“Gwynnestri Morven! I hope you’re paying attention as this WILL be on the test.”

Gwyn jumped fearfully in her seat as she was rudely awoken from her midday nap, she had only dozed away for a brief second but the short-tempered Miss Grimhold had a well-trained sense for slackers in her class.

“Sorry Miss Grimhold, it won't happen again.” Gwyn apologized quietly as she tucked a few stray hairs of an exotic green back behind her glasses.

“See that you do so as I won’t be going over this again, that goes for the rest of you girls.” Miss Grimhold’s tense proclamation silenced the titters that had been filling the room at Gwyn's expense.

Ever since she had been enrolled in Winterfield’s School for Girls near the beginning of the year, she had been an unwanted outsider. The all girls boarding school was for the daughters of the most famous and wealthy people in the nation and sometimes even the world, whereas Gwyn’s parents were only mildly successful authors.

The only reason Gwyn even got into this school was that the principal was a fan of her mother’s literary works and if the rumors that the other girls viciously spread around were true, principal Godheart was more fond of her mother than the books.

Gwyn herself was just shy of eighteen, in fact her birthday was this upcoming weekend.

In her own opinion she wasn’t that attractive but she did try to take care of her pale skin and vibrant green hair, she had it cut to only reach her chin as she hated it getting in the way. She stood at an average height amongst her classmates but had to admit she had a buxom form that was the envy of many.

As she rather liked the color green she had gotten her pair of prescription glasses in that color too, they framed her delicate face and alluring green eyes.

She stared blankly at the holographic projector that was more futuristic than she had ever seen before coming to this school. She didn’t understand a word of the projected lesson. What was more concerning was that this was supposed to be a math class, so where were the numbers?

“Find the value of x”? How? She didn’t see any blasted numbers anywhere.

“Psst, Gwyn.”

Turning slightly in the direction of the calling she was met with the worried blue eyes of one of her few friends.

That friend was Marion Spencer, the daughter of a high profile politician residing within the city of Winterfield.

Her messy blonde hair had been recently cut short and now it dangled only down to her chin, framing her head-turning sharp features. The girl was fitter than Gwyn, boasting a streamlined muscular form, her once pale white skin had been tanned to a rich golden brown from countless hours under the sun.

She was far more dramatic too with her being the current darling of the theater club.

“If you need any help with math you can come over to my dorm and I’ll divide you all night long.”

She was also a terrible flirt, she’d often insinuate various intimate scenarios in order to fluster the shy girl, as Gwyn had a hard time concealing her reactions. For example as Marion fluttered her expressive blue eyes after her terrible joke Gwyn couldn't help but flush in response.

“Keep your grubby mitts off my Gwyn.” A husky voice called out in a whisper from beside her.

On her other side was the second friend she had ever made, Tatiana Rygiel.

She was far more mature and captivating than any of the other girls in the class, her long-legged hourglass figure hit all the right notes for many admirers. Rosy pink skin had been pampered and cleansed until it shone with an unearthly beauty, nary a freckle out of place and dark black hair flowed down to her waist highlighting her dark hazel eyes that drew the eye.

Those very hazel eyes were currently glaring daggers into Marion’s own blue ones that affected innocence far too well.

Her father was said to be one of the most wealthy businessmen in the nation or even the world, that supreme wealth and standing had meant Tatiana was always looking to be the best at everything. That included the illustrious role of class president and leader of Gwyn’s group of friends, which always set her butting heads with the flirty Marion.

“Shh, If you’re too loud Miss Grimhold will hold us back in detention” A voice of reason spoke up cooly from behind Gwyn.

The final member of Gwyn's friendship circle was the current star of the track and field club, Cécilia Aubert.

The statuesque athlete had pale white skin that burned rather than tanned like the other athlete in the group. Her face and shoulders were heavily coated in freckles and often had a redness to it from the sun’s glare. Wavy ginger hair cascaded down to just below her shoulders, framing her defined features and emerald eyes that surveyed the world with a coldness.

Cécilia was the daughter of two national winners of the worldwide athletic games and as such she was expected to excel in anything athletic, which she did so with vigor.

She was also the most diplomatic of the group and often had to calm the other bickering girls down.

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Luckily she was able to do just that before the hawk-like gaze of their math teacher swept over them.

Miss Grimhold narrowed her knowing gaze at the seemingly studious group from behind a pair of thin spectacles, her prominent crows-feet deepening around her eyes at the action.

As Gwyn attempted to complete the assigned problems she felt that her mind was going to burst. Despite all the secretive guidance from the others, math simply wasn’t her forte. Her passion was in literature, it might seem cliche since her parents were authors but she had been surrounded by fiction books since a young age.

Ever since she could escape her crib she had been reading.

What was helpful towards her love of literature was that the school could afford to have the best teachers, her current Literacy teacher was Miss Wolfvenbane who was a multi-award winning novelist and the author of Gwyn’s favorite long running series.

