<Legacy Of The Multiverse: Trial Of Spirit> Part-1

I am Sarv. I was just a normal Siddha. (What you humans would describe as ‘aliens with superpowers civilisation’) I just turned 10 years old… wait… no, I was 12 years old according to the Earth calendar. (Why can’t you guys use the universal calendar like everyone else does?) That was the most exciting day of my life. I was going to get my Astratma ceremony today.

An Ashtratma is a dormant power tied to a Hindu god. When you reach 10 years old (In Earth’s calendar, it’s 12 years old), they say that your Ember (It’s a dormant Ashtratma) becomes unstable and needs to be evolved into its next stage, Awakened Ember.

I was going to the Atmadrishya. It was the temple where the ceremony happened. I lined up with my mother. (My mother never told me about my father. She said ‘When the time comes, the truth will be revealed”) It was a long line. After some time, my turn had come.

There are 3 types of Ember- Creator, Keeper, and Destroyer. The Creator gets the mind powers. They get to create things with light, mostly smart, and they get to morph minds! (It means that they can implant false memories into their minds.) The Keeper gets telekinesis and phasing (goes through objects). At last, the Destroyer can destroy memories with a thought and super strength. They even get a special mode where they go berserk. It amplifies their strength and feeds off their anger and rage.

There is one last type, but it is very rare. There is only one of its type in aeons. The Trem. It has the powers of all 3 types combined. It also has the power to create any power that comes to mind. I wanted the Keeper.

The ceremony works by getting a drop of my blood and then dropping it into holy water. The water then smokes up and then flashes a colour. Yellow for Creator, Blue for Keeper, and Red for Destroyer. There was no colour for Trem. Nobody knew any signs for the Trem.

The priest takes my hand. I closed my eyes. The priest took a knife and cut my wrist. It was fast and precise. It didn’t hurt at all. Exactly one blood drop came out of my cut and dripped along my hand. I opened my eyes. My wrist was covered with a piece of paper. The drop fell into the holy water. At first, nothing happened. We waited for 5 more minutes. Still, nothing happened. I looked towards my mother, hoping she would know what went wrong. But she, too, was baffled. The priest stood up, and I stood up as well. He signalled me to stay and asked my mother to come with him. I took a piece of a bandage and wrapped it around my cut.

Just then, the priest and my mother came to me. She signalled me to come to her. We both touched the priest’s feet and took his blessings. We exited the Atmadrishya and went home. When we were going home, I asked my mother, “What happened? Why did no colours show up? What did the priest tell you?”. I had many more questions, but I held back. She said to me calmly, “I’ll answer all your questions later, Sarv. Just go get some rest or go play with your friends.”

After I arrived home, I went next door to my best friend-Jack. I rang the doorbell. He opened the door and said, “What’s up.? Hang on, I’ll get the soccer ball”. We went outside to play. He noticed my glum face and asked, “Why are you so glum?”.

I replied, “My ceremony… nothing happened. No colours. Nothing…”

He said, “Oh, well, something might have been done wrong”.

I replied, “What did you get?” trying to avoid the topic.

He replied, “I got Keeper”.

I said, “Nice, can we meet up tomorrow?”

He nodded, and we both headed to our houses.

I reached my small apartment, just big enough for both of us. I ate dinner and went to my bedroom. I lay flat on my bed. Replaying the ceremony in my head. At some point in time, I fell asleep. I usually didn’t have dreams, but this one felt different… and by different, I mean very much real.

I was floating in space. There were three creatures of some kind. Each of them glowed one of the three Ember colours. They merged right in front of my eyes. Then, a big blast of energy spread across the void. The newly merged creature had three heads and four hands. Each hand had a holy weapon-Shiva’s Trishul, Brahma’s Brahmashira Astra, Vishnu’s Sudarshana Chakra, and a Gada. Then, the realisation hit me in the head hard. It wasn’t a creature, it was THE Trimurti. The Trimurti was the one who chose the Trem. Then, I thought, “If he’s here… then, AM I THE TREM!?”

He spoke to me, “Danger will arrive sooner than expected. You must awaken. When the skies turn dark and all is lost, travel the cosmos to Surya's third creation”

I woke up with a burst. I was filled with sweat. Was that dream real or… was that just because of how I felt about the ceremony? What was he talking about?

