Caste paced forward.

Back.

Forward.

Back.

Was he counting days like the Cognate in front of his cell?

No.

He was counting down days until his escape. Which was today, right at this moment, as soon as a guard showed their repulsing face to bring him food.

In the meantime, his eyes were locked on a small wooden tablet they’d written a sloppy message on. Half the letters in the Miraen alphabet were incorrect. “It is never too lat wro tak us intovtye Amirae.” Was exactly what it said. Caste had spent most of today making fun of it in his head.

It was clear however, that he actually had gone insane, and he’d need to rehabilitate himself for several hours in the Mirae after a huge escape.

Using his dark magic would at least help. Hopefully.

Trin, forgive me for my crimes I will be committing today against this people of the Physical World. He prayed, trying not to feel guilty. It was hard.

The guard showed up, finally, bending down slowly to push the food into Caste’s cell.

Caste approached calmly, but as soon as the guard’s hand was under, he shot down and pulled it up, snapping his arm right out of its socket.

The guard howled. Caste didn’t care, however. He instead connected his magic through the floors and pulled the key into his hand.

He unlocked the cell and broke into a sprint, using his dark magic to boost his footsteps.

Caste had memorized this place by now. He knew where the exit was. Just three lefts, a right, a left, and two rights. Up the ladder, onto the roof.

Around his fifth turn, his running was actually noticed. Three guards confronted him, all wielding magic.

Caste bared his teeth and fired dark right at their light, finally creating a bubble to protect himself from the explosion. He ran through, leaping over their disconnected corpses, picking up speed and making the two rights. He scampered up the ladder.

Twenty people surrounded him, all pointing things like swords, knives, and other blades, firearms and weapons that Caste really wasn’t in any mental state to identify.

Either way, he didn’t plan on this.

He fired first, at the closest one. His newly-created dark magic shuriken punctured the man in the heart. He fell to his knees as blood gushed out from his new wound. He’d never wake again.

A net was fired at Caste. It whipped through the air as he scrambled to dodge it. A second one went off, but he was so focused on the first net that he was soon pinned down.

Everyone rushed to him to try and contain him, but they were way too slow. Caste formed his own knife, a ykuvzpuxx, as his people named it. It had a scythe-like edge and could easily be thrown.

He sliced through the netting and threw himself upward. Caste landed a hard kick in the closing in Quuark’s gut, sending them recoiling. Immediately, three swarmed him.

He threw his knife at the first, also hitting him in the heart. As it flew through the air, Caste teleported to an easier tactical position. Where his knowledge on combat came from was a mystery for another day.

The closest Quuark drew their enhanced claymore and swung it around, lunging for Caste.

Caste created his own using dark magic. Somewhere, he didn’t know where or how, he’d learned to swordfight.

Their weapons clashed together as Caste forced the Quuark back. His magic flustered at the constant striking, but he ignored it.

Caste tripped the Quuark after a few more strikes, quickly landing his own sword into their head.

His dark magic flickered again, but this time it vanished entirely.

Welp, looks like he’d have to fight his way out the Physical World’s way.

Caste pried the claymore out of the guard’s limp hand and dragged it across the stone roof. Sparks flew everywhere where the metal contacted the rock.

Someone from behind him grabbed his two horns. He would’ve already snapped them off if there weren’t so many nokgoj inside them. Using this person as a support, Caste boosted himself into the air, flipping backward and landing on the person’s shoulders.

However, his footing slipped. Something clanged on his feet. This person was wearing armor, and a lot of it.

She grabbed a hold of his wrist tightly, squeezing it. “Why hello, little bean.” She said in his language. “Trying to escape, are we?”

Caste struggled in her grip. “Your morals are excessively flawed.” Her name popped into his head against his will, meaning she was a Cognate. “Thana.”

She growled. “You know nothing, Kaste. I would say yours are equal to mine.”

Caste threw a hard punch onto her face, recalling his magic to boost his fist. She wasn’t expecting him to be violent.

She yipped, recoiling back. Caste launched himself off the ground and pelted further away, again using his dark magic to continue. His Physical body had already given up a long time ago.

“Get that alien!” Thana screeched from behind him. She didn’t actually say alien, but that was really the best word it could be translated to. A serious Mirae insult.

