David was falling even as he shot up into the sky, which was extremely disorienting. The sensation continued until suddenly he felt himself land with a thump as the light around him expanded to create a strange white space.

  After a glitch-like pause, a voice spoke. It sounded slightly distorted and strangely flat, androgynous but unquestionably speaking English, even if halting and stilted.

  "Welcome, human of Earth."

  David tried to respond and found himself unable to do so. He was trying to speak but nothing was happening. With increasing panic, he realized he was also unable to move.

  "Do not be alarmed, you are experiencing mana dysphoria. Your species has never been exposed to mana until the wave of initiation reached…" there was a barely noticeable pause as though someone was looking something up "…this part of the Milky Way Galaxy."

  Another pause, longer this time, as if the speaker was searching for more information.

  "I am the Herald, the one in the sky that your astronomers saw approaching ahead of the wave of initiation. I was unable to communicate until the tide of mana broke over your world. My purpose is to guide and prepare all thinking creatures as they absorb mana from their environment and adapt to the new reality."

  Despite his panic, David was struck by a thought: This is exactly like the start of a video game or one of those gamelit novels. Did I just have a heart attack? Am I hallucinating?

  The androgynous voice continued, becoming more fluent. "It is vital that you remain calm and focus. Avoid all distractions and direct the first mana to flow through you. You see this as the light around you. Focus and try to push it into this symbol."

  A dark translucent symbol appeared before him. Something about it was deeply strange, as though it was a single line that ran off in directions he couldn't perceive, forming what looked like a rune made of multiple strokes.

  "Focus, let nothing distract you now." The voice grew urgent, commanding.

  As David began to focus, light started clinging to the edges of the black symbol. But he became aware of something else, barely audible at the edge of hearing. A murmur like voices at a party heard through a closed door. There were even flickers of movement at the edges of the white room.

  The Herald's voice rose above the others, drowning them out. "Quickly, focus! Make the light flow into the symbol. You must bring order to the mana flowing into your body!"

  For a moment, David felt personal attention being paid to him, as if the Herald had turned its full focus his way.

  Then came a barely audible 'pop.'

  Another presence appeared in the light space; just hints of a head and shoulders, slight lines that might have been limbs, like an abstract artist's impression of a person. One of the murmuring voices rose above the noise, addressing him directly with a distinctly male voice.

  "I wouldn't do that if I were you." The voice had a British lilt to it. "Not sure if Mister Law and Order explained properly, but the light around you is literally you, in a magical sense at least. The shape it takes right now will decide the rest of your life."

  A pause.

  "There is an alternative, you know..."

  David tried to communicate but still couldn't speak.

  The vague figure continued. "Look, rather than focusing on his symbol, focus on yourself. Focus on your body, and if you have questions, focus on your voice. Really project! Imagine how you sound and make me hear!"

  Desperate now, David followed the voice's directions. Within the light, he realized he could still stand, had arms, legs, a mouth, and with that, a voice. To his shock, he managed to rasp out a single word.

  "What?"

  His throat felt incredibly dry, but more excitingly, he could feel his throat!

  "That's the spirit!" the second voice encouraged. "My being here means you have a bit more control than you should at this stage."

  David forced out another word. "What?"

  The voice responded eagerly. "What is going on? Fair question, mate, you don't mind me calling you mate, do you? I'm not really using words, but you're translating the concept into language through the mana."

  The British accent was becoming more pronounced now.

  "Anyway, you're making a choice! In this case, to be an individual by talking with me rather than being a good little drone, using your mana to fingerpaint that contract into your soul like Mister Rules wants."

  The words 'Mister Rules' rang false in David's mind, as if poorly translated from something far less benign.

  "What is going on?" David finally managed the full question.

  "Well! Mana finally reached your galaxy and started to integrate with matter. The wave hit your planet. Places like Earth are quite special. There's already life, even 'sentient' life present. Thought directs mana far better than anything else. So the mana will concentrate and bloom around here. Wait a few years and this will be a paradise, magically speaking."

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  The figure seemed to grow slightly more solid as it explained.

  "Which is why I and my brethren are here. We came with the mana wave. Wisps of thought and mana looking for matter to become embodied. On that long ride through the dark nothing of space, we struggled with each other. Of the teeming masses, most succumbed on their journey, but some grew, merging and absorbing more thought to make something a bit more rational, like me!"

  David's head spun trying to process this.

  "Rather than grabbing the first thing I sensed and trying to take over, I looked for something with a bit more quality and complexity. Tried to understand before making friends. Unfortunately, that means I've left it a bit late to speak to you, and Mister Orderpants has already got his talons into you."

  Even as David tried to understand the frankly nonsensical explanation, the first voice returned, once again distant and impersonal. "You must keep the flow of light into the symbol going. Don't stop now you have started. There isn't much time!"

  The urgency in the Herald's voice was unmistakable.

  The British presence spoke quickly. "Well, we have a problem. As soon as he has the bandwidth to pay attention to you, or more accurately me, Mister Lawful and Authoritarian is going to cause problems for both of us. We can't even get rid of him entirely now you've started channeling into his sigil."

  A note of genuine concern entered the voice.