I freshened up and went to the kitchen. My mother asked me, “Aren’t you up early?”

I replied, “I just felt like it.” I didn’t bother sharing my dream with my mother.

She saw the hesitation in my face. She asked me, “Do you want to tell me something? Is it about yesterday?”

I replied, “It’s nothing!” trying to avoid the ceremony as much as I can do. Maybe I was a little over dramatic back then. I ate my breakfast and went outside for a walk. I looked up at the sky and saw that the sun hadn't risen yet. Did I wake up that early? I checked the time on my watch. The watch was given to me by my mother. She said that my father gave it to her the day I was born. She told me that he said, “This will be a reminder that I am still present. Not as a human ,but something greater”. The next day, he was missing. He left a note that said, “Don’t worry about me”. I am just happy to know that he’s still out there… somewhere.

Just then, a flash of light burst in the sky. It was so powerful that it knocked me over about 10ft away. I stood up, looking at the direction where the blast came from. There was nothing. I looked even higher, so high that I almost fell down. I saw a ring of colourful light. It looked like that of a black hole. Wait a minute, is that a BLACK HOLE?!

I ran home as fast as I possibly could. When I arrived, I couldn’t see my mother anywhere. “Amma! … Ma?!” I called out for my mother ,but I couldn’t see her anywhere. I searched the whole apartment.

Then a voice rang in my head. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you for a very long time.

“Who are you and why are you looking!?” I shouted back to the air not knowing where the voice appeared from.

“I am Singularity! Also known as Shiva’s Third Eye!” He replied. I remembered the words from my dream.

“Danger will arrive sooner than expected. You must awaken. When the skies turn dark and all is lost, travel the cosmos to Surya's third creation” There was a dark sky. “Is this what Trimurti was talking about? What is Surya’s Third Creation? How can I awaken the Trem inside me? All is lost… does that mean everything is going to be DESTROYED!” I thought in my head.

I ran towards the emergency exit of the building. I thought of all the things that can travel through space. Rockets, Spaceships, Time warpers… Time warpers are perfect!

I quickly ran to the nearest city directory. The city was designed to be walkable. I searched up the nearest time warp station. It was about a fourth of a krosha (half a mile). I ran as fast as I could.

When I reached the station, all of the time warp machines were broken. Except for one of the new prototypes. I heard that it could take you anywhere in the future. It wasn’t fully built yet. There were some bugs. I went to the control panel and input my destination as ‘Surya’s Third Creation’. I stood inside the machine. I hoped that it would work and not fail. Who knows what could happen if it failed. I took a deep breath and prayed to the gods that this would work. I pressed the button and closed my eyes hoping that prayers were heard.

I fell into a dream the moment I took off. I was back to the void. Then Trimurti tapped me on my shoulder. I tried to jump back, but the most I could manage was a tumble. I looked at Trimurti. “You have succeeded on the first part of your big journey. You still have a lot to learn. The place you will be going to is called Earth. At least that’s what humans call it.” He said.

“Humans? Who are they? Anyways, You owe me an explanation. My planet got devoured by a talking black hole and my mother is nowhere to be seen. What in the universe is happening!” I asked.

“You will have to uncover those mysteries yourself. All I can do is guide you and hope you succeed.” He replied casually. “Now you need to find a girl named Isha. She will help you through your journey, but be careful. She’s quite, nevermind. You’ll find out yourself. I will lead you to the place she lives. You will have convince her to help you.”

I woke up to find myself covered in water and what seemed to be like a long leafy thing wrapped around me. “Of course he will throw me on a planet called… Bearth, Mearth? Oh who cares. Now where is that girl?” I thought while walking through the sandy place. I walked for a long time to find a big, metal structure on the cliff. I climbed my way towards the place. It was a long climb. I found a bag full of water and food at the top. It was in a bag with the label ‘Trem’. I guessed that Trimurti left it there on purpose. I was thankful that he at least cared about me a little bit. I ate up and drank some of the water, being cautious on how much I drink. Who knew when I was going to find a place with water to drink.