Caste leaped off the roof, propelling himself over the surrounding fence.

He had one more fence to cover. Caste kept his momentum, though his body in the Mirae was begging him not to continue using so much magic. It ached and shifted uncomfortably.

Caste reached the stone fence, scaling over it. As soon as he reached the barb wire at the top, he simply ignored it and lept off. It scratched his body fiercely, and his landing was more of a tumble.

His senses tingled. He wasn’t safe. Caste tried getting up, but his Mirae body and Physical body both said no. He’d drained everything he had. There were now voices, and the voices got louder and louder. They were still after him.

After another attempt of moving his body, blood was now streaming down from his hands and legs where he’d been caught in the wire.

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Quuarks were now running from an exit in the fence. Caste clenched his teeth, imagining what they’d do to him if they got their hands on him. There was really only one last resort.

Take me, he begged in his head. Save me.

With one final burst, gathering all the strength from his body, a Mir-Gate exploded under him. It stole all of his energy, whatever was left, and grabbed his body. Before it stole him, he asked one more thing that required no energy.

Allow no one into the Mirae in this area.

The portal violently threw him down, down, down. Caste held his breath, as he couldn’t control the harsh treatment.

Caste landed with a thud on his bad back, but he was in the Mirae. He would be safe for just a while.

“I can feel that.” Caste said tiredly as the rest of the staff turned to him, shocked. He was sat up in one of their treating beds, as the three doctors around him were all trying to find anything about the small implant on his spine that had tazed him, triggered by light magic.

The Dreamer removed her hand from his forehead. “Nothing about the device?”

“No.” He sighed. “It must have been taken from my memory when I stayed in the Mirae for a whole month.”

“I’ll find it,” She said, returning her hand in place. Caste allowed her into his mind. He ignored the feeling of someone searching through his suppressed memories. He had a distinct feeling that the memory she would have to find would already be deep in The Nexus.

“There’s more to that whole escape. Basically, I went back into Everton after leaving the Mirae. My magic was strong enough just to get to Finx, and as I was trying to, some Mir-Hunters caught me and javelined me in the foot. Their aim was terrible, but I still had to run and took shelter in a host-family residence.”

Technically, it was just Keoni’s home, but he’d felt like it was such. Everything had magic drifting off of it, and Keoni’s spectrum strength was incredible.

Her unfamiliarity had thrown him off when she’d seen him. Instead of defending himself, like he usually would, Caste found himself begging for mercy, though she didn’t pose him any harm.

He felt silly now, but he’d gotten safety from her either way. Caste had also finally found someone who wanted to rescue all those innocent Mir-Cognates. And her family. Them too.

“We should try to remove it. It might not be rigged with anything harmful.” One of the doctors around him said bluntly.

“It’s cabled to my nokgoj. That’s how it knows when to detonate.” Caste grunted. “That’s probably why my magic is all messed up.”

“It would make sense,” They responded. Then they turned to the Dreamer. “Juvi, we need to flip Kaste around.”

Juvi let go, opening her eyes. “Of course.”

Two of the three doctors went to Caste’s sides and lifted him up with his arms. The electrical shock had left him partially paralyzed, only allowing tiny movements in his body. They were all hoping that’d go away if the device left his body.

He was turned lightly onto his stomach and lowered back down. The doctors quickly got to work. Luckily, they’d already located where the little machine was, so it was only a matter of reaching to grab it with magic.

But as soon as their light contacted his spine and triggered his nokgoj, the electricity shot through his bones from the interaction of light. Caste gasped loudly from the fizzy feeling crashing through his body, and his sight of all magic flickered in front of him. It trembled his skin and numbed any other functional senses he had.

White spots clouded in his vision, but instead of passing out, his sight blackened.

Caste heard something clank onto the nearby table. “Got it!” One of the doctors exclaimed, and they all sighed with relief.

It probably wasn’t over yet, as Caste knew they were still inspecting along his spine for a possible second device. He couldn’t remember if there were any more though.

“Can you not feel that?” Someone asked from behind him. He still couldn’t see a thing after the shock, and he couldn’t feel whatever they were talking about either.

“No,” he finally responded. “What are you doing?”

He didn’t answer. Someone else took a sharp breath in.

Their cryptic-ness was not helping.

