Refusal to believe until proof is given is a rational position; denial of all outside of our own limited experience is absurd.
- Annie Besant, English Reformer

Well, either the Disciple is telling the truth, or I am batshit insane.  And if I'm insane, might as well go along for the ride.

I told him I needed proof.  I needed something that couldn't be in the realm of human experience.  Something so out there, it had to be true.  He said it would be dangerous, but I was ready to take on any danger.  He also said I would have to sacrifice something of myself, be willing to give my blood, before he could do it.  I agreed.

Then he pulled back his hood, and removed his gloves.  I had only ever seen his chin while he was talking, and I assumed it was just a trick of light and shadow.  But as he pushed back the cowl, I saw that his face was a patchwork of...of is and not, of there and not there, of presence and absence.  It was as if Claude Rains was standing there, only not just were the robes floating in air, half of his body was too.  In some places, I could see bones, muscles, skin...in others, the light shown right through.  It was as if his body were nothing, and was riddled with veins of reality, shooting through him to show glimpses of flesh.

After giving me a minute to absorb what I had seen, he drew my eyes to his arm, where a bandage was wrapped around it.  The bandage was used, one that I had discarded after an injury during our practice.  The area around the bandage was nothing, but as he began to remove it, I could that underneath he was fully formed.  He reached out, and pricked my finger with a knife, and as the blood dripped on the nothingness and ran down what would be his arm, he began to come into being...skin, muscle, bone, formed under its path.

I was speechless, but his words broke the silence.  "Is this the proof you seek?"  I nodded, and he held out the vial he wore around his neck.  He had told me before it held the blood of the First Disciple, which gave him form and substance.  I could see it was almost empty, and he drained the last of it in front of me.  I did refill it, although I had not the discipline to do the deed myself, and tears rolled down my face as he plunged the knife into me. 

There is some part of me that still resists, that wants to go back to the ordinary.  But it would be as foolish of me to insist that what is truly real is not, as to insist that what is mere shadow is reality.