Waking up after being certain he was dead turned out to be a mixed bag of emotions for Justus. On one hand he was alive, which was great, but he’d woken up in a tree and then immediately fallen into a bush completely naked. To make matters worse, he felt like he’d been stomped on by a dire-beast. His body ached all over and his Spirit was drained.

  There was also the slight problem that he had no clue where the hell he was. The buildings were massive, unlike anything in Solidusk. His home city was one of the largest in the kingdom, but wherever he was now made it seem like a quaint small town. What had that girl called this place? Pardon? Or was it Parting?

  The city was incredibly odd. Everything seemed off in some way or another. Wherever he was, it was unlike any city he’d ever seen. He heard that the Bandwi Kingdom had cities with buildings that touched the sky, so maybe he was in one of them.

  How had he gotten all the way here? His first thought was the lich, but why would a lich waste a potential minion by shoving him through a portal?

  Justus recalled the bright flash he’d seen before falling into this place. That hadn’t felt like a lich’s Spirit. Liches were specialists of death-adjacent fields of Spirit Arts. The light hadn’t felt deadly in any way. If the lich had created it, it should have reeked of death.

  He could figure that out later. Right now he had more pressing issues. He needed to find a vantage point to get a better lay of the land.

  After getting a distance from the girl, he chose one of the buildings and activated his movement skill. He appeared on the roof and stumbled. Even that small leap drained a noticeable amount of what little Spirit he had left. He’d need to take it easy with his skills and spells to conserve his Spirit.

  On the top of the building, he was surprised at the force of the wind. It was stormy, but the massive buildings all around must have been buffeting the worst of it on the ground. Not so up here. His clothes rippled against the wind, but he didn’t mind it much. It felt refreshing.

  Now that he had a vantage point, he could see even more clearly how strange the city was. Nearly half the buildings were covered with mostly glass and only bits of metal. Why use glass? Justus wasn’t an architect, but he knew glass couldn’t be an effective building material. It was unlike anything he’d seen or heard of before.

  The layout of the city was also odd. Around the park and buildings were dark roads, which were busy with thousands of cars without any animals pulling them. The concept of self-propelled cars wasn’t completely foreign; the Bandwi cities supposedly had a lot of them. He’d never expected to see so many, though.

  A red-bordered window popped up in his field of view, interrupting his line of thought. That wasn’t a good sign. The guidestone usually displayed notifications off to the top right of his vision. Centered pop-ups were almost always urgent and bad news, especially if they were red. He skimmed over the message. Then he carefully read it. Then he read it again, as panic began setting in for the first time since falling into this place.

  !!! Warning !!!

  You are outside the range of your guidance stone!

  Connection to guidance system will be unavailable following this message. Reestablish Spirit Link to reconnect to the Guidance System.

  Beginner’s Tip!

  Be sure to keep your guidance stone safe and on your person at all times, and never lend it to strangers! For maximum safety, set a passcode in case it is stolen!

  Justus cursed, searching for his guidestone. He’d been so caught off guard by the fact that he wasn’t dead that he must have dropped it. He was too used to carrying it in his armband. The only time he ever took it off was to bathe, and even then he kept the stone with him.

  Why the hell hadn’t the system sent an urgent warning sooner? He glanced at the top right of his vision. There were four notifications. Right. The proximity warning messages were set to non-urgent, and he’d never changed it. He couldn’t. But that was fine. This was fine. It had to be near that shrub he fell into.

  A worrying thought crossed his mind. What if that girl found it? She had to know how much an Emerald rank guidance stone was worth. Most houses weren’t even half the price of that stone. He needed to get back to that bush quickly.

  Justus approached the edge of the building and looked down. A twinge of nausea filled his gut, and he took a step back. He was really high up, and without the guidance stone he didn’t have access to his skills. There was no way he could use his Blink skill without a stone.

  Did he know any spell that could help him get down? Maybe something to alter his mass so he could float down safely? That was relatively simple. Except he hadn’t calculated his mass in over a cycle, and had grown a lot in that time. Guessing such a big change could cause the spell to have unintended effects, and there was a slim but real chance that could get him killed. Not to mention the wind would probably send him flying about.

  Justus looked around. Jumping down was out of the question. Too many risks. But there had to be a way down. Thankfully, there was a door on the roof. It would take longer, but better safe than sorry. Being eaten alive by undead sewer rats had made him acutely aware of the importance of caution.