“I’m not sure what happened,” He started. “But it looks like your whole secondary nerve system has been entirely disconnected. I don’t think you can see any magic right now.”

“Like my nokgoj is flat-out not working?” Caste was afraid to ask.

“Yes.”

He bit his lip. It took a while to notice, but his temporary blindness wasn’t his actual vision. It was everything that he could see producing magic that had left his view.

On the bright side, if there was any light left that he could see, Caste could feel some of his limbs again.

“It can be easily healed. But the whole process will take several days, and you should probably stay blindfolded so your vision doesn’t get too distorted.”

Despite everything that fought against him, he turned himself around and sat up. Caste was met with a strange look. All the color was inverted, and the people he was looking at all had zero magic coming from them. Even he had nothing, nor could he feel the dark and light.

Was this what it was like for people from the Physical world? They were so… blind.

“Wait, nope, that’s an easy fix,” One of the others said. She reached for his spine along his back. He couldn’t feel or see any of her magic.

Suddenly, tons of light flashed on his eyes. Caste squinted, feeling all the magic come back to him. He breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was normal again.

“Everything else seems perfectly fine,” She said. “You should be clear to leave, if you can move again.”

“The last time I was clear to leave, I still had problems,” Caste pointed out.

“You have always had problems,” Juvi said jokingly, patting his head. He glared at her.

One of the other doctors pulled him up. Caste was partially limp, but he forced strength through his muscles to hold himself steady sitting on the bed.

Someone knocked on the door before opening it. It looked like another one of the hospital staff.

“Kaste, you have a visitor who’s requested a private audience with you.”

The rest of the doctors stepped out without another word as the visitor entered.

“Caste,” Kaedin addressed him in Physcia. “Hospitalized again, I see.”

“Kaedin,” He responded right back. “What brings you here?”

“You.” Caste almost smacked his forehead. Of course they wanted to see him. That’s why they came.

Caste pulled himself together. “Sorry, Kaedin. What is it that you needed?”

“I want to know more about the Quuarks. They killed my Tejh Sister’s mother and I, and I need to know their weaknesses.”

Caste didn’t want to disappoint them. “I’m not sure I have anything useful to you. Just…” his throat closed before he could continue. He forced himself to talk after a minute. “Just… things they do to our people.”

He pushed away the chunk of thoughts that were rushing into his mind, about everything they could’ve possibly done to each and every innocent person…

“Caste.” Kaedin put their hand on his shoulder. “Snap out of it. You’re okay. Do they have weaknesses?”

He couldn’t exactly calm himself at the moment. He didn’t respond. Caste’s emotion was getting the better of him. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to focus.

“Deep breath. You are calm.”

Caste did as he was told. “Yes. They have information on us based only on their studies. I took them by surprise by using dark instead of light, and fighting instead of cowering.” His blood began to simmer down as he cleared his mind, thinking only of the dripping of water in a pond. Focusing on that held his thoughts behind a barrier.

“Why do you want to know again?” He asked once he’d settled.

Kaedin shrugged. “I’m not sure yet.”

Caste stared at them. “You’re weird.” He commented.

“I get that a lot,” Kaedin chortled, already opening the door. Before Caste could ask them any more questions, they walked out.

Every interaction with Kaedin just got more and more puzzling. He’d just have to hope they wouldn’t do anything crazy.

The doctors re-entered. They seemed to have talked over their plans, as one of them immediately started speaking. “Since you can’t rechallenge for another week due to your injuries and technical forfeit, we would like to run some tests and possibly look for more devices the Quuarks may have implanted in you.”

“Alright.” He gathered his thoughts. “You have my consent.”

He laid back down as they began to go over more of their plans. Anything they could find would help, as his Physical body needed any assistance more than the world. It was ever-weakening, and Caste wasn’t entirely sure how much more he could return to it.

He also hoped Qaye was actually looking after Keoni and Ryley, as it was a spontaneous ask of him. Not a lot of the Mir-Cognates would appreciate the two foreigners wandering around and could honestly send them hurtling to their deaths within seconds.

Both he and them would hopefully remain in good hands. Yuko vigon, as his people would say. It just meant to trust the hands of those who care.

As he closed his eyes and just enclosed himself in the Mirae, yuko vigon was the best thing to think.