“Augh!” James let out a grunt as he tried to open his blurry eyes. His body was wracked with pain and felt as if a heavy weight was pressing him to the ground.

After a short time, his sore eyes finally opened in a teary squint, and he looked down his body at the supple, fit body of Jessy. Uncharacteristically, James took this moment to appreciate the beauty in his arms. It’s not that he’d never observed her much before but more that he’d made an effort not to.

After numerous hard past experiences, he learned not to engage in those sorts of thoughts or actions with co-workers. Now however, the world had ended, and she was pressed against his chest, how much closer contact could they have without removing their clothes?

Jessy was a fitness freak yet quite slight in build, in addition, she was somewhat shorter than James at 160 odd centimetres tall. So she could hardly be considered heavy. She had strawberry hair. Literally dyed strawberry red. So her hair had always been quite eye catching.

Her figure was well endowed with a perky rounded butt. Her face was almost unnaturally delicate and refined which was already abnormal for a trades person who made a living off hard work and hand tools.

To further add to her charms, her face had a hand full of cute freckles peppered around her cheeks and nose making her truly adorable especially when she blushed. Her hair was held in a messy bun momentarily but would usually hang loosely down her back.

Her legs were long in proportion to her body and with one of his hands placed on one of her legs he couldn’t help feeling the soft, bouncy muscles and imagining these legs wrapped around his waist as she pulled him into her embrace begging him not to pull out.

Taking this moment to indulge in looking and imagining, he soon developed a somewhat inappropriate but none the less honest reflection of his observations and fantasies. Unfortunately not more than a handful of seconds later Jessy’s eyes suddenly snapped open looking directly into his.

Somewhat startled James immediately stopped all movement. Jessy suddenly felt the rock hard protrusion reflecting his thoughts pressing against her mound through the cotton of their jumpsuits and noticed the very inappropriately placed hand that had been massaging its way up her leg towards her ass.

Her expression then very quickly went through a whole assortment of emotions instantly. From blushing profusely, confused again, what appeared to be excited at one point, then angry and wrathful. Finally, she settling on the combination of angry and wronged.

Not another second later, a resounding slap rang out as a red handprint appeared on James’ face, and Jessy had jumped up, backing away looking a like a fearful and wronged puppy. All this happened simultaneously with her blushing so much her hair and her freckles lit up like fluorescents.

It didn’t take too long until James got his bearings, stood up coughed once and looked at her with a somewhat bashful expression.

“Excellent muscle tone Jess. Ahem … Very firm.” Maintaining his shy and innocent expression James brushed the entire matter aside and started to take account of what had just happened. The first thing he noticed now that he’d pulled his mind from the gutter was the surroundings … or rather the complete lack of walls in his surroundings.

At this moment he was standing in a grassy field nearby a dirt road covered in weeds and grass that looked less travelled. Littering the ground around them was a random assortment of equipment, electronics and other gear that was strewn about. About 50 meters away James was the presently unconscious body of Dr Skay lying face down in the grass.

At his feet were the tool bag and backpack he had been carrying in the lab. About a kilometre from their position was the start of a tree line that slowly developed into a thick forest the further one looked. This forest was ascending the side of a mountain into the sky another 4 or 5 kilometres from his position.

On the other side of the road was a vast field of what James was assuming was some sort of grain, spreading away as far as the eye could see.

He was only ‘assuming’ mostly since he’d never seen this species of grain. It was a striking golden colour and spread like a weed would branching off thousands of times and spreading stalks up into the air.

Interestingly the stalks looked to reach nearly 5 meters into the air and from the head to the base were covered in offshoots packed with grains. James considered for a second on seeing this sight and tried to guess just how many square meters of farmland in his world would be saved by a single square meter of this world’s grain.

He guessed at least a dozen square meters. After doing this pointless calculation, he came to the realisation that he was already thinking of this as another world.

After all, he’d read plenty of fantasy and sci-fi stories before, and he wasn’t and idiot. Although he may be dreaming or this could be some type of afterlife, but he didn’t believe that to be the case.

It was all far too real, and his body still hurt far too much. So unless he’s gone through time then the only other explanation was through space and this space clearly wasn’t on Earth. After all, Earth only has 1 sun.

That’s right there are 3 suns in the sky. 1 bright yellow sun and 2 much dimmer bluish suns. He questioned his understanding of the universe when he noticed this. After all, as far as he was concerned, for those suns to be so close to be as noticeable as they were, then logically they must be relatively close to each other in space.

In other words. They should be consuming each other and engaging in the age old tradition of all massive universal bodies of mass that approach too closely to each other. In even more words they should be affecting each other’s gravity and at least be pulling unimaginably vast solar flares and flaming gases from one another. But no such event was taking place, and the suns in the sky looked as stable and ordinary as if they were each the only sun in this solar system.

‘Must be one hell of a solar eclipse when these suns fall into line.’ James couldn’t help this arbitrary thought as he was squinting at the sky.

“What the fuck!!” an angry yell sounded, and James twisted to see Dr Skay staring into the heavens with a wrathful, angry expression. His hand was rapidly flicking the side of his 15 lensed glasses.

Clearly, he was incredibly upset at not being able to explain this phenomenon. “Absolute bloody nonsense! A dream! An Illusion! Anything!” he continued to profane, mumble and wrathfully shake his fist at the sky after pinching himself a few times and slapping himself a few more.

To confuse matters even further a man came shooting across the sky from above the grain field. Or to be more accurate he was running through the air with an unusual stepping pattern, which to James looked like a chaotic mess of trying to skip and run simultaneously.

His faced immediately assumed a tired stoic look as he always did in unusual circumstances like these, as if he’d seen it all a hundred times. This was a natural defence mechanism he’d developed over the years and was a reflex for him like scratching an itch. Meanwhile, his mind was operating madly trying to decipher the current situation.

