Chapter 2:

The stone she was sitting on wasn’t exactly comfortable, but Dorea’s attention was fixed upon the approaching Wrath. It was an almost uniform wall of dark clouds where purple lighting crackled and illuminated the world for seconds at a time. The rain seemed much thicker than any other storm she had ever seen, and though she couldn’t feel the winds yet, Dorea could easily imagine them being powerful as well.

The only description of an active Wrath she knew of was that of the earthquake her tribe had survived so many years ago that had forced them to relocate to the coast.

There, her grandmother had gained her earth magic, which she used to great success in her life, becoming the village headwoman for quite some time.

Considering it was an event so terrible that the whole tribe still barely speaks of it decades afterward, I’m not sure that everyone here is aware enough of the very real danger we are in.

Besides Jonah, who was always worried about everything, most others were almost excited about the coming Trial.

I get that gaining the ability to do magic is cool, I really do, but it seems to be the only thing they can think about. I bet they didn’t even pack half of what I did.

“Dorea, do you feel ready for the Trial?” Jonah asked nervously, shifting his weight around.

Dorea turned around to face him, her blue eyes meeting his own “We’ve always known there was a possibility of it happening to us.” she said with a calmness she wasn’t sure she felt. “Now we just have to trust Voggo’s potion and the Mother’s mercy.”

“But what if we fail?” he trembled, twisting his hands.

Dorea placed a hand on his shoulder, her touch comforting. “Failure is not an option”, she said firmly. “We have done all we could and just have to trust that it will be enough. When it’s over, we’ll be able to do so much more for our people.”

The boy hesitated, his eyes peering at her from beneath thick lashes. “But what about the consequences of becoming Gifted? What if we’re not ready for the responsibility that comes with it?”

Dorea nodded thoughtfully, her brow furrowed in deep concentration. "That's a valid concern," she said, her voice soft and empathetic.

"But we can't let fear hold us back. We have to face whatever comes our way and be willing to learn from our mistakes. And as for the responsibility, we'll have each other to rely on. We'll be stronger together.”

Jonah looked down at the waters below, his heart heavy with doubt. "I know you're right. I just can't help but think about how our lives will change if we succeed. We'll have so much power, which comes with many expectations."

“But that means we’ll be able to do so much more!” Another arm snaked around Jonah’s shoulders, their attention turning to Beth, who had evidently been paying attention to the conversation.

“The Wrath is going to change everything, no matter what we would like to happen”, the girl added.

“And think of what the tribes nearby would do to us if we were the weakest one simply because we didn’t have enough Gifted to protect ourselves”, she added, straying the line between teasing and genuine concern.

“At the very least, the Heidels to the south are unlikely to become more belligerent, but the Northern Mountains tribes could very easily start getting some ideas”, Dorea added, not liking the idea very much but knowing, thanks to her parent's discussions that the other Sapiens tribes in the vicinity, the Northern Mountains tribes, were led by bellicose men, who’d take any opportunity to raid those they deemed weaker.

“That’s not particularly reassuring”, Interjected Jonah with a half-smile, showing that he wasn’t offended by their lack of tact.

“Well, as my mum always says, a problem you know about is a problem you can resolve”, responded Dorea. “If we know to expect trouble from the north, we can concentrate our attention there and not waste resources elsewhere.”

“Eddie said that the hunters will start patrols around the village as soon as the Wrath has passed” Beth’s cousin, Eddie, was one of the hunters who brought back meat in leaner times and, more importantly, culled the Beast population in fatter ones, when the herds could become dangerous for the entirety of the village.

Jonah breathed out slowly. “I guess it is reassuring that there are plans already in motion to make sure everything goes well” he turned to face the churning waters in the distance. “At least what we can control is well in hand.”

“Mum said that this new version of the potion we drank is much better than what they had the last time a Trial visited our tribe”, Dorea comforted, giving one last pat to the boy’s shoulder before turning back to watching Nature’s Wrath approaching.

“Thanks, that helps a bit”, Jonah replied, smiling without as much insecurity as before at both girls before falling quiet in contemplation.

I’m happy that he’s feeling better. I know that no preparation is enough, but doing something is better than nothing.

She thought as she removed her rucksack from her shoulders and placed it in front of her, pulling on the strings that tied its opening shut.

Her brain shut down for a couple of seconds, struggling to process what her eyes were telling her.

In front of her was quite obviously the wrong bag. In her haste, she had to have switched the two identical rucksacks. She brought the one filled with her favourite clothes and accessories instead of the one with all the survival items she had accumulated over the years of “adventuring”.