“Greetings everyone, today we’ll be going over Toligor’s works and their impact on the socio-political aspects of science fiction.” Miss Wolfvenbane excitedly addressed the class as they filtered in.

In Gwyn’s eyes Miss Wolfvenbane was a deeply attractive woman, she was only in her mid twenties but filled out her pencil skirt and button up blouse well. What made Gwyn have such an all encompassing crush was the woman’s love of fiction; they had spent hours together in the rather anemic book club passionately discussing every book they had ever read.

“What does she have that I don’t, I like books too.” Tatiana groused glumly as she sat down beside Gwyn and pulled out her own copy of Toligor’s Thousand Planet Journey, it was a dense book.

“You can’t read, don't lie.” Marion snarked at the sulking class president.

“Be quiet you two, I’m not going to spend detention with you two ever again.” Cécilia shushed them as the class started.

Gwyn tuned out the quiet grumbles of her friends, who for some strange reason didn’t seem to like their Literacy teacher all that much.

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Gwyn was once again up late reading through the latest novels on the schools network when she heard the muffled sounds of snapping branches outside.

Carefully glancing out her dorm window she saw a red light flickering deep in the woods, just barely peeking through the tall trees.

Winterfield’s school for girls was such a rich and prestigious institute that they had their own forest transported onto school grounds which was in the middle of a dense metropolitan city.

Everyday the surly groundskeepers combed the woods for litter or damage, and if they saw anything out of place the school levied punishments on the student body. The last time that had happened the girls had been unable to travel into the city until the forest was repaired.

That had been an especially grueling time for Gwyn as the bullies had tried to take it out on her, her friends had protected her from the worst of it but the bullies had been rather creative.

She was still missing one of her uniforms because of them.

Gwyn bit her pouty lips, whatever was out there had damaged the trees and she knew the students would be unfairly blamed somehow. If she risked going out after curfew she might be able to find out what had done the damage and report it, hopefully that meant she’d not be locked in the school and miss out on her own birthday party.

Peeking out into the corridor she noticed it was surprisingly empty, although she supposed the crash hadn’t been all that loud. She had only perceived it herself because it was rather quiet tonight and she was still awake.

Even so she still padded her way quietly on bare feet. She went down the stairs from her floor to the cold outside, where she had then slipped on her comfortable school shoes.

She regretted not bringing a warm jacket with her as the biting icy wind easily penetrated her thin pajamas and sapped the warmth from her body.

After staggering along a well-maintained path for a while she eventually arrived at the source of the strange blinking light. To Gwyn’s literary influenced mind the object before her looked like an old round ball satellite but it was only the size of a closed fist.

Glancing up at the stars above through the broken branches she wondered if had fallen from space.

Looking at the ground she did note that the earth around it was mostly undisturbed, there was no evidence of a crater so that theory was out. The only thing she saw other than the object was the branches it had snapped on the way down.

Gwyn shifted her green framed glasses higher as they slid down her nose, she lent forwards to inspect the blinking object further. As she did so her foot landed on a fallen branch at an awkward angle and she tripped onto the blinking sphere.

When her palm hit the metal with a painful slap the blinking stopped.

She tried to release her grip but it stuck fast to her palm like it was glued there. As she desperately tugged on her wrist the strange machine began to quickly heat up. She let out a sharp cry of pain as it felt like her hand was melting away.

For several excruciating seconds it burned her.

With a final tearful cry she was able to free her hand, looking at it she was surprised to find it as unblemished as ever despite the pain she had experienced. She had half-expected it to be only ash.

She looked back at the offending object that had caused her such anguish only to find it gone, only broken branches was the evidence it had been there at all.

“Who goes there?!” A loud cry from afar broke Gwyn's trance.

Spinning in place she saw the rapidly approaching swing of a groundskeeper’s torch.

Without any evidence to say otherwise, if she was caught now they’d only suspect she had done the damage to their beloved woods. She hardly wanted to be confined to the school grounds for the rest of her school life until she graduated.

Quickly she picked her way back towards her dorm while avoiding attracting the attention of the searching groundskeeper.

She clutched her aching hand to her chest as she ran.

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Immediately upon reaching the safety of her room she set about removing all the evidence of her midnight escapade; leaves, twigs and dirt went out her dorm window and was caught up by the night winds.

Hopefully with that her rule breaking would never be known.

Staring at her undamaged palm she examined it further, she had no idea what had happened with the orb. Why had it felt like it was burning her? Why did it not do any damage to her hand? And where had it gone?

After massaging her sore hand to see if there were any lumps, she concluded that there wasn’t anything she could reasonably do about it right now.

Curling up in her warm blankets she decided to get some much needed sleep as she’d had enough excitement for one day and tomorrow was gym day.

Her worst class, she’d require all the rest she could get.

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Nano-machines implementing…

Nano-machines installed.

Activating modules…

Modules active.

Implementing rest and recovery protocols…

Rest and Recovery complete.

Wake up routine activating.