  "We also really need to wrap up your initiation soon. I'm not sure how much your body can take. Things will be really bad once mana incorporation reaches the stage where things start to manifest. And by bad, I mean creatures breaking through, possession, your body mutating uncontrollably, that sort of bad."

  That was it. David had had enough.

  "What the hell, man?" He instinctively responded to the masculine timbre of the voice that had just claimed to be disembodied. "This is madness! Why can't I move? Why can't I feel my body? Where the hell are you, both of you? HELP!"

  The last word came out as a croak, on the off chance that someone normal might hear, maybe a doctor if he was in a hospital somewhere.

  "Look mate," the British voice said, and David was now certain of its origin, "I've decided to call you mate because we're in this together now. We need to get this mana integration going right now. You're experiencing mana dysphoria and will be paralyzed until you get this done; no feeling, no movement from your body."

  "To be fair, you are actually speaking aloud, which is good because you're clearly integrating. Bad because it will attract notice while you're still helpless."

  The entity rushed on. "I don't have time to sugar coat this, so I'm borrowing concepts here. Your world is absorbing mana. Everything is changing as the magical and physical worlds integrate. Soon, thought channeled through matter and mana will define reality."

  A pause.

  "Not your thought, at least not at first. There are thinking beings older and vaster than you can comprehend; those who directed the free mana to leap across the void and wash over your galaxy, which I'm going to be honest mate, was pretty crappy and boring. Just a young backwater, an eddy in reality."

  "Who are you? Where are you?" David demanded.

  He tried to focus on the vague figure, which seemed to jump into higher resolution. A vague, spectral outline of a man with no clear features, but taking on more light. The white void had grown dimmer, and more light had bled into the sigil.

  "Well, mate, that's a question and a half. I'm a ghost, a spirit of intellect, that's what I am. Or rather, you can think of me like that. I could have been other things, but right now I'm giving you knowledge to help yourself. You have the ultimate power here and I’m the one who can help you become who you want to be. You've already started just by gaining the power to speak with me. Now let me help. What do you want to be in this new magical world?"

  David felt his analytical mind kick in. He was probably injured or dying, leading to hallucinations, but damned if he wanted his last thoughts to be about process improvements at work. It could be worse, he thought; it could be about HR.

  Time to break down what he knew.

  The Herald: Hands-off approach, ordering him to do something urgently without explanation. Like a robocaller delivering a spiel. Two strikes against it. Plus, why had the pattern started self-reinforcing without his conscious effort? He realized with alarm that the light was definitely dimmer, and more of the dark sigil was glowing softly, illuminating connections waiting to be filled in.

  Three strikes. Using baseball analogies that was out.

  The British entity: Overly friendly, 'mate this and mate that.' Salesman vibes; he wanted something and hadn't spelled it out yet. Two strikes against him as well.

  But there was one point in his favor: he was actually answering questions. He was here, visible, engaged. Not just projecting orders from outside like some cosmic robocall.

  David made his decision, pitching his voice low. "OK, you have my attention. If I'm going to do anything other than focus on the pattern and light it up like a Christmas tree, you need to answer some questions. Fast."

  "Why are both of you trying to make me do specific, different things with the light around me, which I guess is mana?"

  There was a pause, a strange sense of attention. Then, as though he'd found the magic word to reach a human in a phone tree, a reply that sounded unscripted came from the Herald: "There is limited mana aggregated by your mind to work with. The more you dedicate to our system, the better and safer your integration will be."

  The Herald's voice vanished. A moment later, the British presence reappeared.

  "Be careful!" it warned. "We don't want its attention. Like I said mate, I can help if you let me. More specifically, I can help you focus on you and what you want."

  David considered for a moment. "What is the objective of the sigil? I’m going to work with whoever is more forthcoming…"

  He sensed panic from the British entity.

  "Bloody hell, mate, don't say things like that! The aims of the sigil are several: establishing self-monitoring to encourage improvement through feedback, starting to build a link to the Herald's masters, providing a framework to travel down the path the Herald is offering. To become what it wants you to be. It's all very structured towards getting you to work on their terms for power."

  David nodded, interesting that he could nod now. Looking down, he saw a translucent version of himself made of light. The space had grown even dimmer, lit mainly by himself, the British presence, and the Herald's partially glowing sigil.

  "So what are you trying to get me to do?"

  The response came urgent and desperate, like a final sales pitch. David suspected it was because the amount of light in the space was dropping. That's what both entities were after…

  "I want you to BE someone powerful. Not to do what I expect to become powerful, but be powerful by your very nature. This space is yours. Use it to become who you want to be. I can help! Just by telling me who you want to be, you will make it happen. With my help, you might even be able to pull back from the Sigil or change it so you have better control. It's a system to control you, taking root in you right now. Just ask me to help you and will it to happen."

  The voice was pleading now, desperate to help.

  There it was; a plea to let him help.

  But something sounded off. Too much emphasis on 'ask me to help,' as though the speaker only cared about David giving permission to act.

  David realized the trap in the honeyed words and friendly attitude. For whatever reason, he was in control of this space. Both entities needed him to do what they wanted. While he didn't know their end goals, he now knew that giving them what they wanted was in their interests, not his.

  If he had control, it was time to do unto others before they did unto him.