Sarah was in her office working late, she took a sip of her coffee, it was cold but she didn't mind. Taking a glance at the clock, she saw it was 12:24 AM

“Cough, cough” Nearly choking on her cold coffee as she realised the time, she had sputtered spraying coffee onto her desk. “Oh for Fu….no, no, you’re better than that Sarah” She rebuked herself, after having to tell Daniel off for swearing like a trooper all the time, she felt like she had to set a good example. She started clearing up the mess she had just made.

‘Daniel’s going to be upset that I’m late again, I should probably check on him’

Sarah picked up her phone and called Daniel, after several rings it went to his answerphone.

"Hi, I'm not available right now. If I know you, I'll call back. If you're a cold caller, fuck off. If it's you, Sarah, I love you. Sorry for swearing." Daniels answerphone message that Sarah had begged him to change greeted her.

“Tsk, he’s probably asleep on the Sofa” she sounded upset but she had a smile on her face. Daniel usually waited to go to bed with Sarah when she worked late. He wanted to be there to greet her when she got home.

Sarah started to pack her things up from her desk, ready to make her way home. The tv was on for background noise while she was working late. She picked up the television remote ready to turn it off.

The tv screen suddenly went blank and then a loud attention-grabbing ringing noise was played out from the tv, an alert was displayed on the screen.

‘We apologise for the interruption to this broadcast. Emergency information will soon be broadcast. Ensure your device is audible and stand by for information’.

“Is this a test?” Sarah wondered out loud, she waited a moment, checking her phone again at 1:04 AM

She sat back down to see if any information was broadcast, she tried ringing Daniel again to see if he also saw the broadcast, but he still didn’t pick up.

She looked at her phone, checking social media to see if any information was available. ‘Damn, what is this all about? This can’t be real right?’’ she thought to herself.

She was scrolled through the trending hashtags on twit twit, it seemed the best way to get the most up to date news. Thre trading tags confounded her.

#WallOfLight, #WOL, #Rapture and a bunch of other similar rising tags. After looking at the posts she saw videos that people had recorded. It seemed to be their final moments before a giant wall of light consumed them. The videos seemed almost all identical, the person filming was either panicked or screaming, they would keep filming the approach of the wall of light until it inevitably reached them, then the video cut out to nothing.

There were many posts like this. People were responding to the posted videos { Is this Fake? },{Lol, get wrecked}, {F for respect}, {Praise the cameraman},{ I can’t contact my family in Australia, I’m scared for them},{Thoughts and prayers}, { Is this the start of WWIII?}, {It’s like half the world was wiped off the map, I can’t contact my family in Beijing either }.

Sarah was starting to get freaked out, she tried calling Daniel again but it still went to voicemail. “Damn it Daniel, pick up!”. By then it was 2:11 AM.

She rang again, Dan’s familiar comforting voice finally answered giving her some relief. “Sarah are you alright? Why aren’t you home yet?”

By then Sarah was starting to hyperventilate, things didn’t seem real, something huge on a global scale appeared to be going on.

“Dan I’m at the office alone, I’ve been calling for hours, I’m scared… Have you seen the news? Are you aware of what’s going on?”

“I..sorry...I just woke up, there’s an alert on tv, but nothing else. What’s happened, why are you scared?” Dan’s voice was groggy but he seemed to be quickly coming to his senses, his tone shifted to indicate he was taking her seriously.

Sarah, thinking back to all the social media posts, tried to inform Dan of what was going on. She knew she sounded like a raving crazy woman. “It’s something big Dan, It doesn’t make sense. I’m not quite sure I understand what’s going on, nobody does. Apparently, people have started to lose contact with other countries across the world. There’s no official explanation from any governments or leaders around the world. I had to look up on the internet, I've seen videos where there was a wall of light travelling towards people, then when it reached them nothing.”

“What? Sarah, you’re right… that doesn’t make sense.” He sounded flustered by her explanation, she knew what she said didn’t make sense, but she saw the videos. They appeared real enough.

Sarah was looking out her office window while talking. The night sky started to vanish giving way to light. It was like the daylight was too impatient for the turning of the world and it decided to take matters into its own hands.

The indomitable wall of light was rapidly becoming more visible in the skyline. ‘Oh no, It’s real!’ Sarah started to panic even more, the realisation that the wall of light was coming towards her, actually seeing it with her own eyes. It was making its way ever closer.

“Dan! …oh my god. I can see it Dan...the light, it’s coming our way.”

Sarah’s panicked words seemed to scare Daniel, he was shouting down the phone “Sarah, what is it? What’s happening?!”

The wall was travelling exceptionally fast, Sarah’s mind had frozen in fear, she didn’t have much time to say any more words. She couldn’t construct some kind of final goodbye, she could barely string a coherent sentence together. So she just replied “Dan...It’s almost here, Dan!....DA-AHHH”

The light engulfed her, an intense pain like a baptism of fire was all she could feel, then suddenly nothing.

[....Initializing….connection to candidate successful, loading personal data…...data loaded]

Sarah’s consciousness seemed to float in the darkness, ‘Did I just hear something?’ Sarah wondered. She went to say something but realised she couldn’t speak. ‘Oh well’ she thought, if she had a body she would have shrugged. But she didn’t have a body. She didn’t have any senses by which to experience anything. She didn’t mind this state of being, there was a small pressure in the back of her mind that suppressed all of her emotions making the whole experience almost blissful. She could happily wait in this oblivion forever and she would probably remain at peace with it.

