Sidney stared at the bland white ceiling as he lay supine on the hospital bed. The oxygen mask had started annoying him hours ago, but the nurses got mad whenever he took it off, so on he kept it. Listening to the rhythm of the whatever was making the humming noise helped keep him calm, but it wasn’t enough to keep him from mentally retracing the events of earlier that day again.
He had never been so scared. He still wasn’t sure what happened, but he could recall how it felt. How light his body felt as it hung in the air. How the lack of purchase for his feet fueled the panic of not being able to breathe. He played it again and again, the sound of the heart monitor picking up each time, the memory forced him to remember the moments just before he passed out. Sidney clawed at his hospital gown, trying desperately to get some more air into his lungs. His throat kept closing, and each breath was a struggle.
Eventually, a nurse came in to check on him. She went over his vitals with a worried look. Having someone else in his room helped relax him a little.
He wasn’t sure what the annoying beeping machine was telling the nurse, but it had the girl worried.
Something else grabbed his attention. The beeping sound. Normally, something that was high pitch and rhythmic sent the anger in his chest into an inferno. He should be convulsing with frustration, instead all he felt was cold. Yes, it was cold in the room; the air conditioning of the hospital set to just below comfortable, but he also felt cold in his chest right where the fire used to burn. He never felt that emptiness before. Even the death of his mother couldn’t smother that flame. Whatever Tyler did to him, it changed him. Sidney didn’t know how or why, but the fire that consumed him for as long as he could remember wasn't there. He wasn’t angry, or frustrated, or pissed off. He was just scared. Terrified.
Sidney felt his mind slipping back into another replay of that afternoon, panic gripping his chest once more and squeezing the life giving air from his lungs. His feet grappled with the sheets as they tried to find something more solid than the bed, and his breathing became labored again. The monitor picked up again just as the nurse was about to leave, and she gave a full-body sigh as she turned around to check on him once more.
Sidney couldn’t pay any attention to her, he just went through the events over again.
◊◊◊
“Thank you for coming, you two. You didn’t have to see me all the way home.” Tyler said. She was still emotionally drained from earlier, and her voice carried that emotion.
“Dude, we weren’t going to just let you go home alone like that.” Kyle said.
Tyler smiled at that. Despite how Kyle could be sometimes, he still cared.
“Yeah. Same for me. Though I admit, I’m also curious to know what happened. You didn’t say anything at all the whole bus ride here.” Orlando said, and then he looked to the side and added, “If you’re okay with telling, that is.”
Tyler took a deep breath. “I don’t know what happened. One moment I’m on the ground bracing myself for Sid’s punch, the next thing I know he’s floating midair and choking!” Tyler steadied her breathing again. Thinking about it was sending her back into a panic, and despite how good crying felt, she didn’t have the energy to start again. “Whatever was happening, I couldn’t stop it. At least not until I remembered Eris telling me about how magic worked. Focusing my will on what I wanted, I felt a reservoir of something, and it moved when it reached for it. Then Sid fell to the ground and I ran until I found you.”
Eris looked at Tyler, as Orlando and Kyle shared a look. Tyler could tell her two friends didn't believe a word she said, and that kind of made her feel worse. She decided she needed to either prove magic to her friends, or get them to believe her somehow because the feeling she got when her friends looked at her like that hurt.
“You guys don't believe me, do you?” Tyler asked.
Orlando and Kyle shared another look, and Kyle spoke first. “To be honest? No. I still don’t believe magic exists. Did Sid trip and fall or something?”
Tyler wanted to get angry with her friends, but her exhaustion from earlier just turned that frustration to sadness. She sighed, and wondered what she could do to get her friends to believe her. Then she realized that she actually alone with her two friends for the first time. She could just demonstrate magic to both of them and not worry about anyone else seeing, but what should she do?
“What do I have to do to get you two to believe magic is real and this all happened to me? I'll show you anything I can do.”
Kyle glanced at Orlando, who had remained quiet this whole time, his face holding an unreadable expression. “How about you turn me into a girl? Same thing that happened to you?”
Everyone looked at Kyle in utter disbelief.
“Kyle? Are you like me? Are you trans?” Tyler asked, flabbergasted.
“Not really?” Kyle responded. “But if I experience what you went through, that’d be enough for me. As long as you can change me back, that is.”
Tyler looked at Eris and asked permission with her eyes. Eris just shrugged. “Okay… Here goes nothing.”
She focused internally, and could feel the well inside her. Formless and aimless, wanting to be given a purpose, and she pushed her will into it and focused on Kyle.
