I repeated my tasks in my mind like a mantra. Unlock the shelters. Contact Vos. Unlock the Shelters. Contact Vos. It was all I could do since I wasn't sure how to even begin. I sat down and attempted to get comfortable in the strange glowing room. I closed my eyes. As soon as my eyelids shut, I could again feel the vibration all around me. If I didn't know better, I would say this crystalline substance was alive. The vibrations swirled in and out, in an expanding and contracting pattern. It was nearly like breathing. I tried to synch my own breaths to the flow of it. In and out, I breathed and emptied my mind. It was hard to let go of the sense of urgency and desperation, but I did my best to release it. I grew more in tune with the pleasant sensation of the vibration under my skin like my blood was singing in my veins. It became easier to let my focus drift, and soon enough I was lost in a trance-like state.

  I knew that something was going to happen, but it was different this time than previous I'd had with Vos. There was no sudden hallucination or appearance of strange visions. No there was more of a knowing sense, a subtle perception through the waves of vibration, that something was coming. I dove deeper into that sensation, following where it led. I allowed the luminescence to flow through me as it wanted. I imagined that if I was looking at myself, I would be glowing with the strange light. The perception took me along a winding path and I began to have strong mental images. It was somewhere between a dream and imagination. I saw Alliance officials. They were riding through a winding jungle pass, cliffs jutting out on the right-hand side.

  Below the cliffs were what looked like miles and miles of more jungle. I saw nobody I recognized, except one. The long gray hair gave away the fact that Marcia Cray was traveling in this group. When my perspective rose, I could see that her vehicle was being trailed by perhaps hundreds of others. It was an entire army of Alliance soldiers. What else could they be doing, but coming to destroy us? I was lost in the image of it, but I had to break the trance and warn the others. If I was right, the Alliance was heading our way with an army and there was a terrible storm brewing that I didn't know how to control.

  I gasped, my heart pounding as I reentered the glowing room deep within the caves. I rose up and began running, trying to make it out of the winding corridor and up into the camp to find Lucia. There was chaos since women and children from the city were already being herded into the caves. It was pitch black and I couldn't see anything. There were so many unfamiliar faces, and the noise was deafening. There was no way I could have seen it coming. Someone, a man with broad hairy arms, pulled me in and covered my mouth with a cloth. I tried to scream, but it was impossible to be heard over the crowd. At least the shelters were opened, I hoped desperately that they close up securely once everyone was safely inside. The Luminescence seemed to know what it was doing after all. I couldn't know if anyone had seen him take me. I fought against the rising tide of darkness, but in a matter of seconds, sleep overtook me.

  When I gained consciousness the first thing that crossed my mind was Adam. I hadn't gotten to say goodbye to him. The thought of it brought burning heat to my throat that I had to fight back. I didn't know what they wanted with me, but I knew that eventually, they would kill me. Our trap hadn't worked. If anything, the Alliance had trapped us. I whispered a desperate plea for the Resistance and the innocent survivors in the city to be safely hidden in the caverns. I opened my eyes. My hands were bound behind my back to a wooden chair. I was in an office. It was small but very upscale, with the heavy wooden furniture of the presidential era. These things had been reserved for the most elite members of the alliance. There was a thick carpet under my toes. They had taken my shoes. Smart. I wasn't going to be running anywhere. Did they plan to torture me here? It didn't make sense, shouldn't I be in a prison complex of some sort? I heard walking outside the door, perhaps two or three sets of footsteps. I could pretend to remain asleep, but I had never been a very convincing actress. It was no use. I heard the door creak as it was opened.

  Marcia Cray herself, the leader of the Alliance, stood before me in the doorway.

  "Well, Lane Everly, I have to say its a pleasure to meet you." She smiled, a cloying familiar face that she often wore on the News.

  "I can't say I return the feeling," I said sharply. It was up for me. There was no use in playing nice.