‘Well if this is another world surely it’s not unacceptable to see flying people … Surely!’ He tried reasoning to himself. As opposed to his emotionless poker face, that miserable old bastard Dr Skay was flipping out. Inversely to Skay’s wrathful expression and cursing, Jessy appeared even more confused and frightened than ever and quickly approached James and hid behind his back in an attempt to become invisible.

First the base and now this, it was all a bit too much for the usually outgoing Jessy.

“Over here!” The flying man yelled out, and his voice echoed across the flat plains of the fields like thunder. Shortly after, a handful of other people came running over. This time at least not through the sky, but on foot across the fields.

Although not running across the sky they inexplicably ran across the tops of the grain as if they were light as a feather on the wind which was no less mind boggling to James and his companions.

It wasn’t too long before a middle-aged man of about 40 led a group of young men towards the trio until finally, they stopped at the road looking over the debris of James’ space-time journey that lay scattered about the grassy field. For that brief moment when the wind blew nothing but the sounds of rustling grain fields and an old man’s incessant rage filled rantings could be heard as James and the group of people stared at each other.

During that brief intermission of staring, James felt as if that middle-aged man was peering directly into his soul and an overbearing pressure fell upon him as if the gravity in this entire area had increased.

At that moment he stopped thinking entirely, afraid his thoughts were being read, or some other obscure mystical fantasy setting was currently happening. On the other hand, Jessy standing behind him seemed to become even more deathly afraid and clutched onto the back of his jumpsuit in much the same manner as anxious little girls clutched to the pant leg of their father when encountering strangers. It was truly adorable.

‘Ahhh … Test, test, testing. 1. 2. Can you read my mind old man?’ thought James to himself. Following the lack of any response or change in the man’s expression, James concluded to himself that he was being paranoid and it was acceptable to resume normal brain functions. At which point his mind finally caught up and realised his legs were trembling from that absurd pressure.

‘OK … so the dude can fly. That’s new. He looks human and all, so there’s that going for us. He doesn’t look cannibalistic, but you never know with these things. Those young fellows behind him appear curious and cautious, so it’s safe to assume we’re all somewhat wondering what’s going on and who’s whom. Ok, let’s try talking to him. I need information the most right now!’

Following this line of thought, he cleared his throat and assumed a friendly and harmless expression before asking politely. “Err, excuse me, it appears we came here by accident can you tell me where we are?”

Following his question, the middle-aged man grinned with a strange glint appearing in his eye and nodded enthusiastically and then said “Good! Good! I like this one, very sensible for a Stepper.” Continuing on from his numerous head nods and “Good goods” the pressure in the area suddenly disappeared as if it had never existed. The man then started to speak to James.

“It’s your good fortune to have World Stepped near my fields, many other places, you would have been immediately enslaved and sold to a dealer. Now, gather your things, we’re taking you back to the clan.”

“Wait, world stepped? Clan?” James already had an inkling of what world stepping was but didn’t know what to think about them referring to a clan. The first thought to pop into his head was the idea of some kind of cult or creepy middle of the woods Amish township with no modern amenities.

“No questions filthy commoner. You’ve not even developed the first level of spirit cultivation, and you’ll do as your damn told!” An obnoxious and arrogant looking youth about the same age as James sneered at him from behind the middle-aged man.

Following his rude interruption, a heaven-defying pressure descended on James and the hiding Jessy. Although James could just barely withstand it with all his strength, Jessy was immediately pressed flat to the ground with an “Oomph!”

James’ face quickly resumed his lazy appearance, even though inside he was furious, confused and in pain from his legs feeling to be on the verge of snapping. He now realised this pressuring force was coming from these people and worse still this particular young fellow clearly was not as amicable as the flying man.

Nor did this guy carry the curious and wary expressions of the other fellows, but instead carried himself as if a young prince with his eyes on the top of his head.

Not a moment passed before with a wave of Flying Man’s hand the pressure coming from the young man had blown away like a gentle breeze. Following which he sighed and looked somewhat helplessly at the young man. Then his face assumed a stern frown as with another wave, the young man was blown away like a leaf in a storm through the grain fields.

“Humph! Boy show some respect for our guests and don’t lose your old man’s face so effortlessly. Can’t even make a commoner bend his knee when oppressing him with your full spirit power. Truly disappointing.” He sighed again and turned to James with a slightly sterner expression than earlier.

“Young man your questions will be answered at the clan. Suffice to say for the present that this world is called the Ascension Star and is a nexus for abnormal Heavenly laws intimately connecting thousands of other universes. Now come along. The Clan Elder will be wanting to meet any Steppers.”

After saying such, the middle age man grew blurry in James’ vision and appeared like a ghost not more than a step away from him. He reached out and grabbed James and the once again unconscious Jessy then turned and shot into the air like an arrow, holding Jessy over one shoulder and James under the opposite arm as he started making that chaotic and unusual stepping pattern and running through the air.

The young men that had come running from the grain fields started picking up the debris and objects from the anomaly sight and flitting back across the stalks of the grain field. Strangely they had a few different methods of moving as some appeared to skate across the grain and others seemed to be … surfing.

During this time the unsuspecting and previously entirely ignored old Dr Skay was also lifted from the anomaly zone like a piece of debris and was carried back across the grain field screaming, cursing and ripping out the scant remaining grey hairs dotting his wrinkled head.

The poor youngster who’d picked him up was permanently scarred and somewhat anaemic looking with blood running down his chin after the trip back to the city, in which he learned of methods of cussing someone so badly they would spit blood and see stars.

And so, James and his companions, not even having taken a step yet, were dragged away into this strange new world of Ascension Star.