It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

The female Endralovan–the one they were supposed to capture–pulled the male Endralovan with her and vanished. For a second, all was still. Then, astonished, Raezu lir Mohaven released the plants from his control. They swung back into their original positions, the branches creaking as they did so.

“A node,” Keiro mumbled.

“Impossible,” Lyrine said. Her hand, which had gone invisible, rematerialized. Clenched into a fist to stop the trembling of her fingers.

“Osah won’t believe us,” Raezu said. It was difficult focusing on anything other than the impossibility before him. “Marpei, on the other hand…”

Lyrine unclenched her hand. Her fingers were still. “It changes everything.”

The node bellowed a low, haunting note. The colors intensified, streaks of light burned into Raezu’s sight. “Back away,” he spoke over the wavering pitch. The frequency rose as the node expanded. He noticed Lyrine standing with her hands by her sides, head tilted up toward the node. “Back away now!”

She shook her head, turned, and ran. Raezu ran, too, toward Keiro, who beckoned them with a flick of his wrist, water twisting from his flask. The forest grew white. Impossibly white. The high pitch rang in his head, followed by a blast of wind that shoved him and Lyrine down.

Keiro lunged forward, each hand seizing them by the wrist. Then he was shoved backwards, crashing through bushes and disappearing from sight. Static electricity crawled over Raezu’s scales, an air of potential that penetrated between his scales into his skin, drawing a pained gasp.

Beside him, Lyrine groaned. That was the last he saw of Endralova before he was torn away.

***

On Transia, Raezu had lived a normal life.

His parents were decorated military officials. Their house was spacious enough that Raezu remembers living a care-free life, simulating combat with toy guns. The real ones did much more damage, but with the unpredictable nature of gifts, some could just as easily turn the bullet against the shooter, so guns were generally frowned upon.

Either way, he ran around and rolled into a crouch, gun trained on pillows he set up as gugents. Pop after pop, rubber bullets shot out. Pillows flew backwards off of the couch. Imaginary gugents were crawling over the couch and he fired away. Round after round struck the living room wall. They left slight dents, but his father’s gift of telekinesis always repaired whatever damage Raezu did.

There is no such safety measure here. The bullets are not rubber, but lead, whizzing over his head as he flees. Everywhere he turns, a mesh of concrete and asphalt disorients him. Buildings constructed of towering steel and glass loom far into the sky, colored a pale blue.

There is nothing larger than a shrub he can use. The Magaraman has a gun, and it is only a stroke of good luck that separates him from a bullet. Left without choices, he calls for the plant to aid him.

Instead, he grasps at an invisible wall. Panicked, he tries again before gunfire shatters his concentration. He flees into an alleyway, pressing himself against a grimy brick wall, grimacing at the stench spilling forth from a dumpster with its lid cracked open.

A shadow looms past the dumpster. Raezu slips behind the dumpster, a tight fit. He sucks in his stomach to fit better. The Magaraman walks past him, oblivious of the Transient. The Magaraman turns another corner, his footsteps echoing off into the distance.

Raezu waits a short while before he dares step foot outside again. He barely notices the dumpster’s stench anymore. What makes him sick to his stomach are that the legends came true.

Nodes are real.

And of the thousand worlds in the grid, fate placed him in Magaram.

All of his dreams and ambitions crumble. Raezu is nineteen, honored to be in his first year of service to the Empire. He had imagined himself proudly standing among other great Transient soldiers, such as his parents. They had high hopes for him, too. He showed an aptitude in every lesson taught or beaten into him.

I'm supposed to be more. Despair scrambles up his body, daring him to break down. To admit that soon, he will become nothing but ashes, unmemorable. Another life mourned and forgotten, as all first-years potentially faced.

I refuse.

Raezu grits his teeth and scans for plants. He finds a few straggly weeds by a downspout. The weeds are weak, barely able to support themselves, but he should be able to feel them. Should, because he can’t grasp at their bodies. There is no bridge built between him and the plant.

His connection is severed. Has it something to do with the node?

But then again, despite seeing and being attacked by a Magaraman, the city–that’s the only word he has to describe the cluster of impossibly tall buildings–varies wildly from the stone architecture Magaram is fond of.

