The Dark Future of Las Vegas: A Visionary's Descent into Despair

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The worst part about waking inside of a vision is how disconcerting it is. You know that your mind is aware, but aren't sure if your body is there or safely in bed where you went to sleep at. In addition to that normal issue is that I have already found that these particular visions have a disturbing habit of bearing consequences in my reality. Not just for the possible future, but painful and immediate to me. I had come out both of the previous visions injured in some form or another.

I had realized that they weren't really what one would call a vision as I had gotten glimpses of the future through the use of Time Magicks in the past. What I experienced in these instances was closer in reality to a seeking than a vision. However similar to a seeking as they were, it still wasn't the same thing. What concerned me than anything is that if were killed during these occurrences was I may actually die instead of waking in my own bed. It seems to me that my enemy was trying to kill me here in the future they intend to bring about before I could stop them for bringing their plans to fruition in the past. My best guess is that while the enemy in this time knows who I am, the version that exists in my time space doesn't. There are too many theories involving time travel, both scientific and Magickal that make me think my nemesis is unable to warn his past self about me without causing some form of paradox event. This is all just guesswork on my part because while I am adept at Time Magick and gaining understanding and control of it steadily; there is still much that I am unsure off. I started learning everything I could about time theory because after traveling back in time and causing my own Awakening to happen as it did in the past I had thought of the "Grandfather Paradox." The grandfather paradox is a time travel theory that suggests that altering an individual timeline is impossible and creates the argument for parallel timelines or branching universe theory among others. The basic idea is this:

An individual creates a time machine of some sort. Another person takes the time machine and travels back in time to kill the inventor's grandfather before his father was born. Since the grandfather died before having any children the inventor was never born so how the time machine could have been taken to the past when the man who invented never existed to do so?

I know that things beyond scientific explanation exist, not the least of which is that there are other dimensions and planes that most have not and will never see. My trip to the past was not through temporal sciences or Time Magicks. My theory about how it happened and why I didn't create a Grandfather Paradox has to do with the nature of how I ended up in the past as well as the fact that I ensured that everything happened as it did the first time. I didn't travel through time as space to the past so much as went from the linear time frame in which I was living into an timeless existence of sentient energy within the space between spaces. Every plane has rules to how things work, not all of them are even remotely like our own. Todash Space on the other hand doesn't have any of those rules so when I made my escape by using my perception of reality I was spit back out as my subconscious mind and Avatar had to have known what needed to happen the night of my Awakening. Avatars have access to more knowledge and power than they automatically share with the mage they Awaken. The reasons for performing a seeking is to allow both the Mage and their Avatar to bind even closer, share more knowledge and for both of them to gain more power than before. When a Mage dies the Avatar is freed to search out a new potential with all of the power and knowledge they gained intact. What happens when a being ascends has been debated. The theory I lean towards is that they become in a sense a god. They leave this plane and create a new reality with their own belief paradigm shaped by their perceptions of reality. This would explain why each plane, dimension and timeline had its own rules and why travel between such planes while difficult was possible.

So here I was standing on the outskirts of the ruins of Las Vegas in the future again. The property damage this time around seemed worse with most of the larger hotels and casino's leveled. There seemed to be more damage to the surrounding areas as well with entire neighborhood being nothing more than scorched earth. It was daylight this time and I could see a crater were Nellis air force base used to be. There towering condo building all over town just piles of rubble in the desert. The Stratosphere tower stood tall above the ruins in perfect condition. I focused on the ground around the tower using Magick to enhance my vision. Surrounding the tower was an army of creatures ranging from Werewolves, Zombies and a few horrors that shouldn't exist in reality. I decided to stay away from the tower for now. I mentally reached into the connection with my Avatar to find Sindee in this time stream but couldn't sense the connection, just a gaping psychic wound and a strange resonance echoing in the power I tapped.

I reached out with sensory magick across the valley to analyze the changes since my last visit here. This potential future was worse than the last as I sensed very little life or magick in the valley. The only supernatural beings that I could get any kind of read on were surrounding the tower. I spread my awareness up toward the top of the tower to find a level or power and a palpable sense of evil sitting inside. The moment when sensed the touch of this being I felt a probe tracing back towards me. I cut of the flow of Magick to my senses and shielding myself, wrapping myself mentally with a wall of air spinning and deflecting anything searching for me away. There are many ways to shield your mind, different ways of envisioning the mental barriers and reasons for using the different types. Shielding with walls of stone or brick work well for combat and can be used to hold up against assaults on the mind. These are less useful for when trying to go undetected because they are a solid beacon that something is there to be assaulted. Some people use fire and water or whatever material works best for them or the situation. I can and have learned to use many different shields but prefer air most of the time. Air is all but invisible while being one of nature's deadliest forces, capable of driving straw through a steel sign in a hurricane. In the situation here I used it deflect around me anything sent my way, guiding gently away from me so that I was no more than a breeze across the land.

Once shielded I started to move across the land quickly, traveling out of the area where I had used the magick in the event someone came to investigate the occurrence. Every being's magic left some kind of signature detectable and unique to the caster and if you understand had it work you could identify what and who that person was. There are also techniques for leaving as little of the signature as possible. Sensory magick almost never leaves a trace, but you need to be careful of the amount of power put into it. I traveled over land instead of following the streets in the open, moving from standing building to rubble watching for anyone or thing around me. I was moving across the valley toward the Existence carefully. My goal was to get a read on what was happened or was happening to cause this particular branch of the timeline to come into play. The sun was setting as I started getting close to the club. I started to move more swiftly as there was less rubble in the industrial areas of the city. About a half mile from the club my night got a lot worse as I sensed several supernatural being tracking me. I had made it about three more blocks before the shit hit the fan. Halfway across a street covered in rubble and remains I stopped, surrounded by a group of vampires. There were eight of them and that was more than I could fight hand to hand even with all of my physical abilities enhanced to their limits. They seemed feral, clothing hanging from their bodies in tatters. Most seemed emaciated, as though starving for lack of prey in the valley. My only chance for survival was to destroy them in a way could kill me from the backlash. One thing from the books that humanity got right was that vampires are very flammable. I decided that I would rather possibly die fighting rather than die as food.