  "She's got a bite," Cray added nonchalantly to the man walking beside her. He appeared to be some sort of executive assistant with his notepad and subservient puppy dog expression. "I'll cut to the chase Lane, we've been interested in how you've put your Alliance Education to use." She smiled again. I gritted my teeth.

  "Is that so?" I showed nothing in my face.

  "Yes, We knew all about your little experiments in Sector 4." She said, and I tried to hide my surprise. I must not have been successful because she added, "Oh yes. It's true. In fact, we know all about the entity that calls itself Vos." I felt a sharp stab of panic. They knew nearly everything it seemed.

  "What do you want with me?" I frowned. "It's not so much you that we want anything with..." She drawled, letting her words linger with me. "We've been searching for the luminescence for a long time now. Every time we find someone who seems that they could be the one, we send them to be radicalized by the Alliance in hopes that they might be the key. The key to unlocking the Luminescence." Her self-satisfied smirk was unbearable.

  I played dumb, "Well you're going to be sorely disappointed. I don't have any kind of Luminescent anything." I hoped she couldn't hear the underlying desperation in my tone. "I think we both know that's not true." She gestured to her assistant and he pulled a small chunk of stone from a box in a side cabinet. I could tell even from this distance that it was covered in Luminescence, not only because I could see it, but because I could feel it. The vibration was unmistakable. In the underground caverns, every surface was covered in it, so it became almost unnoticeable. However, here in this room with no other piece of luminescence, the draw was unbelievably powerful. I could feel the crystals in my skin begging to be let loose to connect with the stone.

  "I don't know what you're talking about." I grimaced and felt a bead of sweat forming on my forehead. Her smile faded and was replaced with a sharp wolf-like expression. "Come now, we have things to do, places to be." She cajoled. Her assistant brought the stone forward resting it in my hands. It was almost painful. This was different than when I chose to connect with the Luminescence. This was a force, painfully drawing it out of me, against my will. I was fighting to hold it back, but it was no use, the Luminescence was stronger than me. I felt the crystals forming on my skin, connecting to the stone.

  "See that wasn't so hard." The smile was back on her face. "What. Do. You. Want. With. Me?" I stared into her dark eyes. "Simply put, Lane, we want to study you. We believe that your power will lead us to understand the Threshold Crisis and ultimately to control it."

  "I don't have that kind of power," I responded, knowing that she wouldn't believe me.

  "Yes, but we don't really need you."

  "What do you mean?" I was confused. "If you didn't need me, I wouldn't be tied to this chair right now."

  She caught me as I began to falter. "We think you will be able to serve the Alliance well through Somnolence, as we study your abilities." She seemed to take pleasure in the words. I felt my breathing speed up. This was worse than if she told me they were planning to kill me. They are going to use my body to harvest energy while they try to find a key to access Vos for their own purposes. I had no idea whether the members of the Resistance were safe. I was tied to a chair in the middle of the Global Peace Alliance and Marcia Cray herself was threatening me.

  "It sounds like you don't need much input from me," I replied sardonically. "Now you're beginning to see it our way." She crowed. "We'll be back for you soon." Both Cray and her assistant exited the room, leaving me alone. Without shoes, I didn't have much hope of running away, so I'd have to use the only skill I currently possessed.

  I whispered, not sure who was listening in, "Vos, if you're there, I need some serious help right now." Back in the cavern, I had been able to induce a vision by connecting to the vibration of the luminescence. Here I didn't even have that. Cray's assistant had taken the small chunk of rock with him when they left the room. I would have to simply do my best. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine I was back in the cave. I tried to see it as clearly as I could, but my heart was pounding so hard, it was difficult to focus. I shook my head trying to clear out all the lingering thoughts, but it was useless. I could feel the tears of frustration welling up. Not even this would save me now. I waited for several hours, hopelessly trying to find any way to escape, but nothing occurred to me. The ropes were too tight for me to get loose. There was nothing in the office that could have helped me, and even if there had been, I had no way of getting to it. I resigned myself to my fate. I let my mind wander to Adam. I was grateful for the few moments of happiness that we had shared in the last few weeks. It was more than I could have ever hoped for. I wanted his face to be the last thing in my mind before they put me out. Would I dream while I was under the somnolence? I supposed that I would find out soon enough. The door to the office opened it was Marcia Cray's assistant once more. He was carrying a large syringe with an unnaturally blue liquid. He was wordless as he positioned it at my arm. I tried to rest my arm away, but he forcefully held it in place. I felt the needle pierce my skin and there was an intense pressure as he pumped the blue liquid into my arm. I closed my eyes not knowing what would happen to me.

