but rather impressed.
“Well, that's just the tip of the iceberg dear girl. My father built this secret training ground for the British soldiers during the Second World War. He was a commander-in-chief of the British armed forces back then and trained the soldiers here secretly. Moreover, it also served as a hideout for the injured soldiers as well as a weapons facility,” he explained haughtily, showing immense pride at his father's work.
“And I suppose, this is where you stay?”
“Yes. Now, before you ponder deep into my family history, let's initiate your training session. Now, before I begin your training Ellie, let me warn you, that the activities that you are going to perform will most likely have a major bar on your brain. It can make you extensively nauseous and might even cause loss of consciousness and in some extremely rare cases lead you into a coma,” he forewarned, surveying me intensely through his half-moon glasses. “We can halt the particular training if you feel any sort of extreme uneasiness, alright?”
I nodded but was highly determined to not allow any obstacle preventing me from reaching the full potential of my powers, as the thought of Matt lingered in my mind deeply. My heart somehow held the unshakeable belief that he was innocent. He was a hothead and even if he desired to take revenge for Emily and Broderick's attempt to kill me, he could never murder anyone, or at least not in that gruesome manner.
Holden initiated my training with a simple object-moving drill which at first look seemed pretty easy but utilized a huge amount of my inner strength.
“Ellie,” uttered Holden, placing a metallic flask on a table that stood a few feet away from me. “Telepathy and telekinesis are two very different abilities. Telepathy, where you read off a person's mind requires you to focus on the person and the effort comes solely from the brain. While telekinesis requires you to imagine the position of the object where you desire to place it, for instance, in the air, or imagine the shape you wish to remold it into, and here the effort comes both from the brain as well as your body. You need to focus on the object with your brain but the force exertion must be from your muscles and blood. Another most crucial part is that you must empty your mind of all lingering thoughts, whether joyful, tormenting or even the neutral ones,” he paused, sipping some water from the bottle and placing it back. “We will initiate on the count of three, and you will shut your eyes, allowing your mind to be free from all unnecessary thoughts. And when you feel that you have done so, give a nod to me and after another count of three, I will shout ‘open' and then you begin. Is that clear?”
“Crystal clear sir,”
“Good, so on the count of three. One…Two…Three…..shut!”
I flapped my eyelids shut instantly at his last word, struggling to pour out the overflowing pot of troublesome thoughts from my mind. The instant I felt, that I was succeeding in chucking out irrelevant thoughts, the pale face of that dreadful creature appeared in my mind, with its pupil-less eyes, razor-sharp teeth, and slits for nostrils, and most reluctantly my eyes opened with a shudder.
“What happened Ellie?” he asked, looking rather anxious. No! Clamoured my conscience, you couldn't let this creature conquer your thoughts, Ellie, especially when your dear friend's life is at stake. You got to fight and maintain focus, concentrate, and defeat your fears.
“Nothing, I just lost concentration. Let us start again,” I told him, as he initiated the count and I shut my eyes again. My willpower ultimately drove off the creature's face from my thoughts along with all the pessimistic garbage that was stored up inside my head. I nodded promptly and Holden initiated the count.
“One….Two….Three….open!” he shouted, and I focused my entire mind on the bottle that stood stationary on the table, and additionally exerting a considerable force by my body's muscles and feeling the blood in my veins. This substantial effort paid off, as the bottle began to tremble slightly, as though shaken by tremor and moved towards the edge of the table. My eyes began to water due to the amount of concentration and force that was being inputted. Finally, it reached the brink of the table and fell onto the ground. I relaxed deeply after achieving this feat, extremely exhausted and running out of breath, as though I had sprinted a mile. Holden clapped his hands in applause, wearing a brief but, genuine smile on his otherwise serene face.
“Bravo Ellie. You have done a marvelous job in your first attempt itself,” he praised, patting my shoulder as I began sweating.
“Let’s give another try,”
“Nope, that's enough for now, we’ll give it another shot after an hour or so, in the meantime, let me get something for you to tuck into,” saying this he sped outside, probably towards his bar. Distress and hopelessness took over me as the last of his footsteps echoed away, my brain pounded insanely, sinking my hopes of gaining the full potential of my powers. If a small drill like that had taken so much of my energy and time, I dreaded the amount of time it could take to complete the rest of my training, and become efficient enough to break into the headquarters. Nevertheless, a surge of determination electrified me at the thought of Matt and I picked up the bottle and placed it on the table. Then without wasting a second, I cleared my thoughts efficiently and focused my mind's energy and the force of my body on it. Then something truly miraculous happened, the bottle shifted towards the edge at a comparatively faster pace than it did before, but instead of falling, it began floating in mid-air. My heart burst with the joy of victory at the phenomenon and carrying it gently through the air, I directed it towards me and caught it. But, the moment it fell in my palm, my body started quivering and my head started spinning vigorously and with one final convulsion, I passed off and collapsed onto the ground.