It was a realm of pure darkness that she had met It.

It was everything, everywhere and all consuming. Almost entirely unknowable and incomprehensible to Mirah’s human mind, a truly inadequate tool to comprehend It’s nature.

It whispered in a voice that seemed to come from everywhere, everything, everyone. Mirah had felt small her whole life, a runaway, a thrown-away rag. But when It spoke to her, she felt like nothing more than a speck of dust, an atom, or something even smaller that escaped Mirah’s comprehension of the world. It’s voice was overwhelming, even in the void of endless nothing.

Mirah screamed against the deafening voices, the sensation of being infinitesimally small overwhelming her mind, before it changed and warped. To Mirah these few moments were longer than any other in her life. It was a second drawn into hours, days even. The torture against her uncomprehending mind only lessened when It made it so.

Mirah could remember now, how she had felt when she looked up, opening her eyes fearful of It.

Before her a being had stood. Mirah couldn’t bring herself to look too closely at the being, her mind getting sucked further into a component that made up what the being was, and endless spiral, a fractal of all that was.

“Mirah.” It had spoke in a billion, billion voices. Some were clear and sharp, some feminine or masculine, some inhuman and animalistic, some in languages she couldn’t understand and had never heard. Some were simply incomprehensible noises, but it all formed one word. Her name.

She didn’t respond to the being, she couldn’t possibly muster her voice against the overwhelming tidal wave.

“You can find it, can make it. Take control of it.” The voices, sounds and everything in between crashed against her mind, the voices of It desperate to communicate to her something, but unable to make her comprehend it’s meaning.

“W-what? Take control of what?” Mirah had squeaked, her voice nothing against It’s presence. The being simply nodded, as if the question had been answered.

“At the cost of it all.”

Mirah screamed, the words, drilling themselves into her head, as if she were in the bowels of the earth, hearing every placed foot, misplaced stone or shifted sand.

The screaming became a separate part of her, her thoughts transcending the actions of her body. Her mind widening, expanding until she could feel it all, the whole wor—

Mirah’s eyes opened.

Her mind exploded with anxiety as her eyes wandered hysterically, her breathing becoming laboured underneath an invisible burden. Mirah began to shake like a leaf in the wind, her teeth chattering, clacking together noisily.

Mirah was in a state of total terror, her mind absorbed with it, forcing her body to lock up into a ball of pure anxious horror. She was still connected to it all, she could hear the whispers of it, echoes of that sensation in her dream. In her memories.

There was knocking at her door, and a voice desperately trying to be heard past it, but there was no point, Mirah was incapable of comprehending anything but her own terror. She began to cry uncontrollably, deranged sobs heaving from her chest, breaking out from her throat.

And that was when a warm hand was placed against hers.

20 minutes earlier.

Tracker was relieved to finally make it ‘home’. She had been called out on a job that she hated, but was paid a king’s ransom for, and she naïvely took said job, convincing herself that it couldn’t possibly be as bad as she remembered it to be.

Of course, it was worse just to spite her. Her contractor for this job was a total ass wipe, but he was rich and owned one of the more powerful linktech producers in Australia. Of course, when they are purchasing another massive producer of linktech she had to be there to make sure that no one was bringing along any Linked to manipulate anyone. She had managed to weed out a mind controller they were trying to sneak in, most likely an area of effect influencing type, real corporate flunky too. Either way, that was used at the negotiating table as some healthy corporate blackmail and bingo bango, you have yourself a multibillion-dollar transaction, done and dusted.

Sighing, Tracker flopped down onto her bed, or the bed she’d been granted for this contract. The fifth room of the eighth floor, the same floor as the undefined team she’d assembled.

Truth be told, she was feeling somewhat guilty. She’d supposed to be teaching the kids and be their pseudo caseworker, but she’d been busy with other contracts. Tracker was still somewhat confused why she would be picked to take care of these kids, sure finding them made sense, but sticking around and teaching them?

Seemed a bit overboard even to her. Hiring her definitely didn’t come cheap, and Willem too, though he hardly charged anywhere near enough. She’d been trying to make him up his prices for years, but the man was stubborn to a ridiculous degree sometimes.

Tracker took the job in the end, obviously, but she couldn’t help but question her own motives. She was… getting on in age. Not ancient like Willem’s middle age, but certainly getting along the road. She’d been dying her hair back to black for a good while now, mostly just to appease the corporate crowd that she was constantly hired by. But every now and then she wondered if she should bring it back a notch, maybe settle down somewhere in the richer suburbs, lord knows she could afford it, and find someone there.

Having a kid…

A muffled scream rung out, loud and piercing but distant. Shock filled Tracker for a moment before it was replaced with cold, calculative emotions.

It was either Mirah or Aaliyah who screamed, and Aaliyah was in the room over from her, in room four, whereas Mirah was in room one. The screaming continued and it became obvious that it was too far away to be Aaliyah. There was the sound of a door slamming a hurried footsteps from down the hall, but Tracker simply calmly and efficiently got dressed into something slightly more respectable than the complete undress she was in, pulling on a hoodie and a pair of shorts.

Walking out of her room in quick and purposeful strides, she walked towards Mirah’s door, which already had some of the rest of the team standing there, namely Walter and Ajax. They looked towards the door worriedly, Ajax beating his meaty hand against the door.

“Mirah! Are you alright?” He called urgently, though not panicked. Tracker almost nodded approvingly but stopped herself to get on with her job. She walked to the door, shooing the two boys who were shocked at her sudden appearance, and knocked with her knuckled courteously before pulling the key card she’d swiped from her kitchen bench and unlocked the door. She could hear the hyperventilating teen inside, the beginnings of sobs echoing through the room and out the door.

Ajax, in his desire to see that Mirah was fine tried to push past Tracker, but Tracker’s hand flung out to catch his wrist, pulling him back through the door and looking at him sternly.

“I will take care of this. Either stand here or go back to your room.” The much taller man looked down at her with a stubborn look for a moment, but let it fade from his features with a sigh, pulling his wrist out of her grip. He could have easily ignored her with the strength granted to him by the axe, but with just his natural strength, her grip told him clearly that she was going to be no pushover.

Tracker nodded approvingly this time and walked into Mirah’s room, closing the door behind her and hearing the lock click. She quickly strode into the bedroom and saw the girl sobbing on her bed, eyes wide like a terrified animal.

She moved closer to Mirah and placed a hand on hers.

“Mirah, this is Tracker. Are you alright?” She asked simply but comfortingly. She wrapped her hand around the terrified girl’s hand, and the girl’s hand clenched hers with a strength that you could only access when you truly felt you were in danger.

But Tracker had an idea of what caused this. As she focused on the small part of her mind that seemed to always be scanning the world around her, she was able to visualize the surrounding landscape relatively exact proportions and hundreds of different shapes and colours, representing each and every Linked in the building and Underground. However, when Tracker focused on the room she was currently in, there was only her and another shape, an exact sphere, slowly turning on an axis, the most complex shape her radar had ever assigned someone. The colour, however, was a mundane maroon.

Complex power, but not necessarily strong. However, at the moment it was blinking, as if it were a notification on a computer. Her link was being used.

“Mirah,” Tracker said soothingly as she gently rubbed the back of Mirah’s hand with her thumb, “I need you to take a deep breath and try to stop using your link, okay?” There was no response other than Mirah’s grip tightening.

“Mirah!” She called louder, making the girl jolt slightly, “Deep breath for me.” Tracker lead by example, sucking in a deep breath, followed by a moment of pause, then a breath out. Tracker did this over and over again. Ten times, a hundred times. In the dark of the room, all you could hear was a set of synchronised breaths; breathe in, hold and finally breathe out.

Mirah’s breathing was occasionally interrupted with a hitch in her breath, a half sob.

“Mirah?” Tracker started for the third time, nice and calmly, “Do you feel better now?” The room was silent for a moment before Mirah nodded shakily. Tracker sighed in relief.

“Can I ask you some questions please?” She asked, finding a voice of kindness in herself that, not an hour ago, she would have sworn to never be capable of. Another nod.

“Did you have a very scary dream?” She realised that she was treating this nineteen year like a child, but the girl was still terrified, if her grip strength was anything to go by. The girl’s breathing began to pick up again, but Tracker shushed her gently.

“Hey now, it’s okay.” She said before reaching out and softly brushing the girl’s forehead, making her initially stiffen but relax after a moment, “What you just experienced is called a Remembrance, Mirah.” The room was quiet but the girl was obviously listening to Tracker’s words.

“Many people go through an Awakening dream, but some don’t remember it very well, if at all.” Tracker explained slowly, still gently distracting the girl from her terror, “The Remembrances aren’t the real thing and come back to you warped and changed and are sometimes very scary experiences.”

Mirah nodded again, still shaky, but much more with it than before.

“Do you want to talk about—” Tracker stopped suddenly as Mirah’s head began to furiously shake, “Okay, okay. You don’t have to talk about it.”

The silence dragged on in the room, Tracker sitting on the floor next to Mirah’s bed. The girl’s breathing was still jittery, but far calmer as Tracker stroked the back of her hand and her forehead, leaning onto the edge of the bed for support.

“Do you want me to leave now, Mirah?” Tracker asked quietly, trying not to send the girl into another panic, but she didn’t give any response. Tracker sat there, continuing her patterns on the girl’s hand and forehead. Tracker was sure that the girl had heard her, so she waited.

Then she softly shook her head, silently asking her to stay in the darkness with her.

Tracker didn’t say anything after that, simply comforting Mirah as best she could, like her father had done with her so, so many years ago now. She breathed calmly and consistently, making sure that Mirah could hear the breaths and follow her rhythm.

Hours passed in that room, simply two sets of breathing existing in the dark. Mirah’s hand finally unclenched from around Tracker’s own, allowing Tracker to gently place the hand back next to Mirah and almost silently walk out of the room, and back out into the hallway.

Ajax and Walter had returned to their rooms, though Ajax had stood outside of the door for an hour and a half, so Tracker returned to her own room in absolute silence.

It was four in the morning, so Tracker decided that she’d just push through the day, something she had made a routine of over the decade and a half that she’d been in her line of work.

Seems like things aren’t going to be any different here either. Holiday my ass.

She sighed as she began to put together a coffee, a linktech created strain that apparently had all the caffeine, 100% more wakefulness and none of the addiction. Not that it stopped Tracker from being summarily addicted to it.

As she waited for the fancy coffee machine to do its work, she absentmindedly rubbed her sore hand, the one that had been clenched by Mirah for a good part of three hours.

Kids… hmm.