I reached the big, metal structure a little after. It had a name plate ‘National Space Creatures Laboratory’. I walked up to the doors and they slid to the side. I went in not wasting any time on my mission. I found a door that had the name ‘Isha’s Home’. Then a few people walked out a different door and headed my way. I hid nearby hoping to see what was inside it. Then I saw a mirror. I looked at myself and was shocked. I grew up by 2 years! I suppressed my thoughts for another time. Then those people opened the door. I caught a glimpse of a girl inside a room sitting against a wall looking sad and scared. She looked about my age.

I had to get her out of there. Just then the light formed a map and a dot. It looked like this place. I assumed that the dot was me and started strategizing a plan in my head. There were two ways out the way I was near or the one that was on the other side of the building. As far as I knew, I would not go into a room that was full of species that look like mine but had no idea of. I followed the map to the other side of the building. The map told me to go straight into a wall. I wasn’t sure about that. Then I scanned the room I was in and found a small passage inside. It was dirty with a lot of dust. Once I reached the top of the room, I found a grilled square with openings. I saw through it and found her. Those people came close to her with a needle attached to a solid tube behind their back. I wasn’t going to let them hurt her, no matter what. I used my light map and willed it to become a very bright orb. I kicked the grill down and jumped through and shone the orb to them. They looked at the orb and collapsed in place. I took Isha’s hand and sprinted out of the room. I ran towards the exit and into the forest.

I kept running, holding Isha’s hand tight. We stopped after a while. I saw Isha’s face for the first time. Her cosmic blue eyes were locked into mine. She looked at me like she knew me from the start of time. “Are you okay?” I asked and at the same time squeezed her hand tighter. She nodded towards me. “Thanks for saving me…I knew you would come for me one day” she said softly.

“You know me?” I asked, surprised.

“Not exactly, he told me about you, Sarv.” She replied. Of course, Trimurti was busy chatting to her when I was trying not to die from an evil black hole.

“So… what do we do now? All he told me was to save you. By the way, what were you doing there?” I said to her.

“I came from a planet called Astraja.” She said

“What! That’s where I came from too!” I blurted out

“Now if you’ll stop interrupting me, some scientists sent me to space to see if there were any other life forms in the universe. I drifted all the way here, to Earth. The data shell broke so all the data was lost. I guess they forgot about me.” She said while sitting down.

“Do you know your parents?” I asked while sitting down as well.

“I… don’t know. All I know is that I was born, I was in a space project and now on Earth with you.” She said. I looked at myself through the sea (that’s what she called it) remembering the fact that I grew two years.

“Well let’s go somewhere safe now.” I said. We ate a little and drank some water and walked across the seashore. (I really need to learn Earth vocab) She said that there would be people out on the beach and that would lead us to a safe place. We walked and walked and walked. Did I mention that we walked?

We finally reached the beach. “Soooo what do we do now?” I turned to ask Isha who was heading towards the road. I followed her and she stopped on the sidewalk and looked at me like something was wrong “I thought you knew. Do you?” She said her face questioning. I willed the sunlight to make a map and show me where to go.

The sunlight formed a map with two dots (Me and Isha) and star (The destination). She looked at me in a ‘I told you’ way. We walked to the star (which took approximately 20 min… DO YOU THINK WE’RE MADE FOR WALKING!) The star lead us to a dead end. Yup, you read that right, a dead end.

Then Isha pushed me into the wall and I phased through it. I fell on the other side. I stood up, and you won’t believe what I saw. A big hightech base/home. I guess this is our new home. Wait, how is Isha going to get inside? I phased back out and saw Isha waiting for me. “What’s inside?” she asked me casually like she forgot she PUSHED ME INTO SOLID CEMENT WALL.

“None of your business.” I said angrily

“Did I do something wrong?” She said sarcastically

“K’ay i’m just going to leave you here without taking you inside” I said

“I’m sorry for using you as a test dummy. Is that good enough?” She said, with her eyes in a ‘Please take me with you i’m a cute little girl’ look. Guess curiosity is her weakness.

“Good enough. Take my hand. I’ll phase you through” I said

She took my hand and we phased through. The second she saw this place, I could tell she’s going to be running around this whole place exploring.