Her shoulders slumped dramatically, and she clenched her hands around the straps for a couple of seconds before glancing up at the storm and forcefully exhaling through her nose.

This sucks, this really, really sucks.

She pulled out her grandmother's necklace and tied it around her neck, deciding that if she had to risk losing it, at the very least, she could wear it one last time.

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Dorea unclenched her hands and closed the bag, putting it back on her shoulders.

I know that no preparation is ever enough to survive Nature’s Wrath, but I really thought I had done something to help.

She shook her head, deciding it wasn’t worth losing her mind over, considering how the wind was slowly picking up.

To her left, Jonah and Beth were focused on the storm, and she didn’t want to bother them with something so inconsequential.

It’s not like it actually matters; get over it, Dorea.

She turned to her right, where a much taller boy than Jonah sat. Rupert was the first to drink Voggo’s potion and, as far as she could remember, had always been the village's most courageous and adventurous kid.

Her eyes followed one dark lock of hair that almost touched his eyebrow, down his straight nose, and stopped at his plump lips.

He’s grown a lot this last year, huh.

He was always the tallest boy in the group, but his shoulders had filled in quite nicely, and he had lost most of his baby fat, leaving behind a chiselled jaw and noticeable cheekbones.

So focused was she on her examination that she didn’t realize she was openly staring, so when his mouth opened, she was startled out of her focus. “You know, my lips are as soft as they look”, he whispered, winking.

Dorea almost jumped, blushing red down her neck and stammered back, “I-I wasn’t staring at you; I was just thinking about the Trial!”

“I’m sure that’s true, dear Dora”, was the cheeky reply, complete with a big stretch of his arms that pulled his shirt and revealed a flash of his abs.

Her eyes followed the slip of skin for a second before she realized she had betrayed herself once again and forcefully looked up to see Rupert openly chuckling.

She shook her head and turned towards her friends, hoping nobody had seen her. Jonah appeared to be lost in thought, not paying attention to anything, but Beth was smirking at her, eyes twinkling with merriment.

Dorea decided to cut her losses and faced the approaching storm, committed to not think about her embarrassment anymore.

Surely with the Trial and all, they won’t remember this moment, will they? She asked herself, not sounding very convincing.

Her attention was drawn away from her spiralling thoughts by a strange feeling of heaviness that came with every breath.

The air itself seemed to be thickening with power as she had known it would once the Wrath had come close enough.

In the past, this sensation would have been the only warning that something more than a typical weather event was coming, but the presence of Shamans served as a much earlier warning.

I’m not entirely sure about how they do all they do, but Mum assured me that Shamans worth their salt are capable enough to sense when Mother Nature is moving.

That had not always been the case, but these last few decades had seen an increase in the capabilities of Shamans alongside the frequency of the Wraths being visited upon the lands.

According to her mum, the world produced more mana than it used to, thus causing both humans and Beasts to change alongside it. Some people thought it was the Mother’s will, while others, like her father, believed that it was a natural, cyclical process.

It used to be once every three or four generations per region, but now we have them every two or so. I’m sure I heard some hunters say that the Mother is preparing us for something, but I have no clue what it could be.

It seemed to her a bit of a reach to think that they could interpret their Goddess’ reasonings when the Shaman, whose job mainly was to connect the tribe to her will, wasn’t saying it was so, but she supposed there could be some truth to their thoughts.

Father said that we can’t know if the coming of the Wraths is even Mother Nature’s will or if she just gives us the tools to survive them and rebuild.

She supposed that since other tribes had different beliefs, they would necessarily have different explanations for how the world worked. Still, she had never met anyone outside her village beyond the seasonal merchants, and they were more interested in selling their wares than discussing philosophy.

The only people that regularly met with outsiders were the scouts, who patrolled their territory and saw other villages’ equivalents, but she had never had the opportunity to ask.

Dorea soon decided that getting lost in the theological debate wasn’t particularly useful at the moment.

The wind was really starting to pick up, and she could even begin to feel tiny raindrops hitting her, though the bulk of the storm still wasn’t close to making landfall.

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The potion her mother and Voggo had prepared was the fruit of many generations of Trial and error. It was meant to open their spirits to the Mother’s influence and prevent them from going insane at the influx of power. According to her mum, the Shaman was confident that the casualty rate this time would be much lower than her grandmother's generation's near-split chance.

The old man had been obsessed all his life with perfecting the concoction to such a degree that no one would die unnecessarily or, worse, have to be put down after going mad because of the power going rampant through their bodies.