Immediately, a thousand tiny strands of light danced like a feather on a gentle breeze around her friend. Orlando jumped out of his chair and backed up into the wall, like the light might burn him if he wasn’t careful. Kyle’s eyes grew wide, and then scared, and then shocked as he visibly shrank in the chair he was sitting in.
Tyler heard everyone gasp and opened her eyes to see what happened and before her sat a pretty young redhead with long hair that fell in ringlets down her shoulders and a face that almost, but not quite, resembled her friend. The simple jeans and metal band tee-shirt he was wearing became a cute t-shirt and leggings.
“Holy shit! Cool as!” Kyle shouted, and then went wide-eyed as they heard their voice. “Is that how I sound?” To Tyler, they looked as if they had a thousand and one questions and couldn’t think of any at the moment.
Tyler laughed a little. Half to ease her nerves, and half to try to reconcile the crass friend who devoured the same sandwich every day at lunch with the pretty five-foot nothing girl in front of her. “How do you feel?”
The young girl’s face went through a range of emotion, from deep in thought, to shock as they felt their hairbrush their shoulder, to wonder as they played with one of the curls, back to bemused as they remembered the question. “I don't know. Weird.”
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“This is crazy.” Orlando said from the corner of the room. He approached the young redhead and poked their shoulder. “Is that you in there, Kyle?”
“Yup, all me here. This is definitely weird.” They tried to stand up and immediately sat back down. “Nope!” They exclaimed. “I was not ready for that.” They sat back down and rested their temple on their palm.
“Are you okay?” Tyler asked.
“Yeah, just dizzy. The room is a lot bigger, is all.”
Tyler got up and went to the kitchen to grab her friend a bottle of water, and when she got back to the living room, Kyle was staring at their hands.
“This is so weird.” They repeated as Tyler handed them the water. “Thank you.”
Tyler grinned, “Thank you?” She asked. Her friend was acting a lot more timid now than they normally would, and she couldn’t help but tease them. Just a little. As a treat.
Kyle paled. “Oh my gosh!” Their eyebrows furrowed for a second and tried again. “Oh my fudge!” They went through a couple of thoughts and then just laughed a full laugh that sounded like birds chirping. “Tyler, did you make me mild-mannered?”
Tyler couldn’t help but smile at her friend. “I didn’t mean to, but I guess that came with the package. Want me to undo it?”
Kyle looked back at their hands again and then back to Tyler. “Yes please, this is getting a little uncomfortable, actually.”
One more magic demonstration later and Kyle was back to normal. Tyler looked at her two friends and asked, “Well, do you believe me now?”
“Yeah.” They both said in unison, and Orlando continued. “It’s so weird. Magic is real. Like, really real. Do you have any idea what you could do with this?”
“I have a few ideas” Tyler responded, smirking a little. She couldn't help it, she just felt so vindicated. “Eris wants to give it back to the world, even.”
Orlando and Kyle looked at the young girl and for the first time both boys looked actually scared of her.
“You absolutely can’t do that.” Orlando said.
“I agree.” Kyle followed.
Eris crossed her arms, “And why not.”
“Imagine if someone like Sid got a hold of that kind of power? Or a tyrant? Now that I believe you’ve only been awake for a few days. And I don’t really know how it was back when you were alive, but the world is full of terrible people now. Imagine magic nukes in the hands of some lunatic with a god complex.” Orlando reasoned.
“There were plenty of people like that back when I was active, too. And I still feel like curing every disease, and solving every problem, is worth the hassle of having to deal with a few crazies.”
“Guys, can we discuss the potential pitfalls of changing the entire world into a modern-day fantasy isekai later?” Kyle interrupted. “What I want to know is… well, everything. How can magic be real? How are you real, Eris? What’s really the deal with this possession thing you’ve got with Tyler?” Kyle asked, interrupting the two.
Eris sighed. “I don’t know how to answer those first two questions. You might as well have asked me why gravity is real, or how humans can exist. I don’t know, I just am, and so is magic.”
“Both of those have explanations, though.” Orlando interrupted. “Gravity has to do with how big something is, and humans happened because some chemicals got together and thought it’d be cool to make more of themselves.”
“Yeah.” Kyle said. “‘How is magic real?’ feels like a reasonable question here.”
Eris tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling, lost in thought. “I—” she began, but fell silent as she thought some more. The other three looked at each other and waited for Eris to finish her thought. “I actually don’t know.”
