1x1 with The Ninth One

[Jeydon]

Beyond the door lay a scene that Wren had observed quite recently. A pale, blue-grey expanse, shards of white dotting its mottled canvas far below the door, which seemed to simply hover in the air, unattached to any wall, when one was to look through, and back at where a wall should have been. This was, quite simply, the sky.
"I have tried, Jake! Too many times!" Wren shouted, raising his voice above the noise of the wind whipping beyond the door. He did his best to resist Jake's pull, struggling to free himself of the other's grasp, "If I step through there, I will fail, and this world will disappear. I won't be able to maintain it, and we'll have to wait at least another day to come back here. Is that really what you want, Jake?"

[it.will.rain]

“If it disappears, we will try again another day. Why did you bother bringing me here if you are not going to try to get to your power? That was the whole point of today!” He practically yelled. He was getting really frustrated with him and that was clear. “Wren, what do you have to do in there?” He asked him. He was trying to be calm again but it was not working. He was frustrated that he would be brought here just to be shown the room and nothing else.

[Jeydon]

"I have to jump. I... I have to step off the edge."
For the first time, Wren's voice betrayed the slightest hint of fear and apprehension. Although his answer was vague, it seemed to mean enough to him to inspire this rare fear within him, at a large enough scale that it showed even in this negligible amount. It wasn't like Wren to seem so irrationally anxious. This was the illusory world, no harm would come of him dropping through a false sky, and yet he was seemingly more apprehensive than he would be of death.

[it.will.rain]

“Okay...” Anthony said thinking about how to get him to do it. “Alright. We will go together. You can close your eyes. It will be okay. No matter where we land, we will not get hurt. It will be okay.” Jake said to him. “We can go on the count of three. Do you want to hold my hand? I am okay with that if it makes it a little easier. You just have to keep pushing forward. It will be okay.” Jake said and started to walk to the edge.

[Jeydon]

"No, Jake, we won't land. There is no ground in this illusion. The sky is endless here, as endless as my ability to maintain the illusory world. It's not falling that I fear. It's flying."
Obviously, it was not the inevitable that Wren feared. He was much too logical and reasonable a person to allow the inevitable to disturb him. The unknown, however, had a much greater effect.
The fear was clear in Wren's voice now, sounding quite foreign and unnatural in the stoic boy's words. Whatever may have happened to cause this psychological trauma within him, it had to have been unimaginable, to cause such great disturbance, so long after such an event supposedly occurred.

[it.will.rain]

“How far down does it go? Until you no longer fear it?” He asked him calmly. “We have to do it. I won’t make you fall alone, but you do have to jump. I know that you are scared and that is okay, but we have to get you over this. You could start by closing your eyes until you get comfortable and then slowly open then and I will be right next to you.” Jake said watching him. “The only thing holding you back is fear. When we get past that, the rest will be easy.” He said smiling a little to try to give him some encouragement. He looked at the other boy. “Ready?” He asked.

[Jeydon]

"It's not just fear, it's... It's a block, embedded deep within me, rooted in my very core. There is no point at which I no longer fear it. It's... Flying is the unknown, Jake. The inevitable doesn't bother me in the slightest - I'd welcome death with open arms, if I had good reason to. The unknown, however... That's what flying is. You never know if you're safe, and hanging in the balance between life and death... That's what's terrifying. Jake, I-" Wren stopped, taking a deep breath as he glanced up at Jake, before quickly looking away again, "Five years ago, my parents died in a plane crash. Since that day, not once have I boarded a plane. I was there, with them, but I... I survived. They fell, but I... Flew. And I will forever regret that instinct, because I was supposed to die with them. At first, I fell with them, and, in those few seconds, I prepared myself for the inevitable: death. I was prepared to die, but then... Some inhuman instinct in my body took over my control, and I flew. I wasn't scared while the plane slowly broke apart, or even when I was sucked from within it. I wasn't scared when I fell. I was scared when I flew. Flying is the unknown. It... It shouldn't be possible, for humans. It defies the laws that bind this world. And because of that, it is impossible to know what to expect."

[it.will.rain]

Jake listened to his story. Now it all made sense. He could understand it all now just a little bit better. “I am so sorry you had to go through that...” Jake said to him. “That had to have been really hard. I understand now why you don’t want to do it and if you don’t want to, that is fine. You just won’t be able to access all of your powers and that is not too bad. But if you want to do it, I will be here for you and will do what I can to help you get through this.” Jake said looking at him. He was not sure what to do. “If you don’t want to do it, why don’t we go back to return back to the real world and go do something to take our minds off of all of this for a while? We could go and watch a movie or go walk around or something.” He said. He was going to let him chose now that he understood why he felt like that. It must have been really hard to deal with for him.

[Jeydon]

"Thank you, Jake," Wren replied quietly, releasing a small sigh of relief, "We should return soon, but there is something that you must see."
All too suddenly for it to be humanly natural, Wren snapped back to his disinterested tone, though with a vague hint of eccentric focus. With that, Wren swiftly turned away from the doors, heading back to the central staircase. He hesitated for a moment there, before crouching down and prying a panel similar to the one he had at the bottom of the staircase from the inner wall. After rerouting a few wires, he replaced the panel, and began heading higher up the stairs.

[it.will.rain]

“Okay...” Jake said. He walked with him and watched him get to another panel and use it. He went up the stairs with him. “What is it?” He asked him. “Is it another one of your powers that you are not able to use?” He asked him as he walked. He wondered why his tone always went back to that same way away from everything and distant. He was afraid to ask though. He was worried it might upset him. He walked up and looked at the door that they came to. It looked like all the other ones but he wondered what was held inside.