The sky as well. From the few pictures taken of Magaram, colored in by artists, the sky is supposed to be a touch of pink on an otherwise gray sky. This sky’s blue is shades lighter than Transia’s own.

"I must be going crazy," Raezu says.

He presses a hand to the wall. Each individual brick has a rough surface, raking his hand as he moves it side to side. He glances at the dumpster. Stickers that had been stuck to the sides for whatever reason are peeling off or missing completely save for remnants of glue marks. The few pieces that still cling to the sides tell a different story altogether.

The writing is unfamiliar. Nothing like Magaraman with its overly complicated loops and dots and singular script that cut across pages of books before coming down to the next line. No, this writing is simple and utilitarian, much like Transient writing.

“What in the grid?” he says softly.

Raezy touches his mask. It’s intact–enough to venture outside the alley and see more of this new world. It’s unlike any he’s seen before. The buildings alone leave this strange, foreign city on par with Enuscent. Immediately, he expects Marpei to tap into his thoughts like she is rumored to be able to, but there is silence.

Unusual. The roads are slick with ice and snow. Every window of every building is dark. It’s then that the cold finally begins to nibble at his skin. His scales can only do so much for him. He adjusts his mask and fixes his uniform in a vain attempt to ward off the chill.

He walks through the snow and kicks it aside into neat piles. Dotting the road, stretching far into the distance, are large metal objects, varying in size and color. They remind him of the chariots of Enuscent powered by those with gifts of electricity. But there is nobody. The lone Magaraman who’d attacked him vanished, too.

Raezu feels another type of chill prickle the skin underneath his scales. Training didn’t cover the possibility of a node. Or a rogue world. Or a world that is apparently purged of almost all life.

The first place he heads toward is a large building nestled between two smaller ones. Green lighting forms a circle, suspended atop a pole above the large building with the same unfamiliar writing scrawling across the circle. Several posters hang onto windows, fixed with tape. The same writing decorates them.

The door gives way to a push of his hand. The air is warmer here. Raezu closes the door and lets out a breath he doesn’t realize he’s been holding. Simple tables are affixed to metal poles, lining the walls of the room. Wooden chairs litter the place, some fallen onto their backs, others tucked into the tables.

At the far end, a glass case protects a variety of cakes, cupcakes, sweet breads, and a few other unrecognizable types of bread. Condensation beads on the exterior of the glass case. He presses a hand to it. Cold, as expected. The condensation and chill seep through his glove, gnawing at his hand.

There’s a faint sound coming from the back, behind a cracked open door. It’s the sound of chattering, undecipherable words he knows he won’t understand. Despite his limits, he can project power onto others. He must understand where he is, why he’s here–what this world is, what he’s dealing with. What Transia might deal with.

Raezu is a pioneer for his species. The thought alone raises his spirits, dampened by the realization that everything about his situation feels… wrong. Inexplicably, he hesitates to shove the door open and discover the cause of all that incessant chattering.

“Why are you scared?” he says to himself. “Your parents served in Bistoss and the Mestessines. It’s not like they struggled with their emotions.”

Raezu steels his nerves and adjusts his mask once more. If whatever Magaramans hiding inside the second room startle at the sight of him, they won’t immediately attack. At least, he hopes. He steps over to the door and shoves it open. One hand is ready to catch his knife popping out of his foot.

What Raezu finds instead bends his perception of reality.

A flat composite of nyros and metal take up one side of the room. Tangles of cables trail from the back of the rectangular object to the wall, which inexplicably has holes in it. The rectangular object itself has a Magaraman moving two-dimensionally. The same basic writing flows across the bottom of the flat object while the Magaraman drones on.

He disappears from view and squares pop up over the object’s face. Immediately, he sees the high glass and steel buildings of this city. The view switches over to another snapshot taken at an angle. A photographer, that high?

The buildings waver. Raezu takes a step backward, sight trained on the strange object that is somehow channeling images through whatever internalized gifts. The Magaraman returns and speaks in a more urgent voice. Raezu adjusts his mask, taking another step back.

