A little girl stood on the side of the road. Cars making loud noises and puffing out fume were passing her by on her left, pedestrians going about their business, on her right. The heavy rain clattered on the pavement as the people were in a hurry. Black umbrellas in hand as no one cared to take notice of the little girl that was staring at her feet. Everything around her seemed bleak. The cars dirty and black. The tall buildings and the sidewalk concrete grey. Long black raincoats, fluttered passed.

Big drops of rain fell on the yellow raincoat she was wearing, hood up, as to not get her hair wet. Hiding her face from anyone who bothered to look at the little girl dressed in the only color. Her blue rain boots covered in mud. Mindlessly she tried to scrape some off with her other rain boot before continuing to stare at them. What had happened? The little girl thought. Where are mommy and daddy?

She looked around, only seeing the mass of bodies dressed in black, silently droning passed, ignoring her existence. What was she doing here? She didn't know these people. Why would she be here? Where were mommy and daddy?

She silently took a step forward, following the crowd, looking up to the faces of the passing people. A woman went by. Dressed like all the others, black raincoat, black umbrella, but she seemed familiar. The little girl took another step toward the woman. The woman took big steps, making much more ground than the girl, fading away in the distance, walking along with the rest of the crowd. The little girl panicked. What if that was mommy?

She ran toward the woman. She ran as hard as her little legs could carry her, closing in as her little feet hit the wet concrete at a rattling pace. With only a couple more meters more to run, she saw the blonde hair that came out underneath the umbrella. Mommy had blonde hair! This must be mommy! The thought brought elation and relieve as she sprinted the last couple of meters, trying as hard as she could to reach the woman yelling from the top of her longs "Mommy!!".

Her little hands grabbed hold of the black raincoat, yelling at the blonde woman "Mommy! It's me!" The woman stopped walking, but didn't turn around. Confusion spread as the previous feelings turned sour again "Mommy what is wrong? Don't you want me anymore?" The little girl kept looking up towards the back of the head of the blonde, a profound sadness mixed into the confusion visible in her eyes.

She averted her gaze back to the grey concrete and slowly little streams of water made their way down her cheeks and little sob sounds where coming out underneath the hood. She tucked a little at the black raincoat "Mommy why won't you say anything?". The woman kept ignoring the little girl. As the sobs grew louder, the little girl let go of the black raincoat, her hands cold from the rain that had wetted the black fabric.

The moment her hand lost grabbed air, the woman continued on her way, not looking back. The little girl stared up at the departing back of the blonde woman, tears flowing like a river from her face. Hiccupping. "Why... hic are you... hic leaving mommy? What did I do… hic wrong?" She whispered at the departing back.

The little girl’s knees bent forward, and she sat on her heels and as the yellow raincoat covered her rain boots, she hung her head and sobbed. She felt so alone, no one bothered to comfort her, they rushed by minding their own business.

An unknown amount of time passed but the little girl was inconsolable. She kept sobbing, and the rain kept pouring down, forming little puddles on the grey concrete around her. Cars kept rushing by, making their loud noises, puffing out their fumes. As she was quietly sobbing a hand landed on her back, startled she looked up, into the sparkling brown eyes of a man "Hey pumpkin, what is wrong?" Asked the man before he smiled.

The little girl was confused. Tears blurring her vision, she wiped her eyes a little. The mans` brown eyes sparkled. His skin white but not pale, his hair brown without facial hair. Wearing a yellow raincoat just like her. He was sitting on his heels to make eye contact. Most important of all, he was smiling at her. It was the smile that returned all the warmth to her body "Daddy!" She flung herself around his neck as the man got up from his crouching position and stood up "It's okay pumpkin we found you," he whispered in her ear as he rubbed her small back but she could only sob against his shoulder.

They walked back to where she was standing before, but she didn't even noticed they had moved until she heard the voice of a woman coming from a distance. "Ow thank god Joseph, you found her! I was worried sick!" as she heard the woman's voice the little girl turned her head, not letting go of her father, not wanting to be lost again "Mommy?" her unsure voice croaked.

The woman came running towards them, she was beautiful. Blonde hair, blue eyes with porcelain skin, wearing a yellow raincoat, holding up a yellow umbrella. The only thing that seemed out of the ordinary where the black markings underneath her eyes where her mascara had painted her skin where it was not supposed to. The woman was with them in two steps, sandwiching the girl between herself and the man named Joseph, before whispering "Ow I'm so glad we found you Sophie! Mommy was so scared!"

