She noticed the problem too late. When the ritual failed it wouldn't matter that her master had made the error. “The mage leading the ritual is at fault for all errors in the execution.”

Unfortunately the only choice she had was to complete the ritual. The divine of the arcane’s punishments for flawed rituals were always less painful for the punishment for a ritual abandoned in the middle.

As each utterance led into the next, rising toward a crescendo at the height of the ritual she began feeding more of her power into the spell, against her better reason, in hopes that the penance of such an action would grant her the forgiveness of the divine for tainting the ritual.

Something in her intent must have been heard by the divine as she felt compelled to change the chant, her voice rising higher, in pitch and in volume, before crashing down to be picked up by her now visibly agitated master who, for his own part was beginning to improvise the ritual. As the volume and tone of her voice fell so deep that it became inaudible he carried the chant sound for sound falling into his deeper tones as the volume rose again.

The poor apprentice girl felt her sense of reality slip away as the room grew strangely darker despite the growing luminescence of the ritual circle. The last thing the poor girl noticed before she fainted was that the light of the circle had grown so bright that the white glare had become a black emptiness.

Luke had decided that disasters happen. When they did panic got you nowhere. For better or worse this choice decided his destiny that day. When that bolt of lightning struck, interrupting his friends concert, he was the only person who had the presence of mind to notice and save the poor middle school aged girl who seemed to collapse out of the pillar of light.

The lightning wasn’t the puny bolts you expect to see from a normal storm. If a normal lightning strike was a pinprick then this was a sledgehammer of wild electric force. With that in mind Luke proved that panic wasn't a necessity for getting the hell out of there.

Luke ran toward the unnaturally static streak of plasma to pick up the girl and ran to his car. He was as always glad that he lacked the too common compulsion to park as close to a thing as possible. He was quite happy to exchange legs burning from an adrenaline fuel sprint to avoid the alternative of the paranoid impatience that he would feel while sitting in the growing traffic jam that was the makeshift parking lot for the small concert.

When Luke got back to his small apartment he lifted the tiny sleeping teen onto his back and carried her in. Once she was settled into his bed he went into his kitchen and poured himself a rare cocktail and collapsed onto his roommates sofa exhausted from the sudden excitement that was the lightning.

Luke was awake and alert before he realized he had fallen asleep. His roommate had returned and made it clear she wasn't happy to see him collapsed and sleeping on her furniture.

“Hey River. When did you get back?”

“Just now, you're lucky I wasn’t bringing a guy back. What happened to your friend’s thing?”

“Cancelled, might be on the news actually.”

Luke checked a nearby clock and turned on his large 70 Inch TV. Sure enough a news story with the headline ‘Local band’s concert had an electric conclusion. Accompanying the newscast was a surprisingly high quality video showing the lightning strike and Luke’s ‘daring’ rescue of the young girl.

“She get home okay?”

“Nope. I got home. Tucked her into my bed and passed out after pouring myself a drink. You want something?”

River nodded and followed him into the tiny kitchenette that served their small two bedroom apartment. Despite the circumstances that had brought them together the two made for good roommates.

“What do you plan to do with her?”

Luke shrugged “There is really only one thing I can do with her. I have to call the police and report her as a missing person.”

River went into Luke’s room and checked the girl for any notable birthmarks scars and to get a detailed description of her, including height, weight, and breast size. She had on a strange fantasy like costume which the police predictably claimed would help locate her family. River didn’t mention the fact that the girl was also wearing undergarments that seemed to match the setting that her costume belonged to, or rather the lack of such garments.

Once the police had come and gone River did something unusual. She approached Luke for physical comfort. Luke pulled her into an awkward brotherly hug letting her hide from some imagined terror as he silently agreed that there was something off about the girl.

Before long River was ready to face the world again. She pushed her way out of Luke's protective hug and tossed him his shoes before she began writing a note which she pasted to the front door of the apartment. River then put on her own shoes and tossed Luke his keys.

Luke drove them to the closest Walmart where he parked and followed River into the girl's clothes department. Half aware of what River was doing Luke grabbed a cart at the store entrance which River was all too happy to toss clothes that Luke thought might fit the poor girl into.

When whatever compulsion had caused River to initiate this little shopping trip had died away they had loaded the cart with a week of supplies for the girl sleeping in their apartment. They bought clothes, food and snacks for the girl and split the bill at checkout.

When they got home River went into Luke's room and picked up their young guest to carry into her room. Luke deposited their purchases in the kitchenette putting the groceries into the fridge and then retreated into his room to get what little sleep he could before morning came.