The city comes back. And then the image goes white, a piercing squeal stabbing into his ears. He stomps his heel and his knife pops out. He grabs it mid-air and is about to swing down at the rectangular flat object when the brightness fades. His hand hovers inches away from destroying whatever monstrosity this is.

His wretched curiosity overshadows his training and instincts. Just this once, he lowers his arm and reluctantly watches.

A singular pillar of light remains, shooting up from somewhere at the edge of the city toward the sky. The pillar of light dims and flickers, sporadic bursts taking chunks away from the beam until it fades away like lightning, one last impressive stunt in the light’s short life.

Raezu’s thoughts tumble like a landslide. “It can’t be, can it?” For a brief moment, he believes he’s the reason why the bright flash of light occurred. Then why is nobody around?

Unnerved, he stabs his knife into the nyros face of the object. It sparks and tears, the rest of the flat face of the object going dark. Raezu’s shoulders slump. One less gugent down, he thinks. Whatever gifts the artificial object possessed are no more.

He exits the room. Outside its stiff confines, he can finally breathe, inhaling the warm and sweet air that permeates the small bakery. His attention lingers on the selection of cake and bread available.

Raezu’s patrol was supposed to have lunch after handling the distress call. One hand goes to his stomach, fingers splayed out. A long, deep growl sounds out in response. Training drilled into their heads that they cannot eat foreign food. Parity usually mends any molecular incompatibilities, but it is easy to slip poison inside a loaf, or spike a drink with neurotoxins like elikander wood, things that parity doesn’t account for because those substances are universal.

Don’t be stupid.

This is cake and bread, locked away within its own pocket of safety, shielded from the elements. The untouched pureness of each food item means they must’ve been baked recently. He goes around the counter and slides the door open. He settles for a simple loaf of bread, decorated with a brown sugar paste at the top.

He pulls his mask down. His reflection looks beaten in the curved glass. He tilts his head, touching bruises on his chin and a long scratch down his cheek. From when he and Lyrine had fallen before the node swallowed them whole.

Lyrine.

Any trace of hunger disappears. Icy dread replaces his hollow stomach, a sinking stone that weighs on him. Nodes are things of legend. Unpredictable wilderness, untamed and as foreign, things that Marpei herself claims she doesn’t understand either.

If they work like c-nodes at all, Lyrine should be somewhere nearby. Raezu forces himself to take a bite out of the bread and then throw it away. He hurries to the door, hesitant to brave the cold when he is ill-equipped to handle it.

Transients do not relent. Neither will he. Donning his mask, brushing the crumbs out of his hands on his pressed uniform, he opens the door. A gust of cold wind hits him. He winces. His second pair of eyelids reflexively come down before he retracts them. Another memory of training in a blisteringly cold winter reminds him of what had happened the first time he closed his second pair of eyelids. Frozen in place, it had taken a while to thaw them out.

And so he squints, shuddering. There are too many buildings. Some clustered, some spread out. Some short, some towering above him. The number of alleyways he passes by is staggering. But every one he looks into shows no sign of Lyrine at all. Or any Magaramans.

The chill digs its claws deeper into his scales. He hurries his pace. Alleyway past alleyway, they are bare of life, packed with dumpsters and litter. Nyros is everywhere. Shaped into empty bottles, mostly, clad in stickers wrapped around each bottle with unfamiliar writing.

Raezu turns a corner. The buildings trail off into the distance to his right, but to his left, a colossal expanse of interlocked metal crosses a river. A bridge, as complex as Enuscent’s own. And beyond that, hordes of those strangely shaped metal chariots, lights flashing in red and blue.

There is a steady rhythmic beating above him. He draws out his knife, turning his head up, pausing at the small object in the sky. The object is oval-shaped with blades rotating in a circle above it. Gradually, it descends and the noise worsens.

It’s too loud to hear his own thoughts pounding in his head. Whatever the descending object is, he can’t fight it. So he turns and sprints into the nearest alleyway. A powerful beam of light cuts through the semi-darkness and throws him in sharp contrast against faded red brickwork. He leaps over a fence, breaking through garbage bags, their contents spilling onto the stained pavement.

