Ash slowly squinted his eyes open and then shut them back again. Blinding lights stabbed into his eyes making him groan. So much so that he did not know what he was even looking at or which way he was facing. Keeping his eyes closed wasn’t any better.

His brain went back to when someone had thrown a flashbang grenade next to him. The light from the grenade had emitted a light of seven megacandelas and burned into his vision. It had blinded him for ten odd seconds and left after spots that he could see for a day.

Ash felt himself being lowered and then felt himself fall.

Thud.

Ash opened his eyes again and cried out “Ouch.”

It wasn’t from his fall it was from everything around him. Everything was too bright. The light from the stars of the nebula pinched into his brain. The gaseous cloud around the stars thrummed into his temple.

“Sorry.” Sheetal said in a pant and continued “I am not used to using two shards at a time.”

Ash turned his head towards Sheetal and recoiled. He could see inside Sheetal. No, not her body but inside what made her, her. Inside there was an empty space where a shard stood tall. Around that were whirring winds that screeched in rage as they emitted a blinding white light that made him groan.

“Are you okay?” Sheetal asked.

“No.” Ash responded.

“You idiot!” Sheetal cursed.

“She. Stop yelling.” Ash pleaded

“Why?”

“Because we are in an empty desert and the wind will carry your voice and attract attention.”

Sheetal paused, took in a breath, and then in a hiss asked “What were you thinking?”

“Eh…”

“You weren’t were you. Honestly a tree has more brain cells than you.”

Ash squinted his eyes open again and watched Sheetal hovering above him with a scowl.

“Ow!” Ash quickly shut his eyes and rubbed them.

Sheetal massaged her temples and muttered “What am I going to do with you?”

“Nothing. Just give me a few minutes. I feel the pain slowly subsiding.”

It wasn’t a lie. He was getting better, mostly. The sharpness of the pain was gone but it was still throbbing behind his eyes. Compared to what happened when he had slotted the shard into the space behind his eyes, this pain he was feeling was light touch.

Sheetal looked at her partner holding his head in hands. She was about to say something else when the door she had just dragged Ash out of exploded in a puff of yellowish gas. There was no bang, no real explosion, just poof and then it was gone.

Sheetal looked at for a second and then lost it “I said we need to be careful. I said we should experiment. I said we don’t know what is happening to us but no… You think you are unbreakable. You can this world we know nothing about is your playground. And you can do anything and…”

Ash tuned Sheetal out. She was grumbling and annoyed. He got that but there were more interesting things to look at right now. Things like the sand he was sitting on. It was soaked with potentiality glowing a golden hue. The air around them, glowing with all sorts of streams of different colours and something up in the sky which kept nagging at him. He saw all that even when he had his eyes clenched shut.

“Are you even listening to me?” Sheetal asked Ash in a sharp tone.

Ash sighed. He did not know why Sheetal was so mad. He was the one who was the one who was in pain. If anyone had the right to be mad at the world, it was him.

Maybe it had finally happened. The stress, the danger, and the physical exertion had finally gotten to She. And now she had finally lost it.

“Uh… Yes?” Ash answered hesitantly.

“Perfect! Just perfect.” She snarled “What did I just say?”

“A lot of things. I don’t know which one you are talking about.”

Ash did not understand why the nerd was giving her that look again. And yes, he could tell that she was looking at him. He did not know how but he just did.

“Oh really? Repeat something I said back to me.” Sheetal said in a challenging tone.

Ash turned her head towards her. Sheetal was pacing up and down in front of him in a huff. Was she having one of her days? No, that couldn’t be. That was still a good ten days away. That’s when he avoided her the most. That’s when she got angry and preachy. That wasn’t her right now. Also, ever since he had taken the shard, his bodily functions had stopped. So had hers. She hadn’t figured that out and he was not going to bring that up anytime soon.

Honestly, how hard was it to figure out that neither of them had to pee or poop even after they had filled themselves with protein bars and water. And yet she wanted to clear a space in the cave for them to do their business. The woman was completely oblivious to what was happening to them. So, then, what was wrong with her?

She threw her hands up in the air “I said that we shouldn’t mess with those shards.”

“Oh that.” Ash said in a bored tone.

“Yes, that.” Sheetal snapped back at him.

“Okay, my bad. But…”

“But, nothing!” Sheetal screamed.