The base was filled with cosmic blue light and on the ceiling was an emblem of the Trishul, Brahmashira Astra, Sudarshana Chakra and a Gada mixed into one. The Trishul intersected the middle of the Sudarshana Chakra and the Gada and the Brahmashira Astra were placed on either side of the Trishul. I was going to name it… Sigil of the Universe, STU for short.It felt like I was home, except with the fact that there was a girl who wasn’t my mother.

I went to my room and saw that it was customized to my likings. It had cosmic blue/gold lights. The wallpaper was the scenery of Astraja’s valleys. Now this felt like home. When I left the room, the door shut and asked me for a passcode to enter the room. It said that it was my birth year. I entered the passcode and the door slid to the side. (Now I wasn’t going to reveal my birth year to anyone)

I went to the control panel. There were a lot of buttons. On the seat was a manual on the control panel. “Yay! I was going to read this manual for the rest of my life” I mumbled while going to Isha’s room.

I went to her door and knocked. “What!” She said, irritated

“I just wanted to check out your room.” I said to her

“Fine, come in.” She said, why was she so agitated? Her room wasn’t how I expected it to be. I thought it would be all girly, but it was different. She had purple/magenta lights all over her room. The wallpaper was a cosmic nebula. “Now can you leave.” She said. Geez, what was her problem?

I went outside to see STU. It was glowing softly like a night light. Then the light from STU became a screen and it projected Trimurti. “Wait, STU is a projector?” I said

“If you’re calling the universal symbol of balance STU, then yes.” He replied casually

“So… what do we do now? I rescued her.” I asked him

“You get to relax for a few days. I will send you a map to your orb. You will have to find three more people to help you on your journey. Make yourselves at home.” He said, I'm just thankful I get a break from all this weirdness.

“K’ay… how many boys?” I asked, I didn’t want to be stuck with a crew of girls as teammates. One’s already too much to handle.

“Two of them are boys.” He said, rolling his eyes away from me. What? Was asking how many boys a problem? Three boys (including me) and two girls, not a problem.

STU started to dim, indicating that the talk was over. “Catch you on the flip side.” I said, I guess it's just me and Isha then.

I went to my room and face planted myself on the bed. For the first time in forever, I got a peaceful sleep. No dreams. It was like heaven, that was until I found Isha inside my room trying to wake me up. “How did you get in?” I asked in a half-conscious state.

“Someone didn’t even bother trying to hide the keypad while typing the passcode.” She said casually like that was the case every time.

“Great, now I have a girl who can sneak into my room whenever she wants.” I mumbled. I woke up and freshened up. I saw two plates on the ground. One finished and one with food. I guessed that Isha ate her part and left mine. I ate up and put them in the dishwasher. “Sarv, I need to ask you about something.” She called.

She ran to me and I asked, “What?”

“What did you and him talk about last night?” She asked demandingly

“You heard us?” I asked

“I could only hear you, not him. You gotta start paying attention to your surroundings. I stood right next to you.”

“You did? I saw no one except me and Trimurti in the room.” I said surprised

“Oh” She said that like she knew what was going on.

“Can you elaborate ‘oh’ for me?” I was genuinely surprised. Note that the fast few days for me were ‘surprising’.

“I… don’t want to talk about it” She said, then went to her room leaving the door open. I took that as a sign to go talk to her.

She had her knees to her head when I entered. “What happened?” I asked

“I… have powers like yours. That’s why the scientists held me captive. They wanted to research me about my powers. It reminds me about that nasty lab and those stupid people in it.” She said.

I left her alone in the room, not sure on how to react. I never knew about how she felt. Maybe if she would stop avoiding me, it would have been better. I sat near the control panel and took the manual. I summoned my orb and willed it to memorise the book. I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my free time reading a stupid manual. Then Isha appeared out of nowhere and was sitting next to me. I felt a tingling sensation on my lips like how it felt after a kiss. Hey, I never had one. I read that from a book. I wasn’t sure that was it. “How did you come here? You were in your room a second ago.”

“I stopped time. It’s one of my powers.”

“Does it have to do something with me?” I asked her, she might have done something to me that caused my lips to feel that tingling sensation like I thought so.

“Nope, not at all” She said in a way which definitely didn’t raise suspicion.

“Do you want to watch a movie sometime? It could help you learn more ‘Earth vocab’.”

