Chapter 7

I began this book, giving you a glimpse of my first conscious experience of flying or floating as it was. It actually happened during the summer, when Melissa and I were both 18. It was during the holidays before we would start University. Both of us had enrolled together in a local University. David was heading to Stanford to do computer science. However, he would visit us when he could, which was all holidays and each other's birthday. We never did visit David the whole time he was at Stanford, he had a dorm and we had the privacy of a house, which one would you choose. Also as an important note, whilst at school, I began to learn French and Spanish, using books and tapes. When I applied to university, I enrolled to study both French and Spanish, in conjunction with Geography, World History and Politics. Melissa chose Art, Fashion Design and Business Studies, so she could start her own business after University. Well I digress, let me continue to tell you about the first time I lifted myself off the ground.

My control, had slowly built over the last few years, and by the time we started university, I had stopped getting the pain, and it was decided that now was the right time to begin intensive training. Melissa's unfaltering teachings, told me I needed to learn to fly. She thought that we should skip moving baseballs and move straight onto the big stuff. The main problem with my power was so far my STOP command, was the only ability I had mastered and it had a limited use on both objects and humans. Therefore, I really needed to learn to control my power to MOVE things rather than STOP them. Now as you already know, we realized I could already MOVE other people, but so far, it was not a conscious ability. We agreed that moving myself would be the hardest task to complete. Once I was able to move my own body, it should improve my control to move other objects exponentially, hopefully skipping months of needless training. So for several weeks during the summer I trained, in the expectant privacy of the forest near our home. Even though it did not directly hurt anymore, I still acquired headaches from all the straining I did from concentrating.

Let me explain something about my powers. As Melissa and I got closer to finishing school, we began to discuss how I would control my power. MOVE as I say, was a very difficult command, and only worked to restore movement to a STOPPED object or person. Therefore, we came up with theories that would help fully master my power. Firstly, anything that would cause harm to me directly, my instincts would take care off. Melissa joked about bullets, but I did not laugh, especially as she was right in the end as usual. However, anything that I had to be conscious about, like moving people or objects away from danger or from causing it, we would need to develop a system for control. It was finally decided I should learn more commands, STOP being the only one so far. Just thinking MOVE, was a command that was too broad and there were too many variables to consider.

Hence, we sat down together one night and thought about words or short phrases that could allow me to have control that is more direct. ROLL was one such command. For example, on one rescue I arrived at, a tree had fallen during a storm. A family of five in a car were due to hit the tree in question, causing a horrible accident, leading to their deaths. Knowingly, I looked at the tree and thought ROLL 10 FEET FORWARD. My subconscious would then take over and complete my instructions and sent the tree to move off the road, while my eyes remained and concentrated on the object. Subsequently other commands we created are TURN, BLOCK, PRESS, DRAG, SPIN, and LIFT. What we had done was design a foolproof system, using what I already knew. By associating words to movements that my mind already recognized, objects became much easier to control. It took almost all those three years at university to be able to use all those instructions, so they became instinctive. My reactions needed to be fast, super fast.

Now to the main two, the first one being COME. It made life at home easier, for instance, if I wanted the remote, but most importantly it helped me to guide people closer to me and to safety, standing close to me was the best protection I could offer. COME is a fast and simple one-word command. I just looked or pictured the object or person and it would COME. It is the most useful and most used command. All of these commands would eventually became part of my subconscious, so a lot of the times when my Instinct kicked in, most things would just happen, although my Instincts either only helped me or people really close, people within a few square feet. I could also use my instincts as it helped guide me to the problem. Nevertheless, primarily, I had to rely a lot on my sight and sound, on most rescues. Now the final command is FLOAT, not FLY. Flying, is not what I did at all, I just floated. For me, this is an example of how I would float, say towards the top of a high-rise building. I would think FLOAT UP 1000 FEET. Now distance was not important or accurate, it was a judgment that gave my powers an idea of where I wanted to be. Once I was high enough and was above the roof. I would look at a spot where I wanted to land and think FLOAT TOWARDS, while concentrating on that spot. I could also add SLOW or FAST to the command, my subconscious would decide what that meant, depending on how important it was to move to a point or if I wanted to spend a slow amount of time searching.

So together, we had created a system, and I learned FLOAT first and eventually did. It was amazing, it really was. I was a little afraid of heights still, but would quickly overcome that, as I got more confident with my abilities. I was only a few feet above the ground, and I could still move my entire body. Then I lost my concentration and landed on the floor quite hard. So Melissa sacrificed herself to be my guinea pig, allowing me to learn the skill of FLOAT, and moving her around, up, down, left, right. Concentrating on something I could see was easy, and I could eventually keep Melissa above the ground for ages without too much thought or concentration. It took a few months to learn full control, but once I had mastered that control I was soon able to move myself. Sometimes I would loose my concentration, slip and fall towards the ground, but I quickly learned to FLOAT again quickly, so far, I have never hit the ground. 'Flying' is very difficult for me to do and so I only do it to keep out of serious danger, leave after a rescue or get away from reporters.

However, while learning to FLOAT, we had almost got caught on several occasions and by the time it was mastered, Melissa and I realized it was getting too dangerous to practice in such an open space. The house was private but was not spacious enough for me to properly master my control. Therefore, we needed somewhere to go, private, without too many questions. We needed to purchase or rent a large place, like an old warehouse or hanger. However, we had no money to do such a thing, or did we. Melissa, again being the brains, had already thought long and hard about our situation and to me an unforeseen problem

"We need money Sophie, not only for a base of operations or a place to practice, but also for your costume." Now Melissa had been questioning me a lot recently, about my costume, asking for my opinion on shape, style and color. Melissa also realized that I should have extra protection and decided to make it out of the same material as body armor vests. The problem was the costume would be extremely expensive to make, especially as Melissa thought we should make 10 of them. "So I think you need to win the lottery."