Al felt himself falling — his stomach trying to strangle his throat. Unlike a roller coaster, the sensation didn’t fade. And how has a game managed this sensation?

He, the five demons, and the other human floated inside a white globe. Green walls of light swept over him and the others. Flecks of red sand flashed into wisps of smoke and then nothing. The same thing happened to his clothing — wisps of smoke and then gone. And all the while, they were weightless, floating in the sphere, falling toward nothing.

The other voice echoed about the sphere,

Ribbons of light spiraled around him. Some of the green characters were different this time.

But without leverage, Al wasn’t able to turn to see all the symbols. That’s not fair, he thought as the sphere vanished.

He arrived in darkness — still weightless.

His body began to glow like a black light was being shined upon him. But something was wrong.

The wrongness choked him and filled his mind with mud.

His tongue, he realized, was swelling.

Anaphylaxis, his mind supplied.

There was something which could be done. He knew that. But, the memories had been buried under a back-fill of mud. He was dying, and the answers he needed had sunk from sight. Dig, he told himself. He plunged himself into the muck and reached trying to feel to grasp.

There it was. He fumbled with the memory. Both his mother and father had taken a more advanced first aid course. One of the pieces of equipment they learned was an Epi-Pen.

What did it stand for?

The answer had to be somewhere.

Al never forgot anything. The answer had to be in the darkening, thickening mud. He dove and swam for the memory which had to be there. The memory just had to be.

The mud pushed back resisting his attempts to move to reach the needed answer.

Epinephrine.

That was the answer.

Now he had to say the word. But where was his mouth? Why was it so difficult to speak?

There was his mouth.

He tried to stuff the word out, but his tongue flopped and swelled.

No, no, no, no. He just needed to concentrate and work with the parts which still worked. But, where did the word go?

He snagged it before it completely vanished into the black mud which froze his mind.

Al curled the tip of his tongue and breathed out as much as he could. “Epinephrine.”

The exhale wasn’t enough his lungs were collecting carbon dioxide, the waste gas from his body — slowly making the air mixture in his lungs toxic, swelling, expanding his lungs, increasing the pressure trying to get out.

He realized that he was dying.

The mud sucked his mind into its cold, black embrace — drowning his thoughts, while his lungs burned and his body suffocated.

Then he breathed — out first, expelling the excessive amounts of carbon dioxide and then in with oxygen. His mind cleared some.

In something like a dream, Al laid on his back looking up at the strange stars and the ribbon of galaxies and the three red moons. When he first saw them, something felt wrong about the three moons. But, according to his observations during the run here, he now estimated their diameters and distances. From that, he determined their volumes and then their masses. Next, he came up with their combined gravitational effect upon the world.

He then told his body to wake up and opened his eyes.

“Hush, child,” the voice from the other end of the demon’s communications said. Before Al had struggled with any identifiers for the voice. Now, the voice had a motherly quality. “No moving now. Elnham has your spine open. He is doing what he can to fix the damage back there. We’re working toward getting you walking, again.”

Al let his body remain limp. “Your moons aren’t real moons.”

“No, child. They are portal uplinks. They connect us to the rest of the worlds in the Abyss. For now, just rest.”

Al closed his eyes and drifted amongst lucid dreams about this strange world inside Beyul.

Al floundered in the bed assigned to him. The room was a white cylinder which held nothing of interest.

For the first time in over a year, he could wiggle his toes, flex his ankles, bend his knees, twist his hips. But the movements were weak and uncoordinated. Despite the successful ‘surgery,’ Beyul kept him a confined. Time was passing by, and he needed to get back to the real world. For that, he needed to solve the mystery of Beyul Two-point-Zero. And Al was certain he needed to get out of the bed in order to find the necessary clues.

But the top blanket was weighted — made up hundreds of heavy beads strung together and woven into a shimmering blanket that weighed at least as much as he did. The blanket beneath the weighted one was thick, heavy, and hot. From what he could feel and hear, the thick blanket was made from mylar fabric sewn around a down batting.

And then there was a weight about his neck. Whatever it was, it wasn’t heavy but was yet another drag upon his feeble actions.