“Sure” I replied, but still she seemed different. She was in her room all sad and now she was happy and wanted to watch a movie. She definitely did something to me when she stopped time.

“Does this place have a gym for our powers or something? I really need to start getting used to my powers”

“How would I know? Ask him or ask your orb.” We spent the next few days just being normal and getting to know each other. And, I found out that this place does have a gym for superpowers. It’s called ‘The Ember Trials”. Eh, I'm going to stick with superpower gym. I tried to open the doors for it. But it kept on saying that ‘all members not on Unigrid’. So, I need to find all the crew members before this thing can open, great. It said something called ‘Unigrid’ I guess that’s what the base is called. I’m going to call it UG for short.

That night we (And by ‘we’ I mean Isha) set up stuff for a movie night. I thought we just needed to put on a movie and sit back. I guess not. We watched a movie called ‘The Terminator’. Isha leaned on my shoulder and held my hand the whole time. I have no idea what that was. I guess that’s just the way humans do stuff. When I fell asleep, I heard Isha’s voice, no, inner voice.

How do I say this to him?

When should I?

I should probably get advice on how to manage relationships from the other girl.

I was going to pretend like I never heard that. I should probably ask this to my orb. Maybe it has relationship advice programmed in it.

The morning after the movie, when I was eating breakfast, STU started to shimmer. The light from it floated toward my hand. Then, my orb popped up and absorbed the light. It showed me a map of the three teammates. I guess freetime was over. I went to my room and quickly changed out of my pj’s and went to Isha’s room. The door slid open when I came near it. (Isha said that you could allow certain people inside your room) “The coordinates for the other three teammates came in. We need to go.”

“K’ay, coming!”

I phased us both out UG and followed the map to the first person. Thankfully, the first person was just a block away. We followed the map to a big mansion that looked like it was from Beverly Hills. We looked at each other and nodded. Isha went to the door bell and rang it. I stayed to the side. I was kind of shy most of the time.

A butler came outside and talked to Isha and then nodded towards her and went back inside. Then Isha saw me and made eye contact. She quickly looked away. A minute later, two boys and one girl came outside. All of them looked rich. One boy looked like he was in college. The other boy and the girl were twins. They looked our age.

I summoned my orb and it pointed towards the twins. For a second I thought my orb got confused then I thought “Could the first two be here?” I sent the info to Isha through my orb. She then pointed at the twins. The butler then went inside and brought two identical bags. He gave them to the twins and sent them out. Isha then led them back to UG. I phased through all the buildings and reached UG faster.

Just then Isha and the twins came near UG. I then summoned my orb and then sent a thought to Isha “Freeze time so they can’t see me.” Then she closed her eyes and the world freezed. I quickly phased us through.

Then she opened her eyes and the world unfroze. She then said “Rayz and Roxy, Sarv. Sarv, Rayz and Roxy”

“Hi”

“So what do we do now Isha?” Rayz said to her.

“Honestly… I don’t know." She said back to him.

I turned around to go back to my room to discover that my room shifted to the back in the middle and there were three more rooms with no name plates. “Go pick your rooms” I said to the twins. They chose rooms that were close to each other. Isha’s room was still close to mine. Rayz came up to me and said, “Hey, is she your girlfriend?”

“No”

“Why not?”

“How am I supposed to know? By the way, were you guys waiting for us because that was too easy.”

“No, Trimurti told us in our dreams that you would come.”

Well, that would’ve been better to know before.

“So, do you and your twin have powers?”

“Yes, I have Keeper and she has Destroyer, but our sources are the same.”

“Hey, can I ask you something? It’s personal.”

“Sure. What’s the question?”

“I kinda slipped into Isha’s thoughts last night and I found out she likes me.”

There was an awkward silence

“Well, do you like her?”

“Um… I don’t know.”

“When you know, come to me. I’ll help you out.”

“Can you ask your twin if Isha talks about this?”

“No problem man.”

Just then Roxy came out of the corner.