“Wait, like really don’t know?” Tyler asked. She figured she’d at least tell everyone that magic was some particle or wave or something, or that it was like mana from all her stories. “What is magic, anyway?”
Eris sighed. “Magic is actually a bad word for it, but it's an easy enough shorthand for what happens and move on. What Tyler just did for Kyle was actually her bringing forward a piece of my home and molding it to her will.”
Everyone looked at Eris, “What do you mean, ‘your home’?” Tyler asked. “I thought you were just always on earth.”
Eris shook her head, “No. Originally, I came from my home to earth. I actually stumbled upon it accidentally? I was bored and trying out a different way to get from one place to another, and accidentally ended up here. There’s still a piece of me there that can bring over more as I need it, and that’s what Tyler can access too through our bond.”
“What’s it like there?” Tyler asked, eyes now full of stars as she wondered what a real actual other world would look like.
“It’s different. Very different. For instance, there’s no planet.”
Tyler just tilted her head, completely lost.
Eris laughed, “I had that same reaction when I ended up here. Having a body was also not something I intended for my spell to accomplish either, but I’m glad it did. Anyway, I went back home and showed everyone this weird form I got from the teleport and showed them what it was like here, and a few came with me and stayed.”
“Those were your kin?” Tyler asked.
Eris nodded, “Yeah, though it’s not like what humans have with families. It’s more like we’re all connected and part of something, but also exist as our own persons.” Eris took a deep breath, “Anyway, ‘magic’ is sort of everywhere where I’m from. Sort of like how sunlight is everywhere here, and it tends to change and shift with the intent of those around it. A lot of my kin can’t actually use magic as easily as me and even more can’t use it at all, but it’s more of a curiosity where I’m from. Like, the only members of my kin who find it interesting were those like me who could bend it easily and work with it. And since there isn’t a concept of family, society, or even kinship where I’m from, there really isn’t any major problems that need solving. And since our kind sort of just instinctively makes use of the storms that come through as food, there aren't any needs that go unmet.”
“Is that why you’re so intent on bringing magic here? Because you want to make earth a bit like your home?”
Eris actually blushed at Tyler's words. “A little. I don’t really miss it. And I don’t have a desire to go back. But I’ve seen how much people in this world suffer from lack of food or clothing or housing. It just hurts so much when I can fix it all by bringing just a piece of home over with me again.”
Tyler suddenly remembered her friends were here and looked over at them. Orlando and Kyle looked like their heads were about to short circuit and fall off, and Tyler giggled a bit at them. “Don’t worry, you get used to it.”
“I’m not so sure I want to.” Orlando replied.
Kyle looked back at his hands. “Me either.”
◊◊◊
“Blast it all, where did I put that artifact?” Marisa said as she tore the little hideaway in the small townhouse apart. She knew she put it somewhere in here, but it managed to elude her. She picked up the last box, the smallest of all the others, and carried it out to the coffee table in the living room and opened it.
“There you are, you little sneak.”
She held in her hand a small golden bracelet, just a little wider than the width of her hand. She placed it back down on the table and went back to the little hideaway under the stairs. A moment later, she returned with two objects: A thin silvery piece of paper and a ring.
She sat down on the couch and tore the paper in two, laying one half on the cushion next to her, and picked up the ring and placed it on top of the paper. The piece of paper shimmered a bit, then all the paper’s shine faded to a dull gray.
Satisfied, she placed the paper on the coffee table and picked up the bracelet. She made sure to keep the bracelet and the ring in contact as she carefully picked up the other piece of paper and repeated the steps. This time the paper didn’t react at all.
She gave a sigh, “Good. I was worried this old thing didn’t work anymore.”
Just then, her phone rang. She picked it up off the coffee table and answered. “Sir?”
“I’m sending some help your way. I’ll leave the info dump to you, but they are instructed to follow any orders you give. When are you planning to do it?”
“As soon as possible. I’ve got a lot of the equipment prepared and ready to go already.”
“Good. Call immediately when the target is in custody.”
She put the phone down and breathed deep to try to calm her nerves. She had never had to run an extraction on a person before. Sure, sometimes people had to come with because they abused an artifact or just knew too much, but never had there been an artifact that was a person. This could either go effortlessly easy, or horribly bad. And it all depended on how quick she’d be able to pull this off. She shivered as she remembered the look on McCoy's face as he hung there, suspended by nothing. Knowing that there'd be backup coming her way put her halfway at ease.
“Please. Please work.” She pleaded to the golden bracelet in her hand. She clutched it tighter like a good luck charm.