  The door was thick and made of sturdy metal. Justus grabbed the round handle and pulled. Then pushed. It didn’t budge, but the handle jiggled. Odd that it was such a well made door, yet had a loose handle.

  The door was clearly locked, loose handle or no. Luckily, that wouldn’t be much of a problem. He was only Jade rank, so he didn’t have the inhuman strength of higher rankers, but he was durable. While that didn’t make him innately stronger, it did mean he could use all the strength he had accrued during his daily training without worrying about injury.

  Rearing back, Justus brought up one leg and kicked out. The bottom of his bare foot slammed into the metal. With a crack and groan, the door broke open. A small dent was left on its surface where he’d struck. Despite everything that had happened, he felt a wave of contentment. Nothing like violent acts of power to boost confidence.

  Making his way into the building, Justus found the door led to a sparsely decorated stairwell. It was dark inside.

  Somehow, the moment he stepped in, light filled the interior. He looked up to see a panel of frosted glass, shining brightly. Automated lighting. That was fancy.

  The stairs were designed with verticality in mind. They alternated directions every dozen or so steps. Considering the size of the building, he knew there’d be quite a few stairs to go down. Rather than running down, he decided to start jumping.

  The first few jumps ended in rough landings. The ceiling was low, which made getting enough distance to clear the stairs difficult. He’d probably have broken a few bones if not for his enhanced durability. Once he got the hang of it, he began jumping the stairs one after the other, making quick progress down the building.

  At the end of the stairwell there was another metal door. This one didn’t have a handle, but a mechanical looking bar roughly waist high. He could only assume its purpose was as intuitive as it looked. He pushed on the bar, and it sank a short distance before the door clicked and opened. Justus was almost disappointed. He wouldn’t have minded kicking another door down, but it was probably for the best that he didn’t have to.

  He stepped out of the stairwell to find himself in a more open room. There were four large doors, all metal. The ground was polished stone, but it didn’t feel like stone on his feet. Some kind of fake, or maybe coated with wax. It was clean and incredibly neat, but also felt lifeless.

  As he was taking in the unfamiliar design of the interior, one of the doors chimed two short notes. The doors slid apart and opened. Justus tensed a man in strange clothing walked out, but the man didn’t even look at him. Without a pause, he stepped out of the room they’d been in and began walking away.

  Justus didn’t watch the man leave. He was too busy staring into the room the man had left. It was just a rectangular room with nothing inside. The doors shut on their own, powered by some unseen mechanism. There were symbols next to each set of doors. One looked like an arrow pointing up.

  The shape made the purpose of the rooms click in his mind. They weren’t rooms at all; they were lifts. A lift built into a building. He’d never heard of that, but it made sense. It’d been a pain in the ass to take the stairs.

  He was tempted to ride the lift just to see what it was like. He put the thought aside for now. Maybe later.

  He followed the man that had left, hoping to find the exit. The hall led into the side of a large lobby. This was the sort of huge open space he had expected to see inside a building like this one. It had that same neat and clean style. The front walls were metal framed glass, giving a clear view to the park across the road.

  There was a woman standing behind a desk built into the wall. She looked up and noticed him, and her expression turned confused. He avoided looking at her and made his way outside. It must have been his clothes. The girl in the park had thought he looked out of place. Fashion was clearly as different here as everything else.

  The stone sidewalk was sparsely populated by people on either side of the road. Most carried umbrellas, shielding themselves from the falling rain. Justus would have liked one just to fit in. He didn’t actually mind the rain, though. It was a rare thing to experience.

  He looked to the road. There were six rows of traffic: three in either direction. Each row was filled with cars. They were loud and gave off a nauseating stench that made his head ache. Exhaust fumes billowed out the back of most. Were they using combustion engines? How did people go about walking so casually next to these things?

  Shoving aside his culture shock, Justus stepped to the edge of the road. As soon as he saw the opportunity, he dashed out. He weaved between the slow moving cars. Some honked as he passed. The sound was sharp and piercing, and it made Justus want to kick open the cars and curse out whoever was inside. That was exactly the kind of attention he didn’t want, though, so he kept moving.

  Justus finally reached the edge of the park. He sprinted across the wet grass, tracking down the bush he had fallen into. He found it with ease. A life on the streets had left him with a good sense of direction. But the girl was no longer there.

  Justus got down on his knees and began shifting through the bush. He scoured the muddy dirt, his worry growing. By the time he faced the truth, his frantic searching had nearly dug up the plant. His guidance stone was gone.