“Well, looks like Mr. First Timer needs some help. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it a secret”

“Thanks, you guys, stay here. Me and Isha will go and get the last guy. I hope it will be as easy as this one.” I said

“Why not us? Want some time with her?” Roxy said teasingly

I left to call Isha. We followed the same thing. Phase out and follow the map. Thai time the walk was a little longer. We arrived at an apartment that was a little bigger than the one I lived in back on Astraja. I never thought about how humans got their powers without the ceremony. Maybe through divine blood. We walked up to the door and I slid to the side. Isha rang the doorbell, but this time a kid our age answered the door. He had a camping bag full of stuff and a big toolbox. “Are you here to take me to UG?” He asked excitedly. Isha nodded at him. He then said to his mom, “Ma! I’m going.”

His mother said to him, “Remember me, okay? BYE!”

Wow, I didn’t expect any of this. We did the same thing as last time. We headed back to UG. Phased through and showed him his room. The first thing he did when we let him go was run around UG and check out everything.

I then summoned my orb and read a message that said, “Ember Trials are unlocked for use”

I showed this to Isha and she called everyone to follow us. We all stood near the door and then, it happened. The doors opened. We all went inside to find five different doors. They were labelled after the power types. One of them was labelled ‘Half-Trem’. I looked at Isha but she turned away the second we made eye contact. We all lined up at our doors and then we were transported to different rooms.

My room was divided into three sections to train each type of my power. I went to the Destroyer section cause I never used any power from that type. It was filled with normal gym equipment… or I thought so. IT WAS WEIGHTS WITH 1 TON! I tried to pick up the weight and to my surprise, they were light. I guess I do have super strength. I checked out the other sections. The Creator section had light bulbs lined up on a wall. There was a task card that I was supposed to do every day. The Keeper section was basically a trampoline park that was misplaced.

I went back to the door and it transported me back to UG. Isha was waiting for me in my room. “What’s up?”

“I… have to tell you something.”

“That is?”

“I… I love you” I wasn’t surprised at all.

“Actually… I already know.”

“YOU DO!?”

“Yeah, I kinda slipped into your thoughts on the movie night.”

“Well… Are you okay with it?”

I answered back with a kiss. Her lips were warm and soft. She then hugged me back hard enough that I could feel my ribs.

After that confession, I felt new and alive. I went to STU and asked it to connect me to Trimurti. “We found the other teammates. What do we do now?”

“You need to go on a covert operation to space. Remember Singularity?”

My blood boiled at the name.

“Yes.”

“We need to steal a manuscript from her vault. It contains her weakness, the only way to defeat her.”

“Her?”

“Yes, ‘her’.”

“How do we get there?”

“By GU. It’s an ancient model of a space station. To start travel, set coordinates which I’ll send to your orb, and then engage sequence. Don’t worry, Zayan will take care of it.”

“Zayan, must be the guy who was with the camping bag. Okay, bye.”

I went to Zayan’s room and knocked. He opened the door before I even did the second knock. “What can I do for you?” He said with too much enthusiasm.

“Uh… just came here to tell you that we need to travel to space and Trimurti said you would know how to.”

“I do know how to, the process should take about a full day.”

“Why that long?”

“Cause the ship hasn’t flown in like how many centuries?”

“Just do it ASAP.”

“Yes sir!” He saluted me. That felt weird. On a whole different level.

“And, can you call me Zay. I like that better.”

I went to the control panel and pushed a red button. The alarms went off in light red colour. Stating that the meeting is not too important. Everyone ran out of their rooms holding a fire. “WHERE’S THE FIRE?” Rayz yelled

“There’s no fire. That was the meeting call.” I yelled back

“Who programs this stuff?” Rayz mumbled

“We have our first official team mission. We have to go to space, steal a manuscript and come back here with minimal detection.” I said, feeling like a commander in the army.

“When do we start?” Roxy asked

“We start at… 4:00 p.m tomorrow.” Zay said

“Be prepared by then.”

We all agreed and went our own ways. I went with Isha to her room, “Hey, do you want to come train with me?” I asked her. Mostly to help her with her powers.

“Sure.” She said. We walked to the ET. (Ember Trials, honestly, I just abbreviate any name that’s too long to remember) I went down to Isha's room. It was the same as mine, but the Keeper room was bigger. That meant that her dominant power (The one she’s flexible with) was Keeper. As Trem, all my powers are equally balanced, I have no dominant power.

