In the past, Doctor Stephen Strange was an arrogant surgeon, healing to fill his bank account. In the future, Stephen Strange will be one of the world’s greatest sorcerers and one of its best heroes. Now, Stephen Strange is trying to heal himself with shaking hands.

Stephen’s body was tethered to the earth but his soul was travelling the cosmos. The unfortunate thing about Dr Strange was that, much like his body, his soul was tethered to the earth too.

His eyes snapped open. He jolted upwards clutching his head, sweat drenching his face.

“What the hell was that?”

“Astral projection,” I explained. “It involves…”

“Yeah, untethering your soul from your body,” Stephen said. “But I don’t care about this. I came here to heal my hands.”

“And you will leave here with your spirit healed.”

“I didn’t come here for some cryptic spiritual bullshit,” Stephen said. “I came here so that I could go back to my old life. I came here so I don’t have to live the rest of my life as some… some… invalid.”

“Your third eye has been opened,” I said. “You have seen things no normal human as seen. The talent you’ve displayed in mastering the mystic arts is something that has only been seen once every one thousand years and yet you still want to return to a normal life?”

“I don’t care about all of this mystical mumbo jumbo,” Stephen said. “I just want my hands back.”

“Have you seen yourself in the mirror, Strange?” I asked him.

“I…” he paused, staring blankly at the spot he was resting in. At the incense burning around the bare bed.

“Your hair has grown longer,” I said. “The magazines used to describe the great Stephen Strange as a man with a handsome cleanly shaved appearance. Look at you now.”

Stephen clambered over to a chipped bucket of water, staring at the long mess of hair that grew over his shoulders and the beard over his chin.

“You’ve changed this much in the course of a few months,” I said. “Do you really expect things to be the same when you go back?”

Stephen was silent for a while, staring at his reflection in the mirror before he turned to me.

“Yes,” Stephen said, though the confidence in his voice started to wane. “Yes, I do.”

“Very well, Stephen Strange,” I said. I placed a hand on his shoulder. His body crumpled to the floor and standing in front of me was his spirit, glowing amidst the dark midst of the training room.

“Not again,” Stephen said, staring at his body. “I hate this. It’s so…”

All I had to offer was a gentle smile. “Come Stephen, let us go on a journey. Let us see if the world is the same as you left it before you came to the Sanctuary.”

I placed a hand on Stephen’s head and his soul was flung out of his body. We floated up through air, past the buildings of the Sanctuary, past the snow-capped mountains, past the stratosphere, till the earth was nothing more than a blue emerald in a dark void.