Days blur.
Dust drifts in endless spirals across the ruined shack.
My manual grows, line by line, etched onto salvaged wood, torn cloth, and memory.
I name the breathing:
Ash Rejection
Form I: Hollow Breath.
The goal is to expel all of the body's impurities, until even the breath itself is hollow.
Breathe in shallow.
Hold.
Exhale hard.
Imagine not air—but poison.
Push.
Purge.
Push.
Purge.
The more I follow it, the clearer I feel something inside—something almost familiar.
Not ash.
Not hunger.
But heat.
A flame.
A ball of wild energy.
It smolders just beneath my ribs, deep and stubborn—
like a coal refusing to go out.
It flares when I focus.
Grows when I breathe in the right rhythm.
It has weight, presence.
And then—one evening—
I see it.
Not with my eyes.
With something deeper.
Some sense beyond the five.
A pale red glow within me, like a sun caged behind the bones of my chest.
It pulses with breath.
And from it, I see thin lines—
meridians.
Fragile channels webbing through my limbs like the roots of a tree, with small hollow bulbs fruiting.
Waiting.
Empty.
Starved.
I guide the flame toward one, near my right shoulder.
It resists.
The path is tight, untraveled.
But I press it forward, straining every breath.
Then—contact.
It enters the nearest bulb.
And the world explodes.
A shriek tears through my skull, but my mouth makes no sound.
Agony.
The fire burns too brightly. The pathway too small, too new.
My limbs seize. My vision whites out. My thoughts fracture.
I collapse into the ash, twitching.
The last thing I feel is my jaw striking the ground, the taste of blood, and then—
Nothing.
I awaken in the cold.
I can taste the rich iron of life. Dried blood staining the corner of my lips.
My breathing is shallow, panicked.
I sit up, gasping.
The fire is gone.
I don't feel the heat.
I don't sense the glow.
The meridians are empty.
Dark.
I search with that same inner sense—reaching, desperate.
But there's no light.
No warmth.
As if it never happened.
As if the ash rejected me this time.
I rushed too fast, pushed my way into that narrow meridian with too much force, as a bull charging a wooden gate.
I curl against the broken wall, arms wrapped tight around myself.
The lesson is clear:
This is not a short path.
The body resists. The ash fights back.
This is a path of patience, of staying the course.
Success is as a trickle, not a tidal wave.
But still—
I saw it.
The fire.
The meridians.
A path forward.
The pain is proof I'm moving.
The emptiness is a challenge, not an end.
Tomorrow, I will try again.
And this time, I will burn brighter.