We both had a ‘fight’ in the chamber. (It was mostly just her freezing time and attacking me and then unfreezing me) I was trying to copy her power of time freeze, instead I found a way to overcome it. When she freezes me, she has to close her eyes. When she does, I super speed to her knocking her down. I was proud of myself for finding a way to overcome her time freeze.

We went back up holding hands. Rayz saw that and winked at me. I got what he meant outside and inside. I went to check on Zay. I summoned my orb and it showed that he was above me. I found a staircase to the top. I went up to find Zay and Roxy sitting on the edge of UG talking to each other. I went down quietly. I wanted them to have their moment. I went to the control panel and found a button labelled ‘Meeting’. I guess I pressed the wrong button that time.

I pushed it and now the lights flashed like we were on the north pole watching a light show. Everyone came down not freaking out like last time. I noticed Roxy and Zay were close to each other. Rayz followed my eyes and found the same thing. He looked kind of sad. Maybe he was feeling left out like a third wheel. “I only intended Zay to come down so…” They got the cue and left. “How’s it going?”

“I finished all the stuff I had to do. By the way, I cleaned the entire ship’s memory. It will be more…”

“I get it. So… what's up with Roxy?” His eyes blinked faster

“Me, Roxy… who’s she? Have no idea.”

“No pressure, just wanted to know my group. I’ll be living with them for the rest of my life.”

“We kind of like each other. She’s scared to say this to her bro.”

“He knows.” I blurted out.

He stormed to his room. I may have made him a little social phobic.

STU hummed and said “You shouldn’t have done that.” I jumped back so far that I could feel the metal denting behind me. Thankfully the ship can repair itself if time is given. “Sorry about that. The name’s Jack. I’m your orb.” That name rang the memory hall.

“You forgot about me? Astraja?” Jack asked hopefully

“Jack? How the heck did you fit in an orb?”

“I was an orb before I was Jack. I came to Astraja as your guardian. I came to Astraja to get to know you.”

“Do you know where my mom is? She came to your apartment before disappearing.”

“Yes. She is being held hostage in the ship you're travelling to.” That made me mad. Mad enough that I would rip Singularity into pieces and throw her out of existence.

“You gotta take a chill pill.”

“Well, at least I have you.”

The orb vanished from my hand.

“I’m in your mind. You can talk to me whenever you need to. Just call my name. When did you get a girlfriend?”

“Shut up!” I thought in my mind.

Note to myself: Be prepared to deal with Jack when I’m with Isha.

We took off at the time Zay told me. It felt like going on a spaceship, but even better. You don’t even know that you took off. We came near the SS. (Singularity Storage) It was in the shape of a big ring with five lines connecting in the middle.

We landed near the closest hatch near the vault. “Is everyone ready?” I asked

“Yes!” Everyone said except Zay who said “NO!”

“Why not?”

“Cause we aren’t in our suits”

“Suits?”

“Yeah, you press that button and everyone goes to their doors and gets a suit put on.” I pressed the button that he showed me. We all ran to our room doors, suited up and stayed there.

After we were all ready, I thought in my head “ Jack!, Release us.” We then immediately fell through space. Then jetpacks came out of our suits and we zipped towards our destination. The ship then went invisible. Classic.

I looked at Isha. My eyes wouldn’t stop looking at her. She was beautiful in the suit. If I looked any longer at her, I was going to forget what we came for.

“Hey lover boy! You going to lead us or stare at her forever.” That was Roxy. I looked at the platform we had to land on. “Finally came out of the trance, huh? I don’t blame you, but looking at her is not going to keep you safe or get the manuscript.” Jack said to me.

WHY WAS EVERYONE LOOKING AT ME! THERE’S A PLATFORM THAT YOU NEED TO LAND ON. WHY NOT LOOK AT THAT!

At least Rayz and Zay weren’t this. “Bro, the platform,” Rayz. “Not Isha” Zay. Just the thing I needed before stealing a piece of paper from a high security vault. Why is my life like this?