He tried to squirm out of bed and cursed himself for actually falling asleep on the operating table. He had lost valuable time. But, he didn’t know how much.

“Apprenticeship,” Beyul supplied. “Abyss First Leaf: Camp of the Exiled Weapons Master.”

Is this intended to be some kind of tutorial level?

Al shook his head. Tutorials didn’t matter. Solving the mystery before he got into trouble mattered. He looked about the room — circular. No, he corrected himself as he took in the changing vertical slopes of the wall, a slice of a sphere. He was near the top — first slice below the dome. The room was white like a diffuser around a light fixture and utterly pristine. Not particularly in keeping with the ‘refugee camp’ motif that he had expected.

With millions displaced from the coast, the best Lake City could provide was cramped and overcrowded trailers. They might have been pristine for the first day, but within the week, everything looked like the refugee slums in the third-world. Medical services and everything else in Lake City had been overwhelmed within hours — but then, again, Lake City was part mining city, part forestry city, and mostly tourist destination. The refugee to base population had exceeded a ratio of twenty-to-one within months. Even with the big Bay Cities’ tech corporations building workspaces for their displaced employees, everything remained a mess.

Along the wall, a circular portal appeared and grew.

Another sphere, Al thought, intersecting this one.

The demon, who carried him through the combat, entered the room pushing something reminiscent of a wheelchair — all white and chrome and clean. “Ready for a quick tour?”

“Who are you?”

“I operated on thee.”

Al gave him a questioning look.

“Elnham.” He smiled with flawless teeth. “Thou has an eidetic memory. Everything thou have ever seen, heard, sensed gets stored up there.”

“Yeah,” Al said it hesitantly. He was partially glad that someone quickly recognized that one gift, but he was also becoming leery of how much access Beyul seemed to have to his brain and thoughts.

As for the demons, near the end of the run, he finally started to tell them apart visually, but he doubted he could explain the differences to others. Elnham had a slightly wider nose, his horns were amber with fine cracks which indicated their pattern of growth, his red skin was a hint darker than the others. Like the others, his irises were gold coins floating in a sea of black. But, the pupils were neither round nor slits. His pupils were three arcs forming triangles. And Elnham had what his father called, ‘a dirty upper lip,’ a sign of human male had reached puberty and was growing a few mustache hairs. There were indicators that he had a hint of hair on his chin, too.

Elnham chuckled. “Was that a secret? I’ll let thee spring thy memory on the others.” He flung off the covers like they weighed nothing more than two sheets of paper. “Let’s get thee presentable.”

Al saw that they had given him a pair of bikini underwear — orange and red and yellow. It reminded him of an orange marmalade.

Elnham frowned then turned to Al. “So, thou were able to summon a blade and get it to crystallize.” He shrugged then smiled. “Some of us have to struggle for years before we can extend our soul through the hilt.” He turned and gazed at the underwear. “Sorry about the material, we are short on certain supplies. The only stuff we have for clothing was intended for making weapons — the cloth responds to thy Force capabilities.”

“Force? Really?”

Elnham gave Al a funny look. “Thou obviously haven't been told about the Ten Primary Forces or the Rings of Secondary Forces. I'll leave that to whoever decides to teach thee. Right now, let’s get thee cleaned up and dressed.”

Al glowered. “Why are you wearing a collar today?” He touched the weight about his throat — a similar collar. “And why am I wearing one?”

Elnham smiled. “Weapons Master Atasar Roar has taken both of us on as his slave disciples.” He stroked the symbol which filled in his jugular notch — a spiked fist with clawed fingers. “This indicates who our sensei is. We are the first in a hundred years.” His face and voice glowed with pride.

“But, what if I don’t —”

Elnham shook his head. “But thou are doubly lucky. Radimael Rebel has also agreed to take thee on as a slave disciple.” A bit of envy tinged his words. “He was the royal vizier before the invaders broke his body. He has never taken on a slave disciple below the rank of Prince.”

Al set his emotions to the side and attacked the words tumbling from Elnham’s mouth. “Princes become slave disciples?”