  “Thieving bitch…” he muttered.

  He had to get it back.

  Tracking down the girl would be difficult—maybe even impossible—in a city so big. He had no other choice. If he hadn’t been an idiot, he’d have had his backup Jade guidestone on him. After getting tired of carrying his old Jade stone around he’d stored it in his inventory. And, of course, he never bothered to carry around any coins outside his inventory like his mentor had taught him to in case this very thing happened.

  So now he was stuck in a place he didn’t recognize, surrounded by people he didn’t know, and possessed nothing but his name and the clothes on his back. Justus couldn’t help but smile at the misfortune. It was awfully nostalgic.

  He took a seat on the soaked bench. He’d have to lay low for a while. Maybe the girl would come back here. He’d stay close to here for a few quarters and keep an eye out. If she didn’t return, he’d have to go looking for her. She must have lived in the city somewhere, after all.

  In the meantime, he decided to explore the park.

  He noticed the plants here were also weren’t quite like any he’d ever seen. Their leaves and foliage were thinner and less dense than any plants he knew of, and were an odd shade of green. Even the grass was different here. Aside from the color, it was smaller and thinner than the grass he knew. His suspicion of where he was grew into a hunch, until something started to happen that confirmed it.

  At first, he suspected he’d been transported to another kingdom—most likely Bandwi. There were little things that didn’t add up, though. There weren't any Spirit Artists anywhere. He hadn’t sensed any Spirit aura at all. In a city this big, there had to be someone who didn’t bother to hide their aura.

  The people looked odd. Most of them were shorter than average, and their clothing were all styles he’d never seen or heard of. The cars were another sign. There were too many, and even in Bandwi he heard they used electricity to power their self-propelled cars, not gas motors.

  That was all strange, but it was possible he’d simply heard false information about what Bandwi was like. It wasn’t until he noticed it was getting darker by the hour that he realized what that meant, and his suspicions were confirmed.

  He was on another planet.

  His planet was tidally locked to its star; the sun didn’t move across the sky. Though he couldn’t see the sun through the dense clouds, he could tell the light on this planet was fading.

  He knew some planets spun on their axis. One of the planets in his system was observed as doing so. There was no light or dark side of that planet; it was always changing. That’s what was happening here. The planet was rotating. If he could see past the gray clouds, he knew he’d see the sun moving towards the horizon.

  Underneath the confusion and anxiety the revelation caused, part of him was excited. His world knew there was life on other planets. Strass, another planet in his system, was inhabited, after all. Is that where he was? And if so, how?

  It was supposed to be impossible to leave the planet. The Kryznokt Barrier kept anyone from leaving the atmosphere. As far as Justus knew, he was the first in history to get past it. What sort of things could he learn here?

  Already he had so many questions. What was the planet like? What kind of life existed here? Why did the people look so similar to humans? Were they human? If so, the implications were staggering. It would fundamentally change their understanding of history.

  If he could find a way back and bring even some of the knowledge he could learn here with him, his name would be remembered for all time. Of course, he’d have to find a way back first. His excitement dwindled at the thought. He had no clue how he got here, let alone knew how to get back home.

  First, he had to get his guidestone back. Then he needed to learn more about this culture and planet. After that, he could begin working on a way to get back to his own world.

  All that could come later, though. For now, he was spiritually exhausted. He’d used a lot of spirit trying to get away from that lich, and what was left seemed to have been sucked out of him when he got thrown into this place. Only adrenaline and stress had kept him moving. He needed to find somewhere to sleep. He had no money for an inn. Even if he retrieved his stone and access to his inventory, his currency might be worthless here.

  He’d have to live on the streets for a while. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  ****

  Katherine rarely felt comfortable around other people. Being around other people while she secretly held a precious gem worth potentially tens of thousands of dollars in her pocket? It was safe to say she was past nervous, flirting with the borders of panic.

  Her eyes darted to each person she passed on the sidewalk. Her breath caught every time a car slowed down on the road near her. She couldn’t help but feel that everyone somehow knew what she was carrying.

  But the people walked on by without giving her a second glance. Traffic flowed as it always did. All the way until she reached her apartment building, the only thing different about her walk home was the pounding in her chest.

  When she got into the elevator, she began feeling silly for being so worried. Of course no one would suspect a random girl would be carrying around a giant emerald. Even thinking it herself made her feel crazy. Why did that guy have it anyway? It had to be a fake: glass, or maybe colored quartz. That made the most sense.

