"You all got the unfinished or failed works | asked you to bring?" 
Legler said, looking around the studio. "Don’t tell me otherwise 
because I'm positive that each of us here has our own share of 
failures stashed somewhere." 


A small wave of noise burst out as students all moved to fetch their 
respective "failures". Taman, looking down at her small pile of pastel 
art, picked through them one by one. These were indeed some easy 
picks considering her multiple failed attempts at the art magic. She 
had been more successful recently, but the mistakes were still 
abundant. There was this one depicting the some trees on campus 
where the color was just so slightly off and she didn't realize it until 
the last minute; there was a crude drawing of the warehouses she 
went to, and she messed up the perspective entirely with attempts to 
just "go with the flow"; and finally, a few pieces that were no more 
than some loose patches of colors and weak lines. 


Taman looked around, and saw that her classmates all produced 
something equally unfinished or unimpressive. Some may even be 
called horrible, as she saw Delacroix pulled out a piece of cloth that 
seemed to have once been caught in a broken sewing machine. She 
saw Cobalt staring down at her own pile of terribleness with a bitter 
expression, and one glance at Laufer made her wonder how a 
wooden statue come to resemble more of a piece of charcoal. 


Seeing that everyone had more or less gotten something, Legler 
continued. "Great. Here's what we're doing today. | know with the 
Flow, it sometimes gives you the feeling that you can do anything. 
It's this drive that makes you keep going and going and it feels right 
and amazing." 


He started to pace around the studio, taking a brief look at each 
student's work. "But a lot of the times that won't work because as 
human beings, you need to eat and sleep, and sometimes large 
projects can stretch on for days and even months. Years, maybe. 


You can't just rely on the strong urge to make it through." 


"And I'm telling you now, DO NOT do that," Legler suddenly raised 
his voice, causing a few students to turn their attention. "I've seen 
people exhausted to death because they were on a creative high 
and didn't know when and how to stop. As amazing as Flow is, it 
doesn't help shit with that." 


Taman shifted a bit nervously in her seat as she remembered 
staying up for a few nights, in fact a lot of nights, trying to get the 
hang of anart. 


"So today, I'm going to teach you how to pause. How to continue 
working on something afterwards, or how to bring the Flow back. 
This also applies to failed works, because you can pick up from 
where you left off, and you can also rework something entirely,” 
Legler paced back to the front of the room again, and leaned on the 
lecture desk. "Mainly just how to bring it back, because if you have 
no self-control, that's really not my problem." 


He paused briefly, and then added: "That said, if you do have 
trouble stopping, go to Yang after class." 


Legler turned to address his assistant lecturer, who was leaning 
against the wall and typing furiously on her phone. 


Legler frowned. But then a smirk appeared on his face: "Now, Yang, 
would you care to do some demonstrations?" 


Yang was obviously startled by the request. "Wait. You didn't say 
anything about that." 


"| just figure that you won't need any preparations at all, with all 
these half-baked works of yours around." Legler snapped his fingers 
and a painting fell off the wall, which landed on the floor with a loud 
thud. Taman noted that it was a large painting of a lake. 


"Fine," Yang said, stuffing her phone back into her pocket. She 
picked up the painting and positioned it onto an easel in the front of 
the room. Sitting down on a stool, she proceeded to stare at it. 


"Great," Legler, with the smirk still on his face, turned to address the 


class once more. "The first step is observation, taking what you 
have here in. The second step is usually recalling—" 


His speech was interrupted by a few loud gashing sounds. The 
professor turned to find that Yang had already slashed the piece up 
with a pocket knife. Where the slashes met the painted lake, thick 
black fumes rose up, before disappearing completely into the air a 
few centimeters apart from the canvas. The water in the picture 
began to boil, and in a matter of seconds, it left behind only the dried 
up lakebed and large cracks matching where the slashes were. 


"—what you felt and thought then." Legler's gaze had shifted to stare 
at his co-leturer. 


"...sorry," Yang said, smiling at the professor unapologetically. "This 
one just had to go this way." 


Taman had began to chuckle, along with a few others in the room. 


"Deconstruction and reworking," Legler squeezed the words out, 
obviously not pleased. "That does work, but it is the second way | 
was going to talk about, Yang." 


"I can try again?" 


Legler sighed in defeat, and another painting slowly moved 
downwards with a part of the wall until it was reachable. It was 
obviously a painting, as Yang had gotten it off the wall, put the 
previous one aside, and started to work on it; and it seemed that she 
meant it this time. Taman only blinked in surprise as for the longest 
time, she thought it was just a large mirror. 