“Only to the very best of the Masters, and only if the Master accepts them. When Master Roar left the Royal Courts, he declared the Princes to be unworthy of his time. He took on no one since. Even as the world crumbled under the invaders’ sabatons, he held fast. He would train soldiers, but none would be taken on as his slave disciples unless they were worthy.” Then his façade of professionalism collapsed. Elnham smiled broadly and shouted at the ceiling, “YES!” He smiled at Al. “We have the best sensei ever.” He did a bit of a dance.

Al frowned. The word ‘master’ was referred to one who had a complete knowledge and a complete skill, in addition to referring to one who had slaves. He supposed the developers could have combined the meanings — but was the combination benign or something else.

Elnham picked Al up. “Now, let’s get thee presentable.”

Al eyed the white wheelchair sitting next to the white bed in the slice-of-a-sphere, white room. “Can I walk?” he asked Elnham.

Instead of giving an immediate answer, Elnham set him onto the white seat.

Al used his arms to squirm into a comfortable position. Once there, he stared at his legs, flexed his toes, rolled his ankles, and straightened his knees.

The demon frowned at Al. “Give thy mind a chance to catch up. We rebuilt the reflex arcs, forced thine leg muscles to strengthen so they can accept weight and perform movement, and stuffed motion patterns into that brain of thine. Now, thou needs to let everything settle and congeal so it can be used. Push thyself too far or too soon and thou will be right back where thee started — unable to walk.”

Al looked around the slice-of-sphere room without landmarks besides the white bed. “More surgeries?”

“If thou is lucky.” Elnham knelt beside him. “There is a significant chance that thou can make the damage worse than it was before — maybe turn thy entire spinal cord to ash.”

“That sounds more like a death sentence.”

Elnham’s mouth thinned. “Healing gets really strange when any of the Forces are involved. Some can speed heal, but all put an increased strain upon the body. If thou had already learned what thou needed to know about the Forces, thou might have healed thy own spine. As it is, I have never seen the Force of thy color before, so …” He shrugged.

Al looked at his white clothes.

The thin dobak wasn’t white-white. The cloth was more the off-white shade of unbleached white wool. The thinness of the cloth and its sheen reminded him of the cheap silk shirts which the tourists wore.

“Why isn’t this orange?” Al asked.

“It needs time. The more Force thee draws upon, the faster the material will change color.”

“If I don’t draw upon the Force?”

Elnham smirked. “Whichever Force thou uses cycles through thy body continuously. So, we might get a sense of how strong thee currently are.”

“By how quickly the cloth changes color?”

“Precisely.”

“Will it change color in spots or all at once?”

Elnham shrugged. “I’m not sure. Most of us wear either our armor or our original nanotech clothes.”

Great, Al thought, the odd man out, again. I’m really tired of forever being the (2n + 1)th wheel. Like everything else, he buried the feelings behind his I-must-be-older-than-I-am mask. “Where is Nabmohze?”

Elnham sighed. “Nabmohze isn’t adjusting well. Many of those who are discarded into the Abyss struggle with the terrible stories the invaders tell about us. Nabmohze has it worse. Time is needed for the mind to heal then the body can heal.”

“She was injured?”

“Before. Like thee before arriving. If thou likes, thou can visit later today.”

“Yes, I would.”

Elnham nodded. “We need to have a discussion before thou sees Nabmohze. We can heal the body easily enough. But the scars of the mind are more difficult. Thou needs to be extra gentle and supportive of Nabhohze’s decisions.”

“Okay …”

That seemed to be the end of the conversation about her. “I guess I’m ready for that tour.”

Elnham wheeled him toward the wall.

A circular portal opened for them leading them to an arc of a walkway leading away from the room sphere.

Al recognized the walkway’s arc ran along the inside edge of a much larger sphere. “How many of the larger spheres are there?”

Elnham pushed him past curtains of green plants. “They are arranged in a triangular pyramid which has 9 on each base side.”

“One hundred sixty-five. Why are you testing me?”

“Did thou ever consider that I didn’t know the answer.”

Al frowned. “I consider not-knowing to be a possibility for most humans, but you aren’t human, so, no.”

