Caelum hit the ground hard, collapsing into a heap as the nausea gripped him. His stomach twisted violently, his head spinning as if the very earth beneath him had been ripped away, leaving him in free fall. He gasped for air, his hands sinking into the unfamiliar dirt, fingers clawing for some sense of stability. The world around him spun like a sickening blur of colors and sounds that didn’t make sense, disorienting and overwhelming. His heart pounded against his ribcage, and bile rose sharply in the back of his throat. He fought the urge to vomit, his body trembling uncontrollably.
Everything felt wrong. The ground beneath him was solid, but the sensation was foreign—too hard, too cold, too alien. It didn’t feel like home. It didn’t feel like the world he had known just moments ago.
Where am I?
Across from him, Seraphine landed with graceful ease, her feet lightly touching down as if she had merely hopped down from a low step. Her movements were fluid, a practiced elegance in the way she carried herself. There was no stumble, no moment of disorientation. She was perfectly balanced, standing tall while Caelum remained crumpled on the ground, still trying to catch his breath.
She glanced down at him, her deep violet eyes flickering with a hint of frustration. Her lips pressed into a thin line, but there was no malice in her expression—just annoyance, as if this inconvenience was part of the job she hadn’t signed up for.
“My one mission to the mortal realm, and it ends like this,” she muttered under her breath, the words more for herself than for him. She sighed and straightened her posture, brushing off her deep purple robe with one swift, decisive motion. “I’m surprised you’re not losing your lunch,” she added, louder this time, glancing back at him. “Most people do their first time shifting.”
Caelum’s only response was a pained groan. He could barely lift his head, let alone form words. His body refused to cooperate, his muscles weak and shaky from the violent shift they had just endured. He pressed his palms harder into the cold ground beneath him, trying to steady himself, trying to hold onto something solid, something real. But nothing felt real anymore.
Seraphine, on the other hand, was composed. Her robe barely fluttered around her legs as she surveyed their surroundings, her expression flickering between impatience and calm determination. She moved like someone who was always in control, always thinking several steps ahead. Everything she did had purpose—every motion, every word. She glanced back at Caelum, her violet eyes scanning him with that same measured, calculating gaze, as if she were assessing his ability to keep up with her pace.
“Hurry up,” she said sharply, her tone clipped. “We have to go again. We need to put more distance between us.”
Caelum barely heard her over the ringing in his ears. His entire body felt like it was rebelling against him—his legs refused to work, his vision swam, and the nausea churned viciously in his stomach. His mouth felt dry, and every breath was a struggle as the weight of the world pressed down on him.
“No... wait... stop...” His voice came out in a raspy croak, barely above a whisper. His entire body ached, and the ground beneath him felt like it was tilting, threatening to pull him down even further.
Seraphine didn’t have time for his weakness. With an impatient sigh, she crouched down beside him, grabbing his arm with surprising strength. “We don’t have time for this,” she snapped, her voice tight with urgency. “Experienced trackers can follow one, maybe two shifts. We need to keep moving, or we’ll be caught before we get anywhere safe.”
She hauled him upright with a decisive tug, her movements quick and efficient. For a moment, Caelum tried to pull away, his body instinctively resisting her touch, but his legs gave out beneath him again, nearly sending him crashing back to the ground.
“I can’t... I need... explanations...” he mumbled, his words slurred as the nausea surged again. His stomach twisted violently, and he felt the world blur around him once more. The weight of everything—his confusion, the fear, the unknown—was too much to handle. His head throbbed in time with the racing of his heart, and for a brief second, he thought he might black out.
Seraphine’s grip tightened on his arm, her expression hardening as she kept him upright. Her voice softened, just slightly, and for a moment, there was something in her gaze—something that resembled guilt, maybe even regret. “I wanted things to be different,” she muttered under her breath. “I wanted to give you more time, to ease you into this, but we don’t have the luxury. If we stay here, we’ll both lose our lives.”
Her words snapped him back to reality, the weight of her urgency crashing into him like a wave. Lives were at stake—his life, her life—and whoever was chasing them was closing in fast. He didn’t understand it, didn’t even begin to grasp the full scope of what was happening, but he knew one thing for certain: he didn’t want to die. Not here. Not now.
Without waiting for a response, Seraphine grabbed his hand again, her grip firm and unyielding, and with one fluid motion, the world tore apart.
