The tattoo needle bit into her skin, etching her work into flesh. By now Viren barely noticed the pain. Time dragged on and sped up simultaneously as she watched the clock. Six hours left at most. A few days ago she started to feel the tugging. Did she forget anything? The tattoo artist wipes the blood off her skin. He starts again. Wipe and buzzing pain. Wipe. Pain. Five hours now.

She should have studied harder. Trained more. Her research never amounted to anything concrete. There was never enough time, she needed more time! Who knows what the next world will hold? Another wipe, but this time pain did not follow.

“You know, I get plenty of odd requests. But I never thought I’d do nearly a full body of formulas.” He turned to start putting his tools away. “You know the aftercare instructions, Martha upfront can book your next appointment.”

Viren came back to herself, realizing he was done. “This was the last one Steve. Thank you, it looks wonderful as always.”

“Heh, I doubt that. I’ll see you again soon,” he chuckled, turning back to her.

“I’m serious. Tonight I’m leaving and I won’t be back. Thanks for always being a friend.” As she hopped off the table she tossed an envelope on it. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be okay.”

Hearing her solemn words and seeing her weary countenance, Steve was taken aback. Before he could recover, she slipped out the door and out of his life. Checking the envelope he swore when he saw the thirty grand tip she left him. By the time he ran out of the store, she was gone.

Viren, meanwhile, quickly jogged to her car parked down the road. Slamming the door shut, she revved the engine and put the pedal to the metal. She drove past her now-empty apartment. Past the familiar UCLA campus. Her eyes lingered on the park and swing set Aiden used to love. Was she making the right decision? She could very well be condemning him to death alongside her. No, she had to bring him. He wasn’t strong like her, he was too young. Yet too old to be adopted, he would break in the foster care system. It nearly broke her and she lucked out. Others’ stories told her how much worse it could have been.

Four hours. Bloody LA traffic, they barely had time for the ritual. Screeching into a driveway of a Beverly Hills mansion, she marched up the steps. Before she could reach for the door handle, it opened on its own to reveal. Alfred in his usual suit. Who would have guessed the Arch-Mage of Earth to be a Batman fan?

“You’re late, ma'am. The Master and your son are downstairs in the lab.” He even spoke in the stereotypical butler accent.

“Right. Lead the way.”

She followed past ultra-modern furniture, all black and white, down stairs of marble. The railing likely cost more than her whole studio apartment. Reaching the bottom, a vault door stood ajar. Voices grew louder as she entered.

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“These words are so cool! Like swirling pictures, what do they say?” Viren recognized Aiden’s voice. She turned the corner and saw him. He and Ryan stood crouched over some inscription on the floor. The entire space was cleared out to leave an empty room. But thousands of runic letters covered the floors, walls, and even the ceiling. Only a circle in the middle remained blank.

“Master, she has arrived,” The Alfred wannabe interjected.

Ryan and her son looked up. “Mommy!” He crashed into her and she scooped him up. Erasing her worry lines, she plastered a beaming smile on her face. “Ooph, you’re getting so big. I won’t be able to pick you up soon.” That earned her a giggle.

She really would have to set him down soon, but for now, she shifted his weight to her hip in the classic mom move and looked towards the Arch Mage. “Is the ritual ready?”

He stood there with a weary but self-confident smirk. “Only task left is the hair samples, those need to be fresh.”

Alfred brought scissors and started trimming my and Aiden’s hair. They tied locks together and lay them about the room. By the end, her once long hair barely reached her shoulders and Aiden’s looked like an uneven buzz cut.

Two hours.

They ate upstairs, Ryan’s cook made divine steak and mashed potatoes. Aiden’s favorite. It felt like a last meal to Viren.

One hour.

Aiden sat in her lap, her arms wrapped around him. Perfectly in the center of the circle. The tugging came more frequently now, the sensation heart-wrenching. Sitting there she couldn’t help but reminisce. Arriving on Earth at fifteen, she was hopelessly lost in modern society. Her birth world’s technology resembled the Dark Ages of Earth. Fortunately, her Traveler father gave her a modern education that he received on his previous planet. Otherwise, she likely would have been sent to a mental asylum within days. “Adapt to survive,” she whispered his favorite saying.

Adien spoke up. “Mom, what’s the new world going to like? Will there be arts and crafts?”

“I don’t know, I hope so.”

They sat in silence for a bit.

“Adien, sweetie. The new world could be anything. There could be a massive desert or an icy tundra. People could live like cavemen, fly in advanced starships, or live the exact same as here on Earth.” She paused. “The important thing is you need to do exactly what I say okay? This isn’t like when I tell you to do the dishes five times before you wash them. There will likely be danger, especially at first. Do you understand?”

“Yup, I got it.”

She turned him around, tilted his chin up and looked him in the eyes. “Look at me. Tell me you understand. I might die. You might die. Do you understand?” By the end, she was nearly shouting and shaking him a little.

His eyes grew watery but he held her gaze. “I’ll listen to you, Mommy.”

She crushed him back into a hug. “Shhh, I’m going to protect us. Don’t worry. Just do what I tell you.” Scaring him hurt, but she could not risk him not listening to her. There were too many unknowns.

A sharp tug on her heart.

Zero hours.

They vanished.