Free The Guardian of Threshold by A. A. Volts

head.
    It took awhile, but eventually my body started to relax, and just as the book said it would do, after a few seconds I started to feel my feet and legs grow warm and start to tingle.
    Relaxing the body didn’t prove to be too challenging, but quieting the mind proved to be an almost impossible task—just as the author had warned.
    I was feeling very nervous and excited at the same time because tonight could be the night I would see my mother again… but it could also be the night I met that horrible thing.
    It didn’t matter, though. I would face any number of dangers for even the slightest chance of seeing my dear mother again. It was my chance to feel whole again, and nothing would be able to keep me from trying.
    I ended up finding out that the mind is a very hard thing to control. Not thinking about anything at all proved to be an impossible task, just as hard or even harder than the book emphasized.
    I laid there for over thirty minutes and didn’t experience anything other than a mild tingling sensation in my legs. I was about to give up when I started to see lights floating through my closed eyes. Apparently, I had entered a state called the “hypnagogic state,” which was simply a “mental phenomena that occurred at the threshold of consciousness, when a person was in a between state, half awake and half asleep.”
    Although I wasn’t sure what it all meant, I knew that I was seeing lights floating in and out my field of view even though my eyelids were completely closed, which the book had also warned me about so I wouldn’t be distracted.
    Sleep was approaching quickly. I struggled not to give into it completely; I needed to hold onto a small thread of awareness if I was to succeed.
    Some people took years to learn astral projection, but I didn’t have that kind of time. I wanted to see my mother, and the sooner the better. After all, I’d waited almost ten excruciating years already.
    Suddenly, a wave of energy passed through me, it was like being hit by a 240-volt electric shock.
    It was the same painless shock that I felt earlier that day. It was as though every cell of my body was vibrating at incredible speeds.
    The lights behind my closed eyelids turned into a strange, bluish-green hazy image. It took me a few seconds to realize I was seeing my darkened bedroom, even though my eyes were closed.
    I could see everything clearly.
How is that possible?
I wondered.
There’s no way
, I thought. It was impossible. If I had to guess, I would say I was no longer seeing the world through physical eyes.
    Before I could get lost in the perplexity of things, I remembered the book’s warning against becoming too excited or my spirit wouldn’t be able to leave my physical body. So I tried my best to contain my excitement, confusion, and the millions of questions that crowded my mind.
    I was now in somewhat familiar territory. I knew what should be coming next, and it brought me solace.
    I expected to feel my spirit lift up slowly as it separated from the physical body, so I wasn’t too surprised when it actually happened.
    I’d been expecting that. What I wasn’t expecting was the feeling of someone pressing hard against my chest and the sudden and severe difficulty in breathing. I also didn’t expect my heart rate to increase tenfold, nor did I know that I was going to be gasping desperately for air.
    I was breathless and scared, my heart pounding hard. I wanted to cry, but the tears refused to fall. I wanted to beg for air, but my mouth refused to open.
    I wanted to scream from the top of my lungs, but the air refused to vibrate out of me.
    I wanted to get help, but my muscles didn’t respond.
    I wanted to do all those things at once, but all I could do was lay there: breathless, motionless, in deafening silence, gasping, desperate for the breath of life, a mere glimpse of hope.
    All I managed to get were short and insufficient gasps of air.
    I felt that my life was in imminent danger and regretted