  Alone in the rising elevator, she risked taking the gem out of her pocket. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of it. Her doubts disappeared as she remembered why she had thought the gem was the genuine article in the first place.

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  Glass didn’t look like the thing in her palm, regardless of how it was made. Most jewels didn’t look like the one she held. It was more than the size or the odd cut. She couldn’t place it, but there was something primal in the gem that pulled at her in a way nothing else ever had.

  The pull wasn’t just a pretty metaphor, either. She could actually feel something inside her being drawn in. It wasn't as concrete as a physical feeling. It was a ghost of a sensation, vague and undefined, but undeniably haunting her. Could she… pull back?

  The elevator dinged. Katherine shoved her hand back in her pocket. The doors opened a moment later. She rushed out, eager to get to her room and forget about the weird experience. Was she going crazy?

  It was a short walk down the hall to her apartment. She pulled her keys from her pocket and unlocked the door. She stepped inside, locking the door behind her. The feeling of comfort and familiarity let her finally relax a little.

  The smell of dinner hung in the air. The scent of chopped tomato and boiling pasta made her stomach remind her that she hadn’t eaten at all today.

  Shoving her hunger aside, Katherine began making her way to her bedroom. She could relax once she put the emerald somewhere safe.

  As she took a step into the hall, her mom called from behind her.

  “Hey, Kat. Just gonna walk in without saying anything?”

  “Hey, Mom,” Katherine said, turning. “I didn’t see you.”

  Her mother smiled, leaning against the wall. She wiped one of her hands on the apron she wore, then brushed back the blonde ponytail that had been resting on her shoulder.

  “That happens when you’re staring at the floor. Everything okay at school?”

  “Yeah, it was fine.”

  “Make any new friends?” her mom asked. It was her favorite question. It also happened to be Katherine’s least favorite.

  “No,” she answered, the habit ingrained with years of repetition. After a moment, she added: “I did meet this boy. He’s not really a friend, though.”

  Her mother stood up slightly straighter.

  “A boy?” she asked, in a way that made Katherine regret telling her. “Was he cute?”

  “Mom,” Katherine groaned. “It’s not like that. It was weird, is all. I didn’t recognize him, but I think he was in my grade.”

  “Is he a transfer student?”

  “Maybe. I didn’t ask.”

  “What did you two talk about?”

  Katherine shrugged. “We didn’t ‘talk.’ He needed help with a problem. I don’t even know his name.”

  “Maybe you should ask him the next time you see him.”

  Katherine rolled her eyes. “It’s not like that,” she repeated, turning around. “I’m gonna take a shower.”

  “Alright, dinner should be almost ready by the time you’re done.”

  Katherine shut her bedroom door behind her. She unslung her backpack and set her Kindle on her nightstand. After the strange events of the day, she would definitely need to escape into a book for a few hours before getting any sleep. Her digital clock told her that would still be a while. It was only twenty-six past four.

  She pulled out the emerald.

  “What do I do with you…” she muttered under her breath.

  It was pulling on her again, like it had in the elevator. Again, she could feel something in her pulling back. She ran a finger over the smooth stone and nearly dropped it in shock when it glowed in response. The glow pulsed from inside the emerald.

  The pulse of light flashed three times. She lifted it up and studied the inside, looking for a hidden light source.

  A white flash blinded her, making her yelp and drop the stone. The light remained in the center of her vision, floating in front of her. She swat at it frantically, but her hands felt nothing.

  Katherine stepped back to find the thing following her. It moved precisely as she did. Her foot caught on the edge of her bed, sending her tumbling to the ground. She hit the carpet with a grunt.

  The thing followed her through the fall. It was hovering a foot away even as her face was mere inches from the ground. It couldn’t actually be there. It made no sense. As the initial shock passed, she realized the white square had symbols on it.

  The symbols were completely foreign to her, but they were clearly a language. It was a sharp and jagged language, and used an alphabet that was strangely familiar. A feeling of deja vu came over her as she studied the text. She felt like she could make out a few of the characters. Looking over it again, she found she could read some of the words.

  A sharp pain in her head made her wince. It felt like a brainfreeze, but the sensation was hot rather than cold. The pain passed quickly. When she looked back at them, the words were in English.

  System Online

  Admin Status: Deceased

  Admin Settings: Undefined

  Access Granted

  New User Detected

  Spirit Identity Added

  Spirit Status: Unranked

  Calibration Recommended

  Begin calibration?