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The shift hit Caelum like a hammer, slamming into him with brutal force. The world twisted violently around him, reality bending and warping in ways that defied comprehension. Colors blurred, sounds distorted, and the ground beneath his feet seemed to vanish entirely, leaving him suspended in a chaotic void. The nausea surged again, worse this time, twisting his stomach into knots that made him want to scream. He shut his eyes tight, clenching his teeth against the overwhelming sensation of being ripped apart, his mind barely able to process what was happening.
He heard Seraphine’s voice—faint, distant, like an echo through the chaos—but the words were lost in the maelstrom. His entire body felt like it was being stretched and compressed, torn between two realities that didn’t fit together.
And then, they shifted again.
And again.
With each jump, the nausea deepened, the vertigo intensifying until it felt like his entire world was spinning out of control. Caelum lost track of time, lost track of the number of shifts, lost track of everything. His body was in free fall, his senses overloaded by the constant barrage of twisting realities and fractured perceptions.
By the fourth or fifth shift, his mind started to unravel. He couldn’t hold onto anything—no thoughts, no memories, no sense of self. The nausea consumed him, dragging him down into a pit of sickness and confusion. His head throbbed with a brutal intensity, and his body felt weightless, like it wasn’t even his anymore.
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When they finally stopped, it felt like an eternity had passed. Caelum’s legs gave out beneath him, and he collapsed to the ground in front of a small campfire, his body trembling uncontrollably. The nausea still lingered, but it had lessened enough for him to draw shallow breaths without the immediate threat of vomiting. The world around him felt muted, distant, as if reality itself was frayed at the edges.
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The fire crackled softly in front of him, the warmth of the flames casting flickering shadows on the ground. Caelum stared at it, his vision still blurred, the world around him still too surreal to comprehend. His muscles ached, his mind numb from the constant barrage of shifting, twisting worlds. He had never felt so completely detached from everything, so utterly disconnected.
“Here.”
Seraphine’s voice broke through the fog of his thoughts. She knelt beside him, her expression unreadable as she held out a small square of dark chocolate. “Eat this,” she said, her tone softer now. “It’ll help with the jump-sickness.”
Caelum stared at the piece of chocolate, his mind still sluggish. He took it without thinking, biting into it absently. It was bitter, with a hint of salt, the taste foreign but grounding. The warmth of the fire and the sensation of the chocolate melting on his tongue helped pull him back from the disorienting vertigo that had consumed him.
As the sickening whirl in his stomach began to fade, Caelum’s vision cleared. His breathing slowed, his body finally beginning to calm, though the ache in his limbs remained.
“I’m truly impressed with your resolve,” Seraphine said, watching him with those sharp violet eyes. There was no sarcasm in her voice—just a simple, measured observation. “Not only did you not hurl your first jump, but you survived twelve consecutive shifts without losing your mind.”
When Caelum finally looked up again, he saw her clearly—truly clearly—for the first time.
Seraphine stood in front of him, vivid and impossibly sharp against the soft flicker of the campfire. Gone was the indistinct blur that had surrounded her, the strange, hazy overlap of realities he’d witnessed before. Now, she appeared fully realized, every detail of her presence intensely clear, as if the veil between her world and his had lifted.
Her deep purple robe billowed gently around her, the fabric shimmering as if woven from the night sky itself, with stars that blinked in and out of existence. Beneath the robe, she wore a black halter-top and a flowing mini-skirt, both practical and somehow otherworldly. The black-gold circlet on her forehead gleamed faintly, the small dark jewel set at its center glowing with a subtle, quiet power. Her long, jet-black hair was braided over one shoulder, and at the end of the braid, a small violet jewel sparkled in the firelight, catching Caelum’s eye.
He stared at her, his mind still foggy from the repeated shifts, but this time, he couldn’t look away. There was something about her now, something that demanded his attention in a way he couldn’t quite explain.
"Why..." Caelum’s voice was hoarse, his throat raw from the strain of the last few minutes. His thoughts were still jumbled, the nausea lingering in the back of his mind, but he managed to form the words. "Why do you look like that? Why are you dressed like some character out of an anime?"
Seraphine’s lips quirked into a small, knowing smirk, her violet eyes gleaming with something almost playful. "That’s the first question you ask me?" she said, her tone light but with that same hint of dryness he was starting to recognize. "I get that a lot, though. But to answer your question..." She paused, the smirk softening into a more thoughtful expression. "I dress how I need to for the magic I practice. It’s all about perception and attunement."
Caelum blinked, still struggling to process. His eyes dropped to the swirling stars on her robe, the glint of the circlet on her forehead. "Attunement? To... what?"