Apparently, every tribe had some variation of it, and they all produced slightly different effects. Still, their Shaman had become Gifted after surviving a close encounter with a Mana Geyser, a type of localized Wrath that granted weaker, non-elemental powers.

That meant he did not develop powerful offensive abilities, but his skill at perceiving mana flows was second to none.

Their specific potion was supposedly meant to grant them greater control and prevent most accidents during the Trial. Still, considering that it had never been used outside of the tests Voggo had run, Dorea wasn’t sure how anyone could know its full effects.

Nevertheless, she had to put her trust in her mother and the elderly man who was like a grandfather to her.

Not like I have any other choice, do I?

As she sat there, facing the incoming storm, she could feel something start to change. It crept up slowly, beginning in her hands and numbing them down, only to reach her neck and heat it up. Dorea started sweating, feeling present but, at the same time, not at all.

It’s starting.

Was her last fully coherent thought, and she looked up to her friends to see them as confused as she felt, some staring at their hands like they had never seen them, while others, like Jonah, laughed hysterically at a blade of grass.

It seemed to her that the potency of the brew had been somewhat understated, but by that point, her mental process had stopped being made of singular thoughts and had expanded to the feeling of time passing by.

It was a very peculiar experience; Dorea had never considered how time itself was both a doughnut and a long, uninterrupted line that stretched beyond her sight.

Days seemed to pass as she contemplated the concept of time being edible, and she felt as if she had made a great discovery, so she tried to turn to her friends to tell them, only to be distracted by an equally important situation.

The grass below her feet seemed to melt into a sticky mess that she could feel cling to the bottom of her sandals whilst the storm was suddenly not far away. The winds had become hotter than the summer sun, and her sweat started to collect as a halo around her.

Dorea tried to see through the thick curtain of vapour that surrounded her but recoiled in shock when a single, gigantic eye stared back at her, seeming to peer into the depths of her being.

She was paralyzed in terror, feeling smaller than she ever had and knowing in a primitive part of her brain that she needed to make sure not to arouse the thing’s attention.

Whatever it was, it passed by quickly, seeming not particularly interested in her. She followed its wake with her sight, somehow disconnected from her eyes which she could feel were still closed.

It was a gigantic beast, larger than the mountains to the north, but it moved so fast and bright that she couldn’t make out the shape. It felt oddly disproportionate as if something that wouldn’t be capable of moving in the waking world.

Barely recovered from the fright, she was shocked to look down at herself and not be able to see her body at all. She didn’t even feel her eyes moving while shifting her vision, but she could still do so.

Around her, beams of light started to flash into existence, seemingly striking things at random. The residue of their path slowly coalesced into one single cloud, getting bigger and bigger and starting to flow towards a direction she didn’t know things could move into, becoming a suspended stream of lights.

Dorea wondered for a moment how it would feel to bathe in it before deciding that she didn’t want to find out. Something told her she wouldn’t be able to return from it.

Parallel streams came into being in the distance all around her, intertwining to form great light currents before separating again. It had beauty beyond words, as if her mind was not adequately equipped to describe such a thing.

She could feel the winds, the real ones, whipping around her and knew that the Wrath had made landfall, even though she had no control over her body to try and interpret the signals it was giving her.

Though her sense of touch had become muted, she could still hear her heartbeat, even over the pounding of the rain. Her tastebuds were filled with different flavours, somehow shifting from sour apples to spicy peppers, but her mouth still felt firmly shut.

The streams of lights started pulsating, disorienting her even further and distracting her from the sensation of heat around her neck.

In the far distance, she could still see the creature that had frightened her earlier. Her feelings, however, became increasingly muted as the lights continued pulsing.

Somehow, she vividly remembered brushing her family’s Moas that very morning, the feathers soft on her fingers. The memory was so clear that she was half convinced she was still there, and everything that had happened since was a dream.

The sky stole her attention as it seemed to become a mess of colours, shifting quickly as if an undecided toddler were in front of his favourite toys. A pattern began to emerge from the medley of colours, but Dorea could not yet discern it.

As the world around her kept shifting, the feeling of her body becoming more distant, she felt the heat from before still very much present, somehow having managed to affect her even in these conditions. She couldn’t sweat, but she was sure she should have been.

The streams of light recaptured her attention as they seemed to end their spectacle, finally coalescing into three separate, gigantic ones.

Dorea could tell that they were bigger than they should have been and somehow denser as well. They all moved towards the sky, feeding the forming shapes and turning them into something more well-defined.

As she looked up, her mind hurting from everything she witnessed, the heat started to build up again.