He finds himself on another street. Numerous metal chariots crowd the road, some doors open, some closed. The repetitive beating noise follows him. The object is closer, close enough that he sees figures in dark clothing inside the open chamber.

A bright light flashes and blinds him. Raezu gasps and stumbles forward, hands outstretched. The first thing he touches is the cold metal of a chariot. He feels over the exterior until his fingers find purchase on a handle. With a single yank, the door opens and he throws himself inside, slamming the door shut after.

The flying object is nearly upon him. The vibrations shake the metal chariot and make his ears hurt. Through the patches of his returning vision Raezu spots a circle attached to the front. Keys are jammed into a keyhole behind the circle. He scrambles into the seat and presses at every button to no avail.

Under him are pedals of some sort. Raezu steps on them, gritting his teeth when the chariot is unresponsive. There is no power. No gifts running the chariot. It is as dead as the world he arrived in, but the flying object is proof that something worse is happening.

In a last effort, he grabs at the keys and yanks them out. Shoves them back in again. He turns his hand and the keyhole rotates. Suddenly, the chariot rumbles to life, a steady vibration throbbing from the inside. The rumbling evens out into a stirring hum. Each button lights up. The flat nyros at the forefront flickers to life. The same writing plasters itself onto a black background.

Some type of instructions, he thinks, on how to work the strange chariot he finds himself in. There’s a stick of some sort jutting out of the middle of the car, attached to a layer of hard black material connecting to the nyros. Behind the stick, his fingers hold down a button attached to it.

The stick gives way to pressure, sliding backwards. He notices the chariot beginning to roll forward. He presses the buttons again and steps on the pedals. One button changes the nyros’s language. Music comes out of holes at either side of the chariot, filled with the alien language.

Right after, bullets shatter the glass. Raezu leaps–just for a moment–and ducks his head. He drags the stick forward, hoping he’s making the right choice. He presses buttons and steps on the pedals. This time, the chariot shoots forward, straight into another chariot parked ahead.

The front end crumples. He’s thrown into the circle, its hard edges knocking the breath out of him. His chest throbs when he peels himself away. Around him, clothed figures draw their guns and train them on him.

“Well then,” he murmurs. Any semblance of fear is gone. He is a Transient. When they kill him, he’ll let them know that his fate will be done to them. He grabs his mask and rips it off. One hand clenches and unclenches. He focuses on the several skeletal trees growing along the sidewalk and calls for them. A faint stirring rises–the beginnings of a connection.

But it’s not enough. He wraps his fingers around the door handle and shoves it open. He stares into the face of each gun’s barrel, pulling his shoulders back, fists clenched at his sides. His heart beats rapidly. His face is measured. Behind every clothed face he knows there will be a Magaraman staring back.

What will their faces look when they gun him down? What will their faces look when Marpei discovers this world? Raezu may be the first, but he will not be the last. That certainty carries the weight his legs struggle to support. Any trace of trembling, from fear or cold, is gone.

“I want every one of you to understand that I am not afraid,” he bellows. They won’t understand. Either way, he is here to serve Transia. Being in another world completely unfamiliar to the grid doesn’t excuse him from his duties. “Do however you see fit with me. Only know that we will come someday. I am the first. I am not the last.”

One of the Magaramans raises a metal device to their face. Tense words come out, unfamiliar. But the tone underneath them suggests hesitance. Weariness. Raezu turns around and looks at every Magaraman surrounding him.

One of them hoists a gun and fires. Raezu stands still. Pain blooms over his thigh, where his scales aren’t as hardened. A dart is sticking out, offensively colored compared to the drab colors of this world. Poison, then? Some varieties fail to affect his species.

He doubts this world, separate from the grid, has anything chemical in nature that will affect him. But parity. A blessing and a curse. He lurches as the world wavers. He drops to one knee, hand splayed on the road to maintain his balance.

Dozens of Magaramans rush him from all sides. He raises an arm and most of them hesitate. Not all, though. The few left wrench his arms behind his back. The last sensation he registers is the brief contact of his head against the road before everything goes dark.