[ Candidate consciousness awake confirmed, initializing interface...]

A strange thing happened within Sarah’s mind, she pictured a text box asking for her name.

[ Please state Candidate name…]

‘My name? Why does it want my name? I suppose there’s no reason I shouldn’t give it.’ her thoughts wandered. ‘Sarah, my name is Sarah’.

[ Name: Sarah ]

[Please confirm name: Sarah]

‘Yes, that is my name’

[Name confirmed, beginning trial 0...]

Sarah remained in her out of body state, but she was able to see something play out before her. It was as if she could see herself from a third-person perspective. She saw herself carrying out actions and moving around in the darkness.

She couldn’t see what her third-person body was interacting with but it seemed to move frantically, it almost looked like her avatar was being burned by invisible flames. It took her a moment to realise what she was looking at. It could best be described as though her avatar was fighting off the darkness.

The avatar of Sarah was becoming increasingly covered by the darkness, the black substance that crept up her body was turning into a physical substance. Dark crystallized obsidian crept out like growing vines that covered her avatar. Her intuition told her this darkness was deathly and negative, its appearance was juxtaposed with its liveliness as it kept attaching itself to her and spreading along the body.

As the darkness continued to spread, erasing her projected avatar's existence, the bleak substance appeared to be eroding the avatar's limbs, creating negative space on Sarah’s body. The Avatar looked scared and tried to shake off the darkness but it resisted her attempts to escape it, ignoring her thrashing, it kept enveloping her.

The more Sarah’s avatar was covered in the black substance, the more she felt her consciousness begin to fade from existence like a creeping fog that ate away at everything that made her who she was. She wasn’t capable of feeling scared, there was just a wrongness to the experience.

Feeling her existence under threat, an unvoiced question popped into her mind. Yes, of course she wanted to exist, she knew that for a certainty. She wasn’t sure why she wanted to exist. Sarah, like most conscious living things, had an instinctual drive to want to thrive, to experience, to love, to share, to leave a legacy.

The dread of nothingness pervaded her thoughts, what would she do to keep living, to keep being? In this void where she had no inhibitions, her deepest darkest thoughts were exposed and laid bare. The different extremes she would go to bubbled into the forefront of her mind.

Would she fight to the death, kill another being to survive? Yes, she would.

Would she trample on those that threatened her existence and those that she loved? Yes.

Would she be willing to serve someone else’s purposes, so long as it did not conflict with her core beliefs? She felt compelled to acknowledge that she would.

Would she bow to the force that could protect her from this eroding darkness? Yes, she would do whatever it took to have a chance to continue to exist.

A bright light burst into her vision like an exploding star, offering sanctuary from the void, inviting her to the safety and serenity that it offered. Sarah’s avatar looked towards the light. Her avatar was in a pitiable state almost completely erased from existence, but when the avatar saw the light, it looked relieved. The avatar began to make its way towards the light.

The closer she got to the light, the harder it was for her to walk forward. The darkness was resisting her attempts to escape by weighing her avatar down, clutching at her and trying to drag her back.

The Avatar moving as slow as molasses towards the light, fighting desperately against the darkness, trying to shrug off the insistent tugging of the cold nothingness. The avatar started leaning forward until it fell to the floor, scrambling on hands and knees; it appeared as though a dark wind was blowing against her, a wind of death that was trying to force her backwards and away from the light. Despite this, the avatar continued making its way forward.

The solidified obsidian started receding from her body, a weight was lifted off of the avatar, it became easier for her to move forward. She saw herself slowly stand up, then watched as the avatar started to gain speed. Closing the distance between herself and the light.

The avatars momentum was accelerating until the darkness failed to hinder it. What started as small stumbling steps turned into a fast walk, then long strides until she was running with all her might.

As she kept getting closer to the source of light, her avatar's appearance began to visibly lighten, the contrast of its skin was getting brighter. Gaining an almost radiant appearance. Her skin soaked up the light, drinking at it like a woman dying of thirst in an oasis.

Then darkness started to burn away, as it burned it released a screeching sound and began to peel away from her avatar. The peeled off solidified pieces of darkness burned up, crumbling to ashes then disappearing into the void, sparks of light were showering off her body.

The darkness that had clung to her fizzled away into the sparks, the cloying darkness started to recede.

Her avatar was running towards the light even faster until it seemed as if she was caught up in the stars gravitational well. Gradually her avatar was being pulled into the light source, no longer needing to actively walk towards it. It was drawn towards the source at increasing intensity, it became an inescapable force.

Her avatar looked as though it was being dragged by its legs as it began to slide ever closer to the light. Her avatar displayed an infinitesimal moment of hesitant fear, barely perceptible, but it was too late to have second thoughts. The intensity of the light continued increasing, turning the Avatar into a mere silhouette in her vision.

The avatar accelerated until its legs came away from the ground and began to fall towards the light, she was like a meteor falling from the sky and burning up in the atmosphere. The remnants of darkness evaporated, all signs of it were completely erased.

The disembodied Sarah watched on as the avatar eventually flew right into the light source, totally enveloped in it. She continued watching her avatar’s last moments as it appeared to fuse with the source of light, she then saw herself vanish into the light.

[Trial 0 successful]

[Candidate moving to safe training zone]

Sarah felt her mind drawn towards something and suddenly her consciousness disappeared from the void.