Summer didn’t know what to expect when she rashly joined a magical alien army, but it wasn’t this.

Summer had exited the golden goo into a very strange looking building. She felt her jaw drop and her ‘deer in the headlights’ mode activate, but she didn’t care. She was still angry and determined.

The building was massive. Like five football stadiums—bleachers and everything included—massive. What immediately drew her attention were the humongous windows in the ceiling. They were letting in sunlight, of a sort. She could see the sun on the other side of those windows and it was way too big to make any sort of sense to her. The red star was very active in the window with swirling sun spots and large solar flares making her feel way too close for comfort.

She took a step back and was buffeted back by the golden goo behind her. Right, she thought to herself, I’m here to gain magical powers and escape the chaos of children.

She had already made her decision by leaving Haley all by herself, she couldn’t go back without accomplishing something. She was driven by guilt and the need to save face. What better motivators were there? She took a step forward and tried to find where she was supposed to go.

She looked around the large room and could see a dozen or so golden System Pillars spread out near the edges of the large dome. A few other figures had begun to exit out of those pillars. They must be the other humans that were drawn in by the announcement. There would probably be more that came later.

You know, she thought, after the appropriate amount of time to have actually thought through the decision.

She was getting a chance at magical abilities, so she really wasn’t that frustrated at herself. If there ever was a time to be selfish, it was when someone was offering you a chance to become an Ice Queen like Elsa. She tried to put her more childish fantasies aside for a second and looked to the middle of the room.

The room descended down in the center—like the room was built inside a huge crater and a dome was stuck on top. The room was far from empty though. There were large circular pockets where different sets of equipment sat. Each area was color coded by large circles on the floor of each section. Surprisingly, she could only see the colors in some of the rings in each circle while the rest were a shade of gray or beige to her senses. She knew humans could only see a small portion of light that was called ‘visible light’; maybe the other species could see the other sections of each circle.

At the bottom of the room was a huge circle with large steps for seating. The center circle looked like a gladiatorial arena. It even had a sandy surface that was lit up by a large, sun-filled window overhead.

The windows must have some sort of filter over them. Otherwise the room would just be filled with blindingly harsh light. Summer remembered using special glasses to look at a solar eclipse one time. Maybe the windows were made out of something like that. She also remembered thinking that the sun was such a small little ball in the sky when she wore those glasses. The sun outside the window looked like someone tried to make an anime sized moon into reality.

Were the windows magnifying the sun to appear closer? She wondered. Was this the kind of architecture would humans have come up with if they had magic to help with construction?

“Please, find a seat in the area below.” The announcement came as though right next to her. She jumped slightly, but she was getting used to those kinds of announcements. It was obviously an ability of some kind. She still found it weird to not hear the scratching from speakers when hearing announcements. Just another reminder that she wasn’t in Arkansas anymore—or whatever the phrase was that her parents always said.

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She heard footsteps behind her and she looked back to see a group of other kids emerging from the pillar. The pillar was spitting them out on all sides of the large cylinder. Each one of them stopped for a moment and stared up at the ceiling like she had.

Most of the newcomers seemed too young, like seeing the freshman on the first day of a new school year. There were only a few others she saw that seemed to be the same age as her. As an 18-year-old she was near the oldest someone could be and still have been taken away from Earth.

She wondered if there were any high school seniors that were left behind on Earth. She could only imagine being the only one left at the end of the school day. That would have been extremely difficult, even if the thought did make her chuckle a bit.

She turned and moved confidently down toward the arena. It took several minutes for her to make her way there. Along the way she got a better look at the contraptions around her. Everything looked so… well… alien to her. There were a dozen or so circular areas between the golden pillar she came through and the arena. In each circle was a completely new set of equipment. It made it hard for her to make heads or tails of what they could be for. The only similarities she noticed was the occasional headpiece that accompanied the rest of the set up. The headpieces at least looked mostly the same.

Finally, after what felt like a mile hike, she made it to the arena. The first thing she did was look up at the window. It truly was terrifying to see the star spinning slowly just beyond. It hadn’t occurred to her until just then that she was on a different planet than before. The planet she and Haley had been on had a big ring in the sky. This one was far closer to its star than felt natural or comfortable. With the sun being so red it probably meant she was in a completely different solar system.

“Excuse me,” a voice said behind her. She heard it, but her brain was still short circuiting. “Excuse me,” the voice asked again.

She broke herself from her stupor and turned to see a pre-teen boy that looked polynesian. “Sorry, I got lost in…space for a second.” She said with a calm smile.

“Uh, do you mind sitting with me,” the boy said. “I’m feeling a little lost here.”

“Of course,” she replied. She couldn’t tell if she was helping him or if he saw how lost she was and was helping her. She didn’t mind it though. It was a comfort to be experiencing all of this with someone else.

As they moved to find a seat she found out the boy’s name was Blaze and he had just turned twelve years old. He also mentioned how Earth years probably wouldn’t matter anymore and they’d have to learn how old they were based on whatever method the Boschyan’s used. That caused Summer’s brain to melt again, but really wasn’t that big of a deal. She was 18 to the rest of the humans and that’s what mattered to her. Blaze also talked about how some planets might take over 6 years to revolve around their sun so they might actually be the same age and that they might live to be thousands of years old with the Myst and that—

She cut Blaze off. “Let’s just sit and wait for whatever is supposed to happen next.” His face sank as she basically just asked him to shut up. “Sorry, I am just feeling a little overwhelmed for a moment,” she explained. “Maybe talking about our past will be easier than talking about our future?”

He brightened at the suggestion and began to ramble on about his family and where he was from. Summer could tell he just needed to talk to calm his nerves. Honestly, listening helped calm hers too. At least when the topic wasn’t so scary.

She found out that Blaze was from the Phoenix area too. As more kids filtered in around them they discovered everyone here was from the same general area. It made sense. Even with the dome as big as it was, it could only hold a few schools worth of kids. They must have several more domes like this filled with kids from across the globe. Maybe keeping them with people from the same area was the easiest way to ensure they were speaking the same language.

Without the ability to use Myst they didn’t have access to much of the Boschyan societies technology. It was amazing they had facilities like this designed for people without a spore. Maybe that was why they were so close to the red sun. They were using the unwanted real estate for the people without spores.

“Focus your attention here” the same voice that was making the announcements spoke to her. Everyone else must have heard it as well, because the place grew silent immediately. Making thousands of kids shut up all at once was magic if she had ever seen it.

“It is time to begin your training,” the voice said again. “Let’s begin by completely altering the way you perceive reality.”

Oh great, Summer thought, more mind blowing shenanigans!