  Seven

  I was startled awake. The darkness was all around me, a mask over my sight. Dried tears had made my face puffy, but I tried to blink away the dark. At the end of a long tunnel was a small pinprick of light. Strangely, It seemed to grow larger the longer I looked at it until it was a rather wide opening. How had I not noticed it right away? My legs were weak, but I forced myself up nonetheless. It was bright as day outside. I pulled myself away from the darkness only to find that I had been asleep in a cave. Had the Alliance brought me here, and left me to die?

  That makes no sense because I had watched them pump me full of the chemical that causes the somnolence. Perhaps I had been changed enough by the luminescence, that it didn't affect me the same way. Maybe I was immune to it. I began to walk out into the bright daylight. I had to cover my eyes because the light was almost blinding. Across a small clearing was an old growth forest. It was nothing like the jungle I had come from. It was more sparse, perfect for a person to walk through. I made my way slowly at first, uncertain of what direction I should even travel. Worst case scenario, I could take cover in the forest and shelter overnight.

  The weirdest part about this place was how quiet it was. There were no birds or other small animals, at least not that I could hear or see. It was quiet. It was almost as if everything here was standing completely still. Even my own movements did little to disrupt the quiet peace. I kept walking. I turned back to see the cave I had walked out of. It was too far away. Strange. I hadn't gone that far, and there was good visibility. I should be able to see it. I put it out of my mind and continued walking, but soon enough it began to taunt my brain. I'll just go back really quick.

  I hadn't gone more than a quarter of a mile, so I turned around and entered the clearing once more, but the only thing I could see was more forest. There was nothing, no cave, nothing. Despite the anxiety manifesting in my chest, the stillness all around me seemed to blanket the worst of it. It must have been a hallucination, caused by whatever drug they had given me. It was inconsequential because I still didn't know where I was, so it really didn't matter If I lost a cave or two along the way. I didn't even know if I was going North or South. I returned to the forest again. There was almost a pathway before me. It could possibly be a deer trail, but the idea of other people raised my spirits.

  I began to walk faster. Eventually, there had to be something. It almost looked like I was back in a forest in N-am where I had lived before all this business even started. IN that case, civilization had to be near. So much of N-am had been developed that there were only small swatches of forest left. I let my pace pick up. It would be much safer if there were others, assuming the alliance wasn't after me. They had brought me here and left me, so I didn't think that possibility was very likely.

  There were huge stones all along the path I was walking. They grew more and more frequent until they nearly lined the path. It appeared to be purposeful, although the stones were massive. They would have had to be moved by machines. They were old stones, however, dark and weathered, with an ancient appearance. The old trick about knowing which side of the stone moss grows on wouldn't help me here, because many of the stones were covered with moss on all sides. I began to notice the trees and forest shrubs. It all looked so familiar, and yet I began to notice with some amazement that I couldn't recognize any of the species here. There was one tree with papery bark that looked like birch, but it wasn't. It had a strange pattern of lines in the bark, and it was much too dark in color. Another appeared close to pine, but it was much too short and wide at the base. The entire forest, from grasses to trees, was unfamiliar. It was strange and uncomfortable to be in a place where I couldn't speak the language of its biology. Even more uncomfortable was the fact that I had not yet seen any wildlife. That was very unusual. Was there something killing all the animals? If there was, then it would likely not be safe for humans either. My best guess was that I was in some kind of exclusion zone where the earlier people had detonated particle disruption technology at a massive scale. There were still many places that were unsafe due to excessive amounts of radioactive material.

