Beth woke to sunlight streaming through her window, warming the room and allowing her to see the dust particles floating in the air. She stretched and let out an almost theatrically loud yawn and she sat up. From beside her she heard a general grumble of discontent as her partner pulled the covers over their head and tried to get back to sleep. But Beth was up and ready to go. Slipping on her workout clothes and quickly adjusting her hair in the mirror she smiled at her nametag. Though she couldn’t quite make it out, assumedly due to still being half alseep, she knew what it said [Solar Beth Oakfenny, 15]. She was proud of her ongoing progress and knew it was only a matter of time before it increased again. Shooting herself a cheeky wink she grabbed a piece of fruit and shouted goodbye as she slipped out the door and headed towards the park.

Waiting for her in the park were her training partners, Harri and Pete who both were already stretching as they chatted about their respective projects for the day. They waved at her as they approach and Harri quickly swept Beth up into a hug.

The hug was tight, too tight and for a moment Beth felt like she was being crushed. But the moment passed and Harri released her and returned to her stretching. The trio ran together in almost lock step, travelling through the park at such high speeds the surroundings blurred. None were activating any of their copious relative skills instead treating this as a warm up. The main event was still to come. Having finished warming up the group brainstormed their relevant skills and what they were hoping to pump up next before Beth with a flex of her will opened three Trial rifts. One for each of them.

Beth stepped into her challenge feeling confident, immediately upon entering the Trial she pulled up her status screen. It was so much busier than she was expecting and she quickly dismissing it to focus on the challenge in front of her. It seemed to be an obstacle course that though it looked insanely complicated from where she was standing she found herself heading through with remarkable ease and without any real challenge. Reaching the end another rift appeared and Beth stepped through. For a second she found herself in the blackness of the rift as though she got stuck there between the Trial and her home. She felt panic setting in as the darkness enveloped her then as suddenly as it started it stopped and she found herself back in her kitchen trying to cook up dinner while her family and friends chatted amicably in the dining room.

As she cooked and generally stressed about dinner her dad stepped into the room.

“Can I help hun?” He asked.

“No dad I’ve got this under control, you go have a good time I’ve got this” Beth responding darting between stirring the soup on the hob and chopping carrots on the counter top behind her.

Her dad smiled knowingly and stepped up beside her and gently took the knife from her hand and began to chop the carrots. Beth let out a theatrical sigh but didn’t complain and instead turned to focus entirely on the soup. The two cook for a while comfortable in the silence occasionally punctured by laughter floated out of the dining room. Eventually Beth’s father had finished cutting all the carrots and came up to Beth and poured them into the soup. As she turned to him and looked at his face for a second she was alarmed by his distinct lack of features. His face looked like a face but it was blurry as though looked at through a steamed up window. As quickly as the thought hit her it vanished as he turned to look into the soup.

“I’m proud of you, you know hun. You’ve made a life here. Surrounded by people who love you. I’m so excited to be a part of that.”

She was silent for a moment after that but quickly pulled him into a hug and despite him squeezing her too tightly and causing searing pain down her back she held it for as long as she could. But eventually he pulled away and though the pain remained she turned her focus back to the soup.

Hearing her name being shouted from the other room she left the kitchen and headed directly into the middle of the dance floor. Guliveneir had just passed his first Trial and they were all celebrating. People pushed in on her from all sides as the room thrummed with music the crowds pulsing with the music, a mass of writhing bodies. In the crowd she looked her her friends and noticing Stalwart standing alone she began to try to push her way towards him. Forcing her way through as the crowd pushed back at her keeping her aware of the pressure from all sides.

No matter how hard she pushed the crowd seemed to be neverending, they people around her changed, or at least seemed to change but the size of the crowd between her and Stalwart wasn’t changing. If anything the bodies were getting tighter, squeezing her in more. Even the ceiling seemed to be shorter than she expected her head grazing against it as she fruitlessly pushed forward, determined to reach her goal.

Suddenly as the music hit its peak the floor below Beth seemed to fall away and her as well as the crowd around her seemed to drop together, still pressing up against her but drifting slight. With a crack and a searing pain she landed on the floor of the jungle, blinded by the light now flooding her eyelids and overwhelmed by the pain both in the parts of her body that she landed on and her back that seemed to burn as though on fire. As she blinked up at the sky a figure stepped up to block her light. In the shadow cast by the figure she could only see the gleam of the blade he held in his hand as he stepped towards her.