Prologue

Carefully, Samuel placed the last of the ingredients in the machine. He watched the plant for a second before gently grazing its leaf with a finger. He let out a sigh then closed the hatch and secured the lock, pulling away from the device.

His eyes scanned over the other parts, double checking all the settings were correct. He already knew they were, but the process of double checking steadied him. And for this he liked to be steady. Needed to be.

“Hurry up slowpoke” Divine said from behind him, clearly annoyed.

“Let me focus” he mumbled back.

“Yeah, let him focus” Nigel chimed in.

“Oh, shut up” Divine said “Just hurry up. You’ve been doing this for almost twenty minutes.”

“Sure, sure” he muttered dismissively.

Samuel could tell she was rolling her eyes, but he didn’t care. He quickly triple checked the buttons and dials, then nodded to himself as he took a deep breath. He stood, dusting off his knees before flicking on a few buttons.

The vacuum machine came to life, it’s whirring building slowly as it echoed in the space louder and louder.

Samuel’s fingers stopped over a final button and he stared at it, licking his lips tentatively. He wiped sweat from his forehead, his foot tapping against the ground restlessly as he stared at the glowing button, unblinking.

It has to work. It has to.

He pressed it quickly, then stepped back, joining his friends who’d both fallen into a nervous silence.

“Now” he whispered, the words only for himself, “…we wait.”

The trio watched the vacuum sphere, the loud whirring of their machine reverberating in the very floor beneath them. They stared, watching the empty air in front of them. The seconds stretched out, steadily ticking into minutes, and only the sound of the machine reverberated through the room unchanged.

“This was stupid, we didn’t get enough plants” Divine said stepping forward. “We need to turn it off”

“Don’t” Samuel spat, grabbing her arm.

“Back off idiot” she spat back elbowing him.

“Hey! Don’t!” Nigel said, moving to separate them. But he only succeeded in tripping, falling into both his friends, who crashed into the machine. The whirring from the device grew louder as the sound of metal striking the ground echoed through the room.

“What the hell you idiot?!” Divine cried.

“S-sorry, sorry” Nigel mumbled, trying to help the two up as he scrambled to his feet. Samuel slapped his hand away and turned to the machine, panicked.

“It’s not broken, is it? Is it broken?!” he cried out, looking over their machine.

“I’m fine thanks” Divine mumbled, standing as she dusted herself off. Samuel ignored her, searching the machine over desperately. The vacuum machine wasn’t broken, but their device - the important one - was.

A few wires had broken, lying on the floor lifeless, along with a few of the screws and the secondary battery they’d prepared.

Shit

He reached out instinctively to put it back together, and a sudden flash of yellow crackled between his hand, and one of the open wires. He cursed and scrambled back, knocking into both his friends.

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They all went down in a heap again, hitting the floor hard. But Samuel’s mind wasn’t on the pain from the fall. His body felt strange. More present, realer in a sense that was new to his mind. He groaned, his movements clumsy and slow, his mind struggling to deal with the weight of the sudden extrasensory awareness he’d gained of himself.

“Get the hell off you moron” Divine cried, pushing him off.

He rolled onto the floor and coughed hard, before a sudden wave of heat flowed through him, centred from his hand. He gasped, pulling the hand to his chest but then the heat vanished, leaving him only with a frown. The machine behind them began to buzz with a new sound, and all three turned to it, eyes wide.

Sparks. Golden white sparks flashed into existence from nothingness within the vacuum, then sputtered out.

“Samuel?!” Nigel cried, grabbing his friend by the shoulder.

“Quiet” Samuel hissed eyes still fixed on the occasional flickering of sparks. They all stood, staring at the sparks as they grew into a steady stream, then grew further eventually becoming a maelstrom that pinged against the inner glass of the vacuum machine.

The counter they’d kept on hand, the one that had only pinged twice since its creation, began to ping wildly, the pings growing into a near constant buzz, almost louder than the machine itself.

“Holy shit… we did it” Divine muttered. She turned to the others grinning, then threw her hands up in the air in triumph. “We fucking did it!”

The other two turned to her and began to laugh. The laugh was filled with joy, relief, and excitement. They had been mocked, shamed, ridiculed, but they had finally proved the others wrong. They’d been right. The life energy existed. And they’d found a way to materialise it.

“I- wow. What do we do now?” Nigel said.

“What do we do?!” Divine cried. “We fucking celebr-”

[£$%^&*!:“£%^8]

The words were instant. They impressed into the mind like a hand into clay, a hot knife through butter.

There was no noise, no sound, no indication anything had happened at all. Yet the words were still loud, powerful. They words were nonsensical, but the message was clear.

It was a warning.

They trio fell to the floor as the words reverberated in their brains, overpowering all other thoughts with a swiftness like nothing they’d ever felt.

The other two cried out, grabbing the sides of their heads as they fell to the ground. But not Samuel. He simply stared at the now glowing cloud of golden yellow sparks in front of him, grinning as the words pounded on the inside of his skull.

He forced himself upwards, staggering forwards and reached out for the cloud, with trembling hands. Blood began to ooze from his eyes, and ears, waves of an immaterial pressure slamming into his body, tearing apart things within himself he couldn’t yet understand. But he ignored it.

Divine looked to her childhood friend from the floor, shouted for him to stop. But it was too late.

The glass of the vacuum chamber shattered, spraying out everywhere as the glowing cloud of rippling golden energy grew. The glass cut across Samuel’s hand and face, drawing blood but he pushed forwards regardless, unaware of the pain.

His hand - burning now - stretched out through the empty air towards the cloud of pure power he could not look away from. Its light was wondrous. Perfect. The life energy, this magic, it was everything he’d ever dreamed off and more. He had to touch it. Grasp it. Feel the energy that called out to him.

Finally, his hand met the cloud, and everything went black.

Samuel’s mind twisted with pain, contorting and folding in on itself as reality bent forwards and backwards, time no longer linear. He tried to cry out, but his mouth no longer existed. Nothing physical did. There was only darkness and the thing he could not yet see.

Am I… dead?

His question was not answered, but right then, within the black, more sparks of the golden yellow begin to trickle through. Like rain, the sparks fell from above. In the silence of his mind, in the darkness, he watched as they fell.

It was peaceful, a feeling entirely separate from the mind-numbing pain he’d experienced earlier. Then they struck him, setting fire to his existence once more.

It was horrible. Painful. Twisted.

The experience was simply just plain wrong in so many ways.

And yet, so very, very right.

-

[WARNING: MANA IGNITION DETECTED]

[Locating]

[Found. Location designation: Z1-E94-C]

[Mana limiter engaged]

[Z1-E94-C to commence Trial protocol]

[Beginning stage 1: Advanced surveillance and integration]

[Stage 2 to begin in 1 system cycle]