Elnham laughed. “These aren’t tests.” He sobered and shook his head. “Motives can be hard to explain.” Pushing Al past the curtains of plants, he stopped and turned Al such that they were looking down upon where demon children were playing. “Unfortunately, thou won’t be human much longer. The toxins left behind from the war turns everyone in the Abyss into demons.”

Al looked at his hands and felt for horns.

All of the children were red. Some had wings. Some had horns. But, most had neither. They ran or flew through hoops and tossed balls to each other.

Elnham spoke again. “From our experience, there is no easy way to explain our culture to outsiders. Yes, I could have given thee the answer, however, I would rather give gifts with personal value. Instead, I will give thee the supplies and tools to make thine own answers.

“We … Our people were attacked because we offered gifts too freely.”

“How does this turning into demons work?” Al interrupted.

Elnham shook his head. “I don’t know the specifics. The invaders didn’t want to waste time on the idea that there might be civilians or innocents, children or infirmed. So, instead of facing how evil their war was, they saturated our soil with mutagens to make everyone approximately the same. Now, they can prove that one of us is like all the rest.”

Al looked at the children again. “But they aren’t the same.”

“Horns, wings, claws, fangs … they all grow at different rates in different individuals. We can gain a sense of what a child’s strengths will be through their pattern of growths. For thee, I expect thee to start growing horns shortly — they might even be fully grown before thy skin changes its shade.”

Al checked his temples again — no bumps, yet. “What if I leave before that happens?”

Elnham shook his head. “No. We lost control of the portals to the enemy. Unless someone outside summons thee away —” he shook his head, again “— I am sorry. I cannot even offer thee platitudes about how there will be some great battle to extricate a portal from the enemy. We flee and hide instead of fight, because we cannot harm them.”

Al concentrated on the scenes of the battle. The demons had attacked the hounds but left the flyer alone. The flyer had charged at his gemstone blade without care — like it expected to be immune to the weapon. Yes, that information gave its suicidal action a type of sense.

Al asked, “How did giving gifts lead to having the soil poisoned?” He paused at the look Elnham gave him.

Then Elnham looked like he was considering the question. He finally answered, “I don’t really know. Thou needs to ask someone who was there. What I do know, we need to be careful with who receives our knowledge and how much we give.”

Half the children cheered. One of the smiling children tossed a ball to a frowning child. And again, they ran or flew through the hoops tossing the balls to each other.

“Is that a competitive game?” Al asked.

“Yes,” the demon smiled. “Zuroniel just led his team to score nine points. Once thou is ready, I’m sure the children will drag thee to play with them. They will consider thee to be a similar age.

“Zuroniel’s team has advantage. That is why they gift the scoring balls to Tuhon each time they score. That act allows most games to be ties.”

After Tuhon jumped through a hoop and caught a ball, he raised his arms into the air, and the other children cheered.

“Dost thou understand the rules, yet?”

Al frowned in concentration. “A player cannot go through a hoop with the ball, so they must pass it away, however, they must pass it to a player on the opposing team. Who in turn must pass the ball away but to a player who has yet to hold the ball. Team errors grant points to the opposing team?”

Elnham chuckled. “I can see where thee came up with those ideas.” He turned Al and pushed him toward the wall.

A circular hole opened, and they went into the next sphere. Green vertical farming walls rose in long aisles.

“Then what did I miss?” Al asked.

“They play to sixty-six points. I’m confident thee will figure out the rules once thou starts playing Nine Hoops.”

Al shook his head. “But there are only eight hoops, and Tuhon only made it through three of hoops before they scored.”

“Yes, he brilliantly played against Zuroniel’s advantage. That is why Nasap was able to score negative six points for Tuhon for the victory.”

“Wait. Tuhon’s team was at seventy-two points before the score?”

Elnham patted Al’s shoulder. “At least thou can do math.”

Anger burned at his temples, but before Al could reply, the coloring of the sphere changed.

Elnham stopped pushing. “I need to go. I will leave under the wing of Oparhohot.” He stepped back away from Al.

Al watched the swirl of light and symbols.

Elnham vanished.

Yet another person had left Al behind — he poked his legs and felt the pressure — because he couldn’t go. “Well, this part of the story sucks.”

No response — even Beyul had left him.