  Y / N

  “What the heck… calibration?”

  As soon as the question left her lips another box appeared in front of the other, off to the side.

  Information Request Granted

  System Tutorial: [Calibration]

  New User must be scanned for [Spiritual Affinity] and health status.

  This process will take roughly thirty seconds.

  That was creepy. This thing was listening to her. She sat up, unnerved by the text boxes following her exact movements.

  She looked back to the emerald on the ground. As she focused on the gem, the floating screen in front of her became mostly transparent. It was as if it was responding to her desire to see through it. The emerald was pulsing steadily. Was it doing this? What even was this thing?

  Information Request Granted

  Item: [Emerald Guidance Stone]

  Admin: Boris Sheshalo

  This item connects to a user’s [Spirit Channels] to allow use of [Skills]. It also boasts several utility functions to assist its user in day-to-day life.

  This guidance stone is compatible with [Spirit Artists] of [rank] [Emerald] and below.

  The message appeared in front of the others. The thing had responded to a question she hadn’t even spoken. It was listening to her thoughts. That was unsettling. She had to be going crazy, right? Things like this weren’t possible.

  User Mental State: Undetermined

  Please calibrate to allow examination of mental status.

  She couldn’t be sure, but it almost seemed snarky with these responses. Also, all these boxes were starting to get distracting. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, the boxes of texts blinked out of existence. Only the first box remained, still asking if she wanted to begin calibration.

  Her thoughts reached back to the strange guy in the park. This thing was his. She recalled a weird moment during their interaction when he had stared into space and scanned something she couldn’t see. It had freaked her out a little at the time, but this must have been what he was doing. Just who the hell was he?

  Information Request: Previous User

  Admin Privacy Settings Override

  Information Request Granted

  User: Justus Fahren

  Spirit Artist Rank: Jade

  Affinities: Movement, Prudence, Dissolution

  Specialty: Movement

  Status: Unknown

  Additional Information Available Upon Request

  Katherine read the new message. So the guy was named Justus? The message said there was more information available, but she didn’t know how to request it. Then she realized how she’d been getting all this information. Focusing, she thought of a question.

  Where is Justus from?

  Information Request Granted

  Previous User [Justus Fahren] is a native of [Tallon City].

  That didn’t help her much. She’d never heard of a city called Tallon. She almost reached for her phone to google it, but thought of something better. She focused and requested more information on Tallon City. The system responded. A new text box appeared with the requested information.

  Information Request Granted

  [Tallon City] is the seventeenth largest city by population in the [Serrated Empire], and the third largest in the [Solidusk] kingdom.

  The city’s population is roughly 1,443,500.

  [Tallon City] is noted for its trade markets, red light district, and loose law enforcement. It is a popular settlement for lower rank [Spirit Artists] and tourists.

  Katherine requested more information about the Serrated Empire. Again, the system responded. She fell into a rabbit hole, requesting more and more information as the truth became clear.

  Katherine continued reading textbox after textbox, the knot in her stomach growing as she digested it all. After what felt like half an hour, she dismissed the text boxes. The flood of information was overwhelming. It told her about an Empire formed in the aftermath of a world-war, each ruled by something called Diamond Monarchs.

  She wasn’t sure if it was shock or if the system was literally overloading her mind, but she felt dizzy. If this thing was telling her the truth—which she was having trouble believing—then it meant Justus wasn’t from Earth. He was an alien from another planet. It seemed crazy, but so did a mind reading gem. It wasn't a magic stone: it was alien technology.

  Another thing bothered her, something she had skimmed over earlier. What was a spirit artist? Justus was supposedly one of them, so she wanted to find out what it meant. The stone also mentioned spirit channels. The two things must be related. She’d never heard of either concept before. They sounded like something out of a comic book or tv show.

  She was getting a feel for the system. The stone had a presence in her head that hovered just above her thoughts. Now that she had calmed down, it wasn’t reacting to every thought that popped in her head. She still felt overwhelmed, but she didn’t feel like she was about to have a panic attack anymore.

  She directed her question about spirit artists to the system. What popped up was new. Rather than a gray-white box, this one glowed on the edges in red.

  Information Request Denied

  Subject: [Spirit Artist], is restricted until calibration is complete in compliance with the [Monarch Treaties].