Legler nodded and began to lecture once more, explaining how to 
slip back into the mindset when the work was first created. But the 
words slipped Taman's ear as she watched Yang's process in awe. 


The deputy professor only considered briefly before starting to apply 
paint to the work. The moment her brush touched the mirror, the 
smooth surface was gone, replaced with colors upon colors on the 
canvas, divided into tiny units. She couldn't quite explain what she 
saw, only that there were multiple colors occupying the same space. 


Taman felt dizzy just looking at it, but she couldn't help but look 
more closely. 


"Sometimes just getting the Flow running would be enough, but if 
you can connect with it, it's always better. So, consider, what were 
you thinking back then?" Legler's voice echoed. "Or more 
accurately, what were you feeling? Because often, we don't think 
when we create; hell, a lot of us would have no idea what we were 
creating before we finish. Thoughts and intentions are important and 
helpful, but a lot of the times you have to rely on an urge. To recall 
and access that again, you need to seek out the emotions." 


And Taman felt it, just by looking at Yang's quick waving of the 
brush and the splashing colors. It was not Taman's work, and she 
was just looking at someone else painting, but the emotions were 
there. She almost felt like they were surging out from Yang's 
canvas, radiating towards its viewers. 


What the feeling was, what Yang felt and hoped to convey, she 
couldn't quite grasp or put into words. But she hung onto it, 
struggling to understand. Trying to memorize how she felt it, how 
she came to resonate with it. 


"Don't make a fuss if it feels slightly off. You can never pick up 
exactly where you left off. Sometimes it will be better, sometimes it's 
worse, but more often than not, it's just different. What's the saying 
again? You can't step into the same river twice. Quite the case here: 
Flow is ever changing, and so are you." 


It was almost disorienting, how the colors layered onto one another 
but also penetrating through the layers. She couldn't pull her eyes 
away as both the colors from moments ago and the colors newly 
added shone, past and present merging into one. The air intensified, 
and for a moment, she felt like it was the Flow, the convergence of 
emotions and colors. Briefly, the wall of colors from the warehouse 
came back to her. The vision rushed over and suddenly Taman had 
the distinct feeling that something was open to her, that she could 
reach out, and the Flow was a touch away. 


But it was not her Flow. 


Taman snapped out of it as the air shifted suddenly. The intense 
emotions changed into something else following a clear cracking 
sound. All the colors disappeared from the canvas Yang was 
working on, leaving a translucent surface, and then, the canvas itself 
collapsed. 


Cracks enlarged on the glass-like painting, dividing it into pieces. 
But instead of falling, they spread out and suspended themselves in 
the air. A thousand smaller mirrors disjointed, yet as if linked and 
supported by invisible lines, they formed a crude eye shape. The 
painting — the glass sculpture looked back at Taman. 


Taman blinked in surprise as she saw herself walking into the studio 
from one of the pieces. It was like staring into a camera playback; 
she could even make out the moss on the old bench, and the gentle 
brush of wind through the grass. But when she opened her eyes 
again, the eye was replaced with a glass butterfly, and the image of 
herself picking through her work earlier in the class greeted her. 


"How...?" Someone gasped in surprise. 


Legler looked at the finished work, and nodded approvingly. 
"Changing depending on the viewer?" He asked. 


Yang answered with a slightly smug smile. 


But the rest of the class ignored this exchange, only staring intently 
at the artwork. 


Taman soon found that in each piece, there was a moving reflection 
of her from a previous point today. She watched in fascination as 
her past selves engaged in their various activities behind the shiny 
surfaces, with clearer detailed than she could recall. It was as if the 
mirrors were in front of her throughout the past moments, reflecting 
whatever happened faithfully. Upon closer examination, Taman also 
noted that the pieces rearranged positions ever so slightly, even 
making dramatic changes when she shifted attention away. 


"But it was a painting a moment ago..." Someone whispered under 
their breath, but still caught the attention of the anart professor. 


"Oh don't be fooled, it's still a painting, not a sculpture," Legler 
grabbed onto the remade artwork, and for a moment, the pieces 
reunited. The illusion was broken and the clear, reflecting glass 
pieces were forced back into a frame. The past scenes still played 
out but it was the shape of a painting again. 


And then, Legler let go. Instantaneously, the glass shattered, before 
quickly floating up to form shapes once more. 