The three of them stood there for a moment being the only color in the scene, a bundle of yellow. The little girl squirmed a little and grumbled "I can't breathe mommy", hearing this the couple separated, smiling down at her. She giggled, relieved that it was over, that she had found her parents again. Taking off her hood, revealing her brown hair cut at the shoulders, her puffy cheeks still red from all the crying and her little nose still sported snot. But now she was smiling, her blue eyes had found back a sparkle of joy, her smile missing a tooth, a moment of gushing happiness.

A flash of light followed by thunder rumbled through the sky. The pedestrians stopped walking, the cars stopped making noises and puffing fumes. Rain came to a stop in the middle of the air. Her mother smiled, still looking at her with eyes of pure joy and relieve. Her father looked at his wife while holding her in his arms, a small grin on his lips, his eyes betraying his deep affection. Both frozen in time.

The little girl looked around once again confused. What was happening? She tried to move but her father was holding her tight. She looked around but everything was still. Her eyes were drawn to a drop of water hanging in front of her. Curious she touched it, cold and wet, but it didn't move.

Suddenly the sound of scraping shoes made her look up from the drop of water. A pedestrian that had been standing still like the rest was now turning towards her. Lifting its black umbrella, a faceless head coming from underneath. It looked at her through unknown eyes but it kept its position.

The faceless man looked back at the other pedestrians all dressed in black as looking for confirmation within their unmoving ranks before his head turned back towards the little girl. Then again it turned towards its fellow pedestrians, nodding its head in what seemed to be a question. Seconds passed before all the pedestrians nodded back. The little girl felt no fear for the pedestrian without a face, nor did she find it strange that it was moving while nothing else moved but her. Curious of what was happening, still feeling safe in her father’s embrace.

The man took a step forward, his black leather shoe hitting the grey concrete sidewalk with a thud. He took another step forward and the little girl looked at him, a growing discomfort rising in her chest. She tried to shake her daddy, wake him up, whispering to him "Daddy, you have to wake up now, there is a strange man walking towards us." Her daddy didn't wake up.

The strange man took another step forward. The worry took over as she looked at her mother, still smiling at her, but unmoving as the rain hanging in the air. She looked back at the faceless man, she tried to wiggle herself out of her father's arms, while her breath seemed to get stuck inside of her chest. She screamed "Daddy wake up now, It's not funny anymore!" Desperately trying to get out of his grip.

The pedestrian took his final step before standing still. The little girl stopped her efforts and just curled up against her daddy. Closing her eyes, and covering her ears, whispering a mantra against his shoulder "Please let the bad man go away, please let the bad man go away…" before two loud bangs rocked the still world.

Falling through the rain. She hit the sidewalk with the back of her head before something heavy fell on top of her. Raindrops fell on her puffed up cheeks. The sound of cars making loud noises and puffing fumes into the air returned. Shuffling of feet around her. The heavy weight on top of her didn't move, her head hurt, sobbing again she tried to push it away.

After a while the little girl came out underneath of the heavy object. Tears had returned on her face as she sat on the wet concrete, looking around through her blurred vision. Her mommy and daddy were lying on the ground next to her and there was a lot of red stuff. She tried to shake her dad awake, whispering to him "Daddy wake up, you can't sleep here." She looked at her hands why were they red? Then she remembered the faceless man. She looked up, he was still there. His head hung down, there was smoke coming out of his umbrella.

She stood up, knees shaking, new tears of fear and anger flowed passed her cheeks, clenching her little hands into fist she screamed at the faceless man "What did you do!" The faceless man looked up at the little girl before he said in a raspy tone "I'm sorry." He pointed the umbrella at the girl who could see its hand shaking.

She felt scared, but why was the scary man scared? "What did you do, mister?" She asked again, this time with doubt in her voice, she looked at her parents on the ground. Red stuff poring onto the grey concrete, they were deep asleep. "Why won't my parents wake up, mister?" She asked, panic making its way down her throat. Fear rising, she screamed "What have you done!"

The faceless man's hand shook more, turning his head to the side, something grey splashed onto the concrete sidewalk. It wiped its hand passed its head, whispering "What am I doing?" He dropped the point of the umbrella, staring at the little girl that was now sobbing, hiccupping every so often, still staring defiantly towards the faceless man. "What have I done?" He whispered in a low voice once more, pointing the pointy end of the umbrella towards his chin. The faceless man's head exploded. The little girl screamed.