  She wondered if she could convince the stone that those laws wouldn’t apply on another planet, but decided that telling the stone that might not be a good idea. It might shut off or trigger some other weird safety protocol.

  There was only one way to learn what she wanted. But was it safe? She tried asking the system about calibration, but got no result. It seemed only the bracketed information was what the system would tell her more about. There was no telling how safe this calibration was. It could be some kind of trap.

  Now that she thought about it, why would it need her permission if it was dangerous? It seemed more like a tool than a weapon from her short time using it. And Justus had been its last owner—still was its owner, she reminded herself—and he seemed fine. She didn’t get a sense it was dangerous.

  Katherine took a deep breath. If she could get unrestricted access to whatever this stone was, then it might let her discover a way to find Justus and give it back to him. Using that hope to convince herself this was the right course of action, she mentally accepted the calibration request.

  The box asking her if she wanted to calibrate, which had never been dismissed with any of the others, blinked away. A new box appeared. It was a small rectangular one with an empty progress bar. It was surprisingly similar to something she’d see on a computer.

  She felt a shiver run through her. The feeling started at her feet and moved upward. As it did, the progress bar began to fill. The shiver wasn’t like anything she’d ever felt. Nothing was happening physically. It affected the same part of her the stone had been pulling on earlier.

  The sensation was deeper than physical, but it didn’t seem mental either. It was like she was suddenly feeling her shadow: a part of her that was always there but that she had never been conscious of.

  The shiver got to her mind, and it was extremely uncomfortable. Her thoughts themselves felt… bubbly. Like her mind had just been carbonated. She winced, shutting her eyes tight in an effort to distract herself from the nauseating feeling. She worried she was going to puke if it lasted much longer.

  The sensation vanished as quickly as it came. True to its word, the entire process had taken the system less than a minute to complete. A new box appeared.

  Calibration Complete

  Physical Status:

  Underdeveloped muscular system, malnutrition, minor inflammation of lungs, slight skeletal deformation, latent DNA mutation, heavy contamination of impure elements

  Mental Status:

  Signs of extended stress, anxiety, avoidance and repression—paired with predilection for depressive thought patterns—should be noted and monitored, but fall within acceptable range.

  Calibration Results:

  Affinities: Null, Eruption

  User is cleared for [advancement] to [opal] rank.

  Note:

  Due to Mental Status, User will require a third party of Jade Rank or higher to approve [advancement].

  She read the list over three times. She didn’t work out, so the muscle thing didn’t surprise her. She could admit she didn’t eat as much as she should, and her asthma explained the lung issue. The DNA mutation thing freaked her out. What did that mean?

  It looked like the thing really had scanned both her body and her brain. Trying not to think too much about how invasive that was, she attempted to get more information about advancement. Immediately, her head flared with pain.

  For a while, she’d felt a headache coming on. It had been minor, almost unnoticed. Now the pain was sharp and throbbing.

  The pain eased after a few seconds. When she opened her eyes, a new display was in front of her. This one also glowed red around the border.

  Alert

  Spirit Channel stress detected.

  System access denied until recovery.

  Recover time necessary: 18 hours.

  The message disappeared, along with the one displaying her calibration results. She didn’t try to prompt them to return, even though she still had so many questions. She worried her attempt would make the pain flare up again.

  For the first time since she’d seen the first message, she pulled herself up off the ground. The clock on her bedside nightstand told her it was twenty-eight past four. How was that possible? She’d spent at least half an hour on the floor, yet only two minutes had passed. Had the thing slowed down time? Even after everything, that seemed ridiculous.

  She didn’t want to think about it. It was already too much to process, and the time issue was the cherry on a cake she was far too stuffed to take another bite from. All she wanted to do was take a shower then lie down for a while.

  She grabbed a towel and clean clothes from her closet. As she reached for her bedroom door, she paused to look at the poster taped onto it.

  The figure on the old worn paper was tall and slender, wearing a tight red and gold costume that was as beautiful and regal as the person wearing it. The figure’s red hair blew in a frozen gust of wind, unfolding from the golden bird-like helmet. The photo captured the figure stretching out a hand and summoning a wave of fire in a dramatic pose.

  Phoenix had been her favorite superhero growing up. Though her days of reading all of the heroine's comics and watching the Power Force cartoon every morning were over, she never could take down the poster. Part of her still held onto that dream of superpowers and capes.

  Was it possible this stone could make that childish dream come true? What was a Spirit Artist? What was Justus?

  What could she be?