We FINALLY landed on the platform. The guards looked at us. I summoned my orb and willed it into a laser beam. Boy this is going to be fun. I blasted them out of the universe. We ran towards the vault. Or that’s where I thought Zay was heading towards. “Where do we go?” Zay said

“Jack” I said out loud

“Huh?” Everyone said while looking at me

“Later” Jack projected a map on everyone’s left arm. This suit was SICK. We all ran towards the vault. I used my super speed to get ahead of everyone. We found the vault. Great. How do we open it? “Zay”

“On it.” He went to the vault door and said, “Keycard, over there” He pointed to one of the guys I took down. I ran to it, took the keycard and gave it to Zay. I thought this was going to be like those boss fights in video games. I spoke too soon. There was another door with a giant half-guy/half-robot. What do you call them… Cyborg! I headed towards the Cyborg with a light dagger. I swiped it at him but it went through him. I looked up and boom. I flew back 30ft in one second. I got knocked unconscious.

My eyes opened to see Isha sleeping by my side. She was still in her suit. That made me want to kiss her so bad. I turned to the side and fell down the bed. “AAHHH!” I yelled blood curdling screams in pain.

Isha bursted up off the bed and helped me up. She put me on my bed and ambushed me with questions. I felt like I was going back to being unconscious. She then kissed me. Yup, no time freeze included. It was long and sweet. I wished I could stay like that forever (Except I could eat, drink and get toilet breaks). After that she asked “Are you okay? That thing shot a RPG Missile at you”. I guess we now know how I got yeeted out of this world. I saw the side I fell on. It was covered in burn marks in a jagged pattern. It looked more like a tattoo to be honest. I tried to summon my orb, but it didn’t work. “Jack? Hello?” Silence.

“Who’s Jack?” asked Isha. I told her the whole story. I left out the last part.

“Do I look that good in the suit?” I was confused. How did she know about that?

“Explain?”

“Mind reading.”

“How?”

“I asked Zay, he said when two people like us build enough trust, care and stuff like that, their mind opens up to each other.” So that’s how I read Isha’s mind that night.

“My orb doesn’t work. It’s like my burn marrr” And I fainted.

I went back to the void. “I see that you didn’t succeed.”

“Yeah”

“You have awakened to your second form.”

“How?”

“Failure is a stepping stone to success.”

“So I need to get hit by enemies to go to my next form?”

“Each stage has a different requirement. Our time here is done. Do it right this time. Don’t make me regret my choices.”

I woke up to find everyone in my room. Rayz and Zay talking and Roxy comforting a crying Isha. That was kind of dramatic. I only went to the void. Oh, wait, they don’t know that.

My body was back to normal or I thought so. I got out of bed and went to Isha. I stumbled on a book and fell through Isha. I was a GHOST! (Astral form for people like Zay to understand) Was this my second form? It would be very cool in different circumstances.

Roxy looked at the book like it was possessed. Wait, I did move by stumbling over it. “Sarv?” Isha looked at the book too. I felt connected to her when I fell through her. Was it a power? I don’t know and don’t care. I looked at myself and saw that my burn mark had disappeared. I ran into Isha.

The next second, I saw the world through Isha’s eyes. I could feel what she felt. “This is so cool! ”I thought out loud. Isha then went to clean herself up. A mirror nearby was all foggy from the humidity. I then wrote on the mirror ‘Don’t cry’. When she saw this she looked everywhere. I then wrote ‘I’m inside you’. She sat down with palms to her face. She was crying? Oh, those things called happy tears. I learnt it in school back in Astraja.

She went to my body. I went back inside it. I opened my eyes. I looked at my skin. It looked real. “You’re back!” Isha screamed and tackled me with a bear hug. I could feel my ribs almost giving up. She then kissed me for good measures.

Everyone looked relieved. They have only been with me for 3 days. I guess they were about to explode because of Isha.

“Finally! Normal flesh.” Everyone looked confused.

“So what happened was,” I coughed so hard that I couldn’t speak anymore. Roxy brought me a glass of water. Isha explained what had happened. “I thought you were dead!” Rayz said to me.

“I knew something was fishy. Your pulse was normal. It was like your consciousness was yanked out of your body.” Roxy said.

“Whoa, you sound like those guys who know random useless facts.” I said.

“First, I am not a guy. I am a gal.” Roxy complained.

“Second, My dream is to become a doctor.”

“Guess we have a medic on board. That was an exhausting… how long was I out?”

“Two days.”

“TWO DAYS? THAT FELT LIKE 30 MINUTES!”