I tapped into my magick, feeling that strange resonance again as I pulled the power to me shaping the spell. The spell or rote I intended is referred to as friction curse by many of the mages that I have met and worked with. What it does is convert the kinetic energy of a target into fire. In this instance the amount of energy I pulled and the focus I had for the casting would immolate all of my attackers. This particular action was one of the most vulgar uses of magick and in no way would be coincidental meaning the backlash would be brutal and have a chance off killing me or putting me into a quiet where I'd be unable to stop what was coming. While those possibilities were not something I welcomed, certain death would leave me in possible worse position. As usual I was going to put my life on the line to protect everyone I could. I just wish that more people would act to protect the world instead of trying to force their desires upon it.

Once I had the rote ready to go and the power drawn to me, I used just a touch of Life Magick to open a wound letting the smell of blood into the air for these feral beasts. The moment they moved to attack I cast the friction curse on all of them. All eight were ash before they made it halfway to me. The additional speed that vampires have creates more friction thus creating a hotter, deadlier inferno around their bodies. I braced myself and accepted the backlash mentally in order to reduce the damage to my body. I must have stood there for about the longest thirty seconds of my entire life. It was about that point that I realized that there was no backlash coming for breaking reality. That told me that the Ascension war had spilled out into the view of humanity causing a paradigm shift. People believed in magick and the supernatural bringing things into reality that had no business being there. I turned and ran for the Existence full out.

When I arrived there and saw not the fortification against this future, but a burnt out ruin I knew part of what had brought this timeline into play. I dropped all pretense of stealth and used Correspondence Magick to "step" from in front of the club to my home. Upon arriving there to see the house gone was sickening to me. I keep fighting to protect humanity from the future only to find things worse each time I had one of these visions. I walked around the property, searching for any sign to tell me what happened here. The structure of the house was gone, the wall of the basement and the area around the node crumbled. There was no gateway there this time; unfortunately I could sense no power from a node any longer either. The magick that had created the node had either faded or been intentionally destroyed, possibly that is what destroyed the house.

I continued to search the property, moving around and back towards the mountains at the edge of the valley behind it. That is where I found the tombstones on a patch of bare earth. I didn't want to look at the names engraved upon them even though I needed to know who was there. There were four markers side by side along the mountains edge. The first name I read broke my heart, Jacqueline Dupree. It said that she had died March first 2013. As I continued on to the next stone that break in my heart shattered it to pieces, Arthur Masters. That explained the condition of the Existence, at least in part. The odd thing was the date recorded for his death was the same as Jaq's. The third stone took those shattered pieces of my heart and ground them into dust and ash in my throat as the name listed was my own. I had to find out what happened to stop this from happening. Even if it cost me my life I would change what was coming to save this city and more importantly my friends. Arthur was needed to protect the world and had more power at his disposal to do so than I would ever attain. It seems as though I had died on the same day as Jaq and Arthur as well. With my name read I wanted to fight my instincts to look at the final tombstone, I didn't want to see the name I was dreading would be there. I also knew that if there was going to be any way for me to change this possibility, I needed all of the information I could get. I read the last tombstone, checking the date first. As it was the same March first as the other three I moved my eyes up to read the name: Sindee Graves.

Forget heart break, forget pain; there aren't words in any language to describe what I felt at that moment. I left out a sound that was raw emotion, part scream, part howl and all despair. Despair is more dangerous than any enemy that could attack you from without. It was also worse than any other emotion. Pain, both physical and mental can hurt and can tear you up inside. Despair is worse because it makes you numb, makes you not care about anyone or anything. It can paralyze you and eat away at your soul. Despair can destroy the mind in ways that the worst physical pain can't. Despair is a wound and a poison to the soul. I wanted to just curl up there and disappear because without Sindee there was nothing for me to fight for. Seeing her name on that tombstone had not broken my heart, it cut my heart right from my chest and took my soul with it.

I simply laid there on the sand and rock as the moon shined its light down upon my body. I wanted to fight this feeling, but couldn't find the will to do it. I'd lost too many people in my life and now I lost the one who made my life whole again after everything that had happened. As the sun began to rise again over the eastern mountains I saw someone walking toward me. I figured it was death coming to collect the living dead from this time, and I welcomed it. As the figured moved closer I could tell it was a woman. That was the last thing I realized before the darkness of despair pulled me into the oblivion of the unconscious.

When I woke again, I had hoped to be in my bed at home. I didn't expect it for as far as reality was concerned I was dead and shouldn't exist. I really didn't expect to wake up again. I was lying in a bed it a large room. There was a small lamp beside the bed that game me a little light, but anything outside of 10 feet was shrouded in darkness. I still felt hollow inside even more so because once I woke I instantly reached for the connection to Sindee and felt her absence again. It took every bit of will I had to force myself to sit up. I knew if there was any chance of changing what I had seen, I needed to find out more before I was forced back to the past again.

Once I managed to sit up the woman I'd seen stepped out of the darkness around me. She was tall, a little more than six feet with a slender athletic build and long limbs. She was stunningly beautiful. Her face was a slightly elongated over with sharp cheekbones and chin. Her mouth was just the right size fitting the rest of her features perfectly. The lips were the pale pink color of sunset's light appearing soft and fill. Her nose was sharply angled down with the slightest up tilt at

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THE END