"Magic," she said simply, as if that explained everything. She sat down across from him, her robe pooling around her in a ripple of darkness. "It’s about aligning yourself with the right frequencies. Our bodies are conduits for magic, and the way we present ourselves—the way we allow magic to interact with us—it matters."
She picked up her journal again, tracing her fingers along the edge of the worn cover as she spoke, her gaze flickering to the firelight. "Think of it like this," she continued, her voice taking on a more patient, almost instructive tone. "You know the stories of Native American trackers during the war, right? How they could sense danger or track through impossible conditions? They were recruited for their abilities, but the moment their hair was cut, those abilities diminished. That wasn’t coincidence." She looked up at him, her violet eyes meeting his. "Their hair acted as an antenna, attuning them to the natural world. Without it, they lost part of that connection."
Caelum stared at her, the words slowly sinking in. "So... your clothes... your hair..." His voice trailed off, trying to connect the dots in his still-foggy brain.
Seraphine nodded. "Exactly. The way we present ourselves is tied to the frequencies of magic we can access. My robe, the way I braid my hair, the circlet—they’re all tools. Tools to channel and enhance the magic I’m tuned to."
Caelum frowned, still skeptical, but unable to ignore the strange pull of her words. "But why... why the skirt and halter-top? Why look like that?"
Seraphine chuckled softly, the sound almost warm despite the intensity in her gaze. "Because it works for me. And because it’s comfortable." She leaned forward slightly, her voice lowering as if sharing a secret. "You’ll meet others—tribes who wear nothing but loincloths, or nothing at all. It’s not about modesty or style. It’s about magic. Some of the most powerful magic users wear nothing but enchanted silk, while expensive it provides less interference from the magical world, the more in tune they are with the natural one."
Caelum shifted uncomfortably, glancing down at his own clothes—jeans and a hoodie, nothing special, nothing attuned to anything magical. He felt completely out of place in this strange new world Seraphine was describing. He wanted to argue, to push back against everything she was telling him, but after everything that had happened in the last few hours, he wasn’t sure he could.
He opened his mouth to respond, but before he could say anything, Seraphine’s gaze flicked to his hair, her eyes narrowing slightly as if she were considering something. "You won’t likely be getting a haircut anytime soon, either," she added with a smirk. "Your hair’s going to be important."
"My hair?" Caelum blurted, instinctively reaching up to touch the unruly strands falling into his face. His dark brown hair, wavy and perpetually messy, had never been something he thought much about.
Seraphine nodded, her eyes gleaming with amusement. "Your hair is a part of who you are, Caelum. It’s an antenna, just like the rest of you. The more connected you become to the world of magic, the more important those small details will be."
Caelum let his hand drop, staring into the fire as his thoughts churned. His entire life, everything he’d ever known, had been torn apart in the space of an afternoon. He still didn’t fully understand what had happened, why he was the one who had to carry this mysterious inheritance, or what this new world of magic really meant for him. But one thing was clear: nothing was ever going to be the same.
As the fire crackled softly, casting long shadows over the ground, he felt Seraphine’s gaze on him, sharp and unwavering. She hadn’t asked for his trust, hadn’t offered him comfort, but in her own way, she had brought him here, kept him safe. For now, at least.
Finally, after a long silence, he spoke again, his voice quieter this time. "What happens now?"
Seraphine leaned back slightly, her violet eyes never leaving his. "Now, we get you to the university. You need answers, and you need protection. There are people who will come for you, Caelum. People who want what you have, what you carry. The more distance we put between you and them, the better."
She reached into her robe, pulling out a small vial filled with a faintly glowing liquid. "For now, rest. Eat. Recover from the shifts." She placed the vial on the ground beside him. "This will help you recover. You’ll need your strength for what comes next."
Caelum took the vial, holding it in his hand for a moment before nodding. His mind was still a whirl of confusion, his body aching from the repeated jumps, but one thing was clear: there was no turning back now.
Seraphine stood, her movements fluid and controlled, like a predator ready to pounce. She glanced down at him one last time, her expression softening just slightly. "You’ll survive this, Caelum. You’re stronger than you think."
With that, she turned away, her robe fluttering softly behind her as she moved to the edge of the camp. The stars on her robe shimmered, winking in and out of existence like the night sky itself had been stitched into the fabric.
Caelum watched her go, the weight of everything pressing down on him like a heavy, suffocating blanket. He had no idea what was coming next, no idea how he was supposed to survive this new world, but one thing was certain: nothing would ever be normal again.
As he sat there, staring into the flames, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the world he had once known was slipping further and further out of reach.