  If that was the case, there was still not much I could do about it. I didn't know which direction was safe, so I could end up running towards the nucleus of the danger if I wasn't careful. I decided to stay on the same path. I would likely die of starvation before radioactivity could hurt me anyway. The way was now very clearly a dirt path leading me in a certain direction. It began to gently wind and slope upwards. It became pretty steep, but I felt no sensations of exertion. It was as if gravity worked differently here, and my steps were lighter than they should be. I followed the path for hours, but the light never changed. The angle of the sun stayed the same throughout. It was incomprehensible. Was I on a different planet? Eventually, I began to see small patches of darkness amongst the trees. It was odd as they were not formed by the shadows of any object. It unsettled me to my core. I began to almost jog, hoping that something would be at the end of my journey.

  Out of the side of my eye, I felt as though I could see the shadows twisting. Were they moving? That was impossible. The only movement I saw in the forest so far had been my own. I kept my pace up even as I tried to rationalize the strange things I'd seen. Nothing about this place had been normal so far, I really should stay alert. With one eye on the shadows and one eye on the path ahead, I stumbled my way through the length of the forest. Roots rose up out of the path and I did my best to navigate them without tripping, but I was becoming more frightened by the minute. The path began to lead to a collection of even larger rocks, some shaped almost as stairs. I climbed, as fast as I could, feeling as though I was being pursued. I tripped on a particularly loose rock and fell flat on my face. I felt something on my shoulder and flinched hard, letting out a sharp cry. However, a voice reached out to me in my despair.

  "It's all right, come this way, quickly," I looked up and saw that it was a boy about my age and he was reaching for my hand. I let him pull me up.

  "Thank you," I said quickly following him as he bounded across the rocks. "Where are we going?"

  "Somewhere safe." He responded, breathless as we traversed the rocks. I had no choice but to trust him. We scaled the rock covered hill and I began to see something strange. At the top of the peak was a stone formation, it was ancient and monolithic. I'd never seen anything like it in person, only in the pages of history books. As we got closer I could see people underneath the spires of the stone temple. How was this safe? The shadow creatures couldn't be far behind us, but I just followed without questions. At the top of the hill, the boy started running in earnest. I followed but was hit by something. I pushed forward, but I couldn't get through. It was like the stone temple was surrounded by a force field. I reached out to feel it and my hand was flat against it. It felt like thrumming energy and it vibrated gently under my palm. I saw him turn around and come back through. It was as though he was able to part the tide of the energy with his hand. An entrance was made for me and I passed through the forcefield as he pulled me through. It was like nothing I have ever seen.

  Eight

  From the outside of the forcefield, I could see the stone temple only. On the inside was a rich tapestry of hundreds of people gathered. There were booths set up and people had spread out all sorts of items from jewelry to beautiful cloth. The temple was even more magnificent than it had appeared from the outside. There were strange green lights in all the spires and along the walls. It was Luminescence. That was clearly visible now. The boy led me through the center of the small community. There were all sorts of people, from all over the world. It was unclear how everyone had arrived here, but everyone seemed generally well. I didn't notice any injured or sick, at least not yet. Perhaps my fears of radiation poisoning were unfounded.

  "Where are you taking me?" I asked as we wove through the throngs of people, most of whom were clad in colorful loose fabrics.

  "I'm taking you to our Shaman, Dona Amaru," He said. I did a double take, unable to believe what he had just said. Of all the people, how did she get here, if it was, in fact, the same person? We ended up going all the way up into the temple. The stone was the same as the weathered rocks that had lined the path on the way here. It was cool and dark inside the structure, but one thing hadn't changed. The stillness was almost deafening. Despite the fact that there were hundreds of people here, the sounds were muted as though they were being reflected into a dampening material of some sort. I followed the boy all the way until we reached an entryway and inside was a small room outfitted with a handcrafted bed, few sparse linens and a table with two chairs. It was somebody's bedroom. The chairs sat empty and the boy gestured for me to sit down, so I did.

 

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