"When it comes to anart, it is very easy to transcend media," He 
added. "But back to the topic; when it's not deconstructing, you still 
generally follow your old theme. What Yang had was a painting 
functioning as a mirror, and now it is several reflections of the 
viewer's past." 


"And that's what I'm expecting of you. Not only continuing your work, 
but also making it better." With several loud claps, the studio 
suddenly expanded upon Legler's command, tiles moving to reveal 
hidden space, walls growing taller and wider, until the small room 
became a great hall in mere minutes. 


"Splendid! Now get to work." Legler concluded as several small 
gasps rang throughout the room, along with several eye rolls from 
those who had seen it before. 


Taman barely knew what happened. One moment she was staring 
at her pastel impression of the warehouse, and the next thing she 
noticed was that somehow, liquid paint was dripping from her desk 
and she got up instinctively. A second later, as she calmed down 
and took the view of colorful paint streaming out of her art in, she felt 
the pastel stick in her hand, and realized that she had been working 
on the piece for the past hour or so. 


As she stared at the now three-dimensional yet still pastel-looking 
warehouses standing from the piece of paper, the realization 
solidified and she was hit with the feeling again. She remembered 
the exact moment it clicked, and recalled herself drawing, without 
thinking or considering. The memory was hazy, but at the same 
time, everything was also so clear, as she understood where exactly 
to set the next line or the next patch of color. It all went so smoothly. 


And that was it, that was the Flow and she did it. It wasn't like the 
first time when she didn't even realized what she did until 

afterwards. This time, it was comfortable, a missing piece she finally 
found. There was a connection and now, she felt like if she tried, she 
could be there again. 


"For a newbie, well done." 


She turned to find Legler standing next to the table, studying the 
interior of the miniature warehouses. Taman felt slightly 
embarrassed as many of her classmates — including several from 
the small group — had also turned their attention to her. It didn't help 
that the paint surging from the warehouses had now made a small 
puddle on the floor. 


Fortunately for her, Legler decided to shoo the students back into 
working on their respective art, and Yang later dropped by to help 
her contain the flowing liquid largely within the piece itself, as well as 
clean up the floor afterwards. She also earned a few compliments 
from her as a bonus, and she couldn't help but squeaked a bit 
internally. But unfortunately, all the other works she had brought 
were utterly ruined, as she had unwisely stashed them nearby, and 
they were avoidably consumed by the paint river she created. 


With nothing better to do, Taman focused her effort on examining 
the changes Yang made, and how they managed to cease the 
stream of colors. She didn’t really get much result aside from some 
very vague feelings, but she now had the confidence to work it out 
eventually. 


At the end of the class, she saw that two students did go to Yang, 
but none of them she was familiar with. Other than that, Legler had 
decided to call Cobalt aside for some reason; Taman could see 
Cobalt went visibly pale for a moment, before putting on a worried 
expression. As she stepped out of the studio door and landed 
herself back in the campus again, she wondered briefly what was 
the problem. 


« Skyboy | HUB | Foundation Mandated Interlude 2 » 


Foundation Mandated Interlude 2 


Date. Creator. Materials. Results. Anomalous Properties. 


Pages of data and words suqeezed into single entries, the most eye- 
pleasing image selected out of numberous photos, and then finally 
all of these slapped onto a electronic form, to be saved and and 
filed. And then the process was repeated again, until she exhausted 
the whole list of items. 


Researcher Jennifer Mendez sighed. After yet another round of 
proofreading and checking, she pushed the submit button, sending 
the files to her superior. Information on the anomalous artworks 
created in the tests had now been compiled properly, ready to be 
received by field agents. She still remembered looking in slight awe 
as the items were displayed in the temporary containment chamber. 
But as interesting as those items first appeared to be, pages of their 
specific dimensions and materials only took all the fun out of it. 


Mendez stretched a bit, yawned, and stood up from the chair. 
Checking her watch, she decided to grab a coffee, knowing that she 
had some more tests to run with Agent Cobalt this afternoon. 


Ten or so minutes later, she was in front of her computer screen 
again, sipping coffee and treating herself with some small snacks, 
while half-mindedly browsing through the poorly maintained social 
network of the Foundation's intranet. 


Her thoughts wandered about, and Mendez wondered how she, 
someone with literature and history degrees, came to help run tests 
that track someone's brain activity. Of course, she had picked up 
skills and knowledge here and there — one thing the Foundation did 
right was that education was effectively free, with proper application, 
you could even get very decent online courses — history of the world 
behind the veil, anart history, anomalous literature. She even 
dabbled in memetics. But still, this was a stretch.