Ash squinted his eyes open and blinked rapidly. His eyes watered but he could still open them a bit now.

Sheetal stopped and looked at him. In a gentler voice she asked “How… Are you okay Ash?”

“Umm… Yeah I am getting better but can you not scream and tell me something?”

Sheetal floated closer to Ash and sighed “Okay. Yes. Maybe, I went a little overboard there. Go ahead, ask.”

“Great. So now can you tell me if my eyes have turned red now?”

“What?”

“Red. You know the colour.”

“I know the colour but why?”

“Well, I took that shard because it was the perfect shade of sultry red. So, are my eyes red now?”

She looked at Ash with her mouth open for a full minute.

She slowly lowered herself down to Ash’s eye level and looked straight into his eyes and asked “Let me get this straight. You decided to pop something into your eyes because it was red and you liked the colour?”

“No. It wasn’t in my eyes. It was the space behind my eyes and it wasn’t just red. It was saucy red. Like the shade from Maybelline.”

“Maybelline?”

“Yes. The cosmetics company.”

“Saucy red?”

“Yeah, like the lipstick.”

“The lipstick?”

Ash smiled “Yes. So, are they red now?”

Sheetal took in a deep breath and then erupted “What the fud is wrong with you?”

She screamed and a gust of wind blew sand around them everywhere. The shard use pitched into his eyes and Ash shut them against the glare

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“Ah… Nothing!” Ash snapped back as he closed his eyes against the pain.

Sheetal visibly calmed herself “Ash, this world is not our world. We don’t understand how it works.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

Ash opened his eyes and glared at She “Hey, She, you didn’t answer my question.”

“It’s a dumb question.”

“Fine then answer me this. Why aren’t we freezing?”

She who had begin to loom over Ash lowered herself down to his level again and glared “What are you on about now?”

“The fact that you don’t know tells me everything.”

“What has that got to do with anything?”

“She, you are being too cautious.”

“Listen, you crazy guy. There is no moon in the sky. That above us, is a sky lit by a nebula of stars and gases. That is not the Milky Way. Heck that thing over us is not even Andromeda. People here are either walking dead or cannibals with super powers, and there are boxes full of notifications in my sight. And they are giving me detailed explanations of everything around, when it is not rewarding me to kill creeps or strange mutated creatures. And now the only safe place we had has disappeared.” Sheetal was screaming at the end.

“In a rush of gas.” Ash added.

“Yes, in a rush of gas.” Sheetal stopped and looked at Ash “Wait you saw that. You had your eyes closed.”

Ash smiled “Yeah, as I said you are being too cautious. That disappearing was a good thing. We got paid and it gave us potentiality.”

Sheetal blinked then checked her hud. Ash wasn’t wrong. When the gate disappeared. It had topped up their potentiality.

She ignored Ash and continued “That is not the problem. The fact is we don’t know what is happening to us and you keep putting strange things in your head. That is the problem.”

Ash shrugged “It's not a new thing for me. I keep putting strange things in my head. Usually they are attached to people…”

“Will you stop that?”

“Fine. Fine. Relax! You don’t know. I got it. But, if you don’t want to see the boxes in your sight just hit the rainbow orb. That’s what I do.” Ashoka explained.

Sheetal looked at the multicoloured ball in her vision to shut the hud and in a huff almost did what Ash said. Then she stopped herself. Why was she listening to the idiot in front of her? Annoying or not, the windows helped her understand the world around them.

“That is not the point, you…you…” Sheetal tried to find the best word to curse.

It was hard. So dang hard with this system constantly censoring her.

Ash closed his eyes and exhaled “Hey, I was just trying to help.”

“Don’t!”

“Fine. I will stop.”

“Good.”

“Just tell me are my eyes red or not?”

Sheetal let out a growl from the back of her throat.

“Well?” Ash pushed.

“No! They are not. They are grey.”

“Grey?” Ash’s disappointed tone made Sheetal more annoyed.

“Yes. Grey. Happy?”

“No. Grey is sad. What am I going to do with grey?”

“Can we stop discussing your eye colour and go back to you stuffing unknown things into your body.”

Ash grinned cheekily “You should try it sometimes…”

“One more word and I will slam you into the ground.” Sheetal said in a threatening tone.

“Alright, got it. I am just going to get up and sit over there. Away