Sophie woke up screaming, covered in sweat, sitting up straight in her bed. her brown hair a mess, her bright blue eyes were staring in bewilderment around the room. She was in her room, it wasn't real, nothing happened. Except it did. Her parents were dead, fourteen years it had been. When a man shot them down in the streets.

why was she still having this nightmare? Wasn't it bad enough she lost both parents at three? Did she had to remember it at least one night a week? She fell back into her pillow, still out of breath, taking in the fresh air of her well ventilated room. Raising her hand toward her face, placing it gently over it, shading her eyes from the light entering her room through the shades in front of her window. The sun was rising. She looked to the side where her alarm clock was sitting on a small table. 06:56, lovely time to be up she thought. She slid her hand across her face wiping away the wet cold sweat. Large droplets took to her fingers, just like that day. She didn't like rain much since then, nor did she enjoy taking showers. Deep associations with a traumatic event that caused discomfort. The psychologist had tried to explain it to her. Making sure she understood that more sessions could lessen its effects. She had asked if he always stated the obvious for tree-hundred euro's an hour and had walked out of the door.

She sat back up again, placed her legs over the bed's edge, letting them hang loose until they stopped shaking. Trying to relax her muscles, giving her brain time to stop the flight-or-fight response the dream had caused. She whispered "It's okay pumpkin, we found you." It always calmed her down, thinking back to the good part of the dream. Thinking back to the last thing her dad had said to her.

Taking a deep breath she stood up, still a little wobbly, nevertheless stable enough to walk towards the shades. Which had failed their job of blocking the light from the outside. She placed her feet in the comfortable soft beige carpet that was adoring her room's floor. It only took three steps to reach the shades. The room wasn't big, it was still the same room as when her parents had died. The My Little Ponies, Barbie's, the famous traffic carpet, and a bunk bed made way for a king-sized bed made of ebony wood, a beige carpet, black shades and an 80-inch flat screen sitting on a desk in the corner of the room. A keyboard set on the desk, together with a picture of her parents. That was it. The rest of the room was empty, no pictures of her favorite boy band or actor. No wall full of heavy metal stickers. Just a plane and boring room. Except for the man sized teddy bear that was sitting just outside her bed, opposite to where she slept, guarding the entrance of her walk in closet. She opened the shades and bombarded herself with the rising sun's light. Quick to squint her eyes, she made her head turn. At least now she was awake. The window went from floor to ceiling, three meters wide on the floor curving in a sword tip until the two points met on the ceiling.

She looked out of the window again, gazing upon the grass plain stretching out for kilometers on end, a sea of almost fluorescent green with patches of yellow where little buttercup flowers colonized the space in large numbers. She loved the vibrant view from her window, it was one reason she still lived in the same room. Often she would get the chair from the desk, sit in front of the window for hours. Looking at the ever moving grass, the spread out threes that gave shade to the sheep that parade the land like they owned the place. The rough stone walls breaking the whole up into parts made the picture complete its picturesque goals. She tore her gaze from the view, she could easily stare at it another hour but she had to get ready. there were things to do today.

She walked towards the walk-in closet, pressing a button next to it. Right above the button was a small speaker, once she pressed it, the speaker came crackling to live, "Good morning miss, how can I be of service? Did you sleep well?" The voice of a man with a very British accent came down the speaker. It always made Sophie smile a little. After her parents were killed, Frank was the one that had taken care of her. He was the reason she could life in her parents' house even when they died, as she was way too young to even know what was happening.

She pressed the button again and asked in her sweetest voice "Good morning Frank, I slept well, was your sleep satisfactory? Could I ask for breakfast and the morning paper to be brought towards the entertainment room? I wish to do a little multitasking this morning." She finished her request and went into the closet without waiting for a reply. She knew it would not be a problem. Thirty seconds later Frank answered, "Certainly miss, that is not a problem, neither are my sleeping habits something to be concerned about, I had a very satisfactory eight hours of solid sleep." There was a slight pause before Frank continued "Miss, a package has arrived at the rather unusual time of five a clock this morning. It is rather large and addressed to the young miss. Is this expected?" As Sophie heard this she ran out of her rather sizable walk-in closet. Most people would be happy if it was the size of their master bedroom. Half-dressed, trying to pull her head through an arm hole of the sports t-shirt she was putting on. Succeeding, she pressed the button again "Yes! I'm sorry for the early time I didn't know that part, that's obscenely early! But yes I did order myself something special." She thought for a moment then pressed the button again "Could you place the package in the entertainment room? I will busy myself with it after the morning routine." A short pause before Frank in a slightly worried tone said "I'm glad to hear I have taught the young miss well. Work hard before enjoying oneself." She smiled at that, then pressed the button a final time "All work no play makes Sophie a dull girl Frank, you know this." The speaker crackled again and she thought she heard a small laugh on the other end before she heard Frank say "As you say miss, nothing dull about the miss." This got her back into a reasonably good mood. The package was something she had been waiting on a full week now. Sadly, she knew, if she skipped her workout and update on the world's biggest happenings Frank would scold her or worse, make unwrapping her little early Christmas present to herself impossible. As she pulled the shirt off again, she put it on the right way before hurrying to find a clean pair of sweatpants and her running shoes.

All mornings comprised fifteen minutes of warming up on a stationary bike and after that a five kilometer run on a treadmill. Followed by her mandatory half hour read of the paper and an hour of studying one topic or another. That was her morning routine every day since she was five. She had gotten so used to it she didn't even mind postponing opening her much anticipated gift to herself. As she was now seventeen years old, she had finished all the mandatory schooling she and Frank deemed necessary. Now she was in the habit of asking Frank to put together several curricula of interest to her, which she would study for at least four hours every day. Starting with the hour in the morning. Frank had argued that going to a University might progress her social skills further. But he couldn't counter her question why she should need such a specific education while she did not know what she wanted to do with her life at the tender age of seventeen. He agreed to a four hour learning period, so she could spend the rest of her time on either finding out suitable professions or, the better option. Fun stuff. Thinking of this a lightbulb went off inside her head and she ran back to the intercom, pushed the button and spoke "Say Frank, could you give me some reading material on space, make it broad. For now. The subject might change in the next view days." The speaker crackled into existence and a slightly agitated Frank was on the other end "Going somewhere miss?" She chuckled at this and teased "You never know when you need it Frank, you never know." She went back into the maze of cloths, put her shoes on and walked towards the door.

Pushing against the door with her palm made the complete door slide backwards and to the right, making a light hissing sound from the friction, otherwise it would have been a silent process. She walked out of the door, and onto a balcony that looked out over the living room. The balcony had two doors on it, the door closest to the stairs that went down into the living room was her bedroom. The other was the old bedroom of her parents, a place she had not visited in a long while. Frank kept it clean as a whistle if only to not sully their memory. Walking down the stairs she walked passed an enormous window that had the same design as in her own room only two times bigger as it ran about seven meters high and eight meters wide. It was as if there was no wall on that side of the house only a window. Which was absolutely stunning as it brought her the same view as her own room. Just a little less far out but she could see (and enter) the garden from here. In front of the window sat a stationary bike, a treadmill, a fitness frame designed for pull ups, a sand bag for boxing exercises and wooden practice dummy. Behind all this equipment, placed right in the middle of the room was a dining table where her breakfast was awaiting. Baked eggs, with toast a croissant and cappuccino, perfect. The room used to have a lot of other stuff, like a couch and a television. But neither her nor Frank was using those aspects of the room, as her days were mostly filled with either exercise, studying and gaming. They had decided that they should organize the room in a way so she did not need to move too much through the house. This was mainly because Frank didn't want to clean every part of the house every day. Thus came the reorganization for some efficiency for "her" comfort. Not that she ever said anything about it.

The walls, just like the whole house was made of wood. Her parents had let their imagination run wild when they had enough money to build their dream house. So when they found this spot in the middle of the Scottish Highlands, here on a short vacation, they thought, yeah why not? A year later, and quite some money later, a two story villa of about two-hundred square meters, with eight normal rooms, a beautiful state of the art kitchen, two bathrooms, a Jacuzzi and a swimming pool stood in the middle of nowhere in the Scottish Highlands. The hills, wood as the main compartment, and on top of it, grass grew as an eco-friendly way to preserve the gas bill. All made the house seem invisible for anybody that didn't know it was there. This, the living room, or as she liked to call it, the entertainment room, was by far the room she loved most. As she was looking around the room and slowly eating breakfast, Frank came in and handedher the day's paper. Frank was one meter and eighty-seven centimeters long, was all muscle and no fat, looking around the age of 50, she had never actually asked how old Frank was.. Weird "Say Frank, how old are you?" Frank looked at her with his strict face, he had a rather small face but a huge nose that stood out. His mouth was small, so where his eyes that were relatively closer to each other than strictly fashionable and he always seemed to have eaten something sour. His chin and forehead took a little more space than strictly necessary and he had big ears, with greying hair combed to the side but it never seemed to listen. He stood up straight, thought for a moment before answering in a normal tone, "My production date is 6 of January 2024, and I have served this household ever since the young miss was born." And he is an android, a humanized robot with the explicit programming of a nanny. "Ah yes that's true! Thank your creators for the great service they did me!" Frank smirked at this and said "I am deeply honored to have been created by your parents miss." He made a bow and laid the newspaper on the table.

"How could I forget Frank, aren't we technically brother and sister then? As we were both created by my parents." Frank outright smiled now, before going back to his serious look and replied to her bit of banter "I would be honored to be considered family by the miss, but your parents instructed me to always be there for you and to take care of you like you where my own and as you know we humanoids can't have children. So, I might have screwed up here or there. Now if you would excuse me young miss, I have a package of several hundred kilos to move into this room". He made another curtesy bow before leaving me to my own thoughts.

Her parents had been pioneers in Artificial intelligence and Robotics. Something that the lab on the other side of the house where Frank "slept" and did the maintenance on himself was a daily reminder of. It was also why a fanatical believer in the skynet doomsday theories found it necessary to shoot and kill them both before they made a breakthrough he thought would destroy all living things. If only he knew Frank had been walking among us for four years already. A succeeded experiment that my parents did not want to share with the world yet. Taking care of a toddler of only 3 years old like he was Mother Teresa reincarnated. If he had known he might not been so trigger happy. Maybe. She didn't know Frank was a humanoid until she stumbled into the basement and found frank taking parts out of his own stomach, placing in new ones. She remembered it well, it was both an awesome and terrifying conversation to have at the tender age of 10. That he had convinced everyone until this day he was human, was only a testament to how much of a genius pair her parents had been. The real irony of the killing her parents was that it brought forth a call for more safety and sped up the productions of similar, albeit much less intelligent humanoids that had to help the police and military forces to reduce casualties. After another 10 years had passed every rich family had their own Frank.

She had the original that was still out performing anything she had read about in the paper. Maybe he had an auto updater? Who knew. But it was thanks to the realistic appearance of Frank and her parents will she could still life in the house they had build and did not have to move or go into foster care. Praise the lord. She took the last bite of toast, climbed upon the bike, and did some light peddling for around thirty minutes while she read the newspaper. It was 2038 and here she was reading a newspaper. Frank insisted. As he stated that the way internet news articles where written these days was no more than empty blabber to draw attention to a page. If you wanted something reassembling impartial and good journalism, you had to read a paper or it would be best to not follow the news at all as it would only feed you propaganda. Not that the newspaper was impartial, or had no propaganda, or empty blabber. But sometimes in a blue moon there would be an article that was interesting to read or like today, a review of a certain game that was about to be hauled into her entertainment room by a certain butler that had super strength. The new hype of gaming had been out for a week, and she had to contain herself greatly to not jump ship immediately.

In recent years a lot of developers had stated that they had found new and exciting ways to further the immersion of gamers using virtual reality. Those that weren't complete flops or outright marketing lies had glitches. Which were sometimes fatal before they were repaired or were recalled from the market. So she had made it a habit of hers to always wait at least a week to board the hype train. As that was enough time to find out if anybody got stuck in a world of flesh eating hobbits with a bad case of hepatitis C or that the game was safe to play.

Why in god's name were they still making new ways to immerse their audience? Wasn't it shut down after the first few cases of fried brain before breakfast? Why try it at all if there was a risk of being cooked? Simple, there were two reasons. The demand was only growing as people wanted to feel more and more immersed in the game they were playing, so people just took the risk, even if it sounded too good to be true. Just like it was fun to bungee-jump right before the cable snapped, or to sky dive before realizing the parachute was faulty. The brainwashing message from the corporations was that it only happened to people who didn't follow protocol and messed around with their products. That is a lie but you know, it's on the internet so it had to be at least partially true. The second big reason was the obvious, Money. Lobbyists had made pacts with every big government in the world to allow the biggest industry in the world to stay the biggest industry in the world. The revenues of successful games were of the charts. Any government who objected for health reasons was quickly brought back in line by governments that where in the pockets of the VR movement. Diminishing job opportunities for the lower class due to automatization and the production of humanoid androids that did the heavy lifting made the VR movement a way to dumb all the obsolete people into a virtual environment. Where they would annoy in a confined space instead of disrupting public order. If one or two thousand died in the process of developing a more satisfactory environment for them to stay in for longer times, who cares right? There was a reason people no longer got money from the state because they were unemployed but got a full immersion pod that could sustain life for a week. It was cheaper. Sometimes when they got real lucky, a bug locked around a million people away for good. So they could shut down their PODs and redistributed them to the other poor souls that were fish being taught to climb a tree.

Thank god her parents at least had the present of mind to write a will early in life. It stated she should get money from a trust fund that contained all their assets, based on her age and family size. Things might have been way worse than just seeing her parents get gunned down. Lost in thought she forgets to paddle, and the bike beeped and asked if she wanted to stop. Well yes but let's continue anyway shall we. She started back up again, reading the article.

Ethereal Space: as fascinating as it is deadly. In the past few days I have staked my life on the fact that the engineers and programmers of the hit factory Nsqaured knew what they were doing while creating their latest game Ethereal Space. As you might have noticed due being able to write this awesome puff piece about the game, my brain did not get fried! Nor did the other one million early birds of gaming for that matter. After a long series of bad press there is finally a game that can keep its users from leaving without smoke coming out of their ears. This should be mandatory not something good about a game, but you know, beggars can't be choosers I guess. So is this game, except for safe, also fun?

I would say yes, yes, it is. If you like a good beating and are not afraid to suffocate in the dark and cold vacuum of space, then this is absolutely a game you should be considering. It is like many others before it, an RPG that takes place in space, where you collect, kill, grow, built and kill some more. It is also massively multi-player and massively big. The developers released a statement in which they said they do not expect that all planets will be visited in the coming year. Even though they predict that over 20 million people will play the game for over one year, projecting a steady player base for at least the coming 3 to 4 years. But what separates this game from the rest? Well you know what? Not much but it is the sheer volume, the realistic grasp on engineering, combat, creation and life and death struggle that makes this one of the most exciting games to have been published in the recent years. Ow and did I tell you that the Immersion level is close to 95%? Yeah, you read that right, it is as if you are in outer space, none of that ow nice I see I'm floating around but I can feel my back still sweating against this very uncomfortable leather couch I'm laying on. No! Almost full Immersion, but there is also where this games greatest liability lies, because who likes to be shot by a laser beam through the leg while suffocating in the deep cold blackness of outer space.

As she was reading the article about Ethereal Space, she paddled faster and faster until she noticed that she was getting a little out of breath due to the high tempo and slowed down. The rest of the article gave a deeper insight of what the author had been doing with his time in the game but she wasn't too interested in that. She put the paper away and got of the bike. Wiping some of the perspiration off with the white towel Frank always puts on the table next to her breakfast. As she walked back towards the treadmill for her mandatory five kilometer run, she looked outside the window. It rained. The big droplets where slamming against the massive window, the world outside turning from its vibrant colors into a grey mush. She hated rain, but she lived on the Scottish Highlands so there were few days where she wasn't confronted with the heavy clatter of her fated enemy slamming into the legacy of her parents. She had learned to ignore it, or use the emotions as energy in her exercises or studies. The sand bag has had many beatings on a rainy day, not that it helped a lot, but it was better than to hide under the sheets only to come out when it stopped. She had tried that for a year. A person can definitely sleep 17 hours a day, she had tried at least. She got on the treadmill, plugged her wireless earbuds into her ears and pressed start on the treadmill. A pre-programmed list of the harder variety techno blasted into her ears as she started running. While she ran she stared at the raindrops falling, hitting the window, the techno beats hammering away at her eardrums the rhythmic beat of her shoes hitting the treadmill floor, the music urging her on. The sight of rain, the once vibrant field urging her on, the thought of Ethereal Space being right behind her when she got to the five-kilometer mark urging her on. She ran as if in a trance, and suddenly the music stopped, the treadmill slowed to a slow walk, she looked down to the clock on the treadmill. Sixteen minutes and 32 seconds, it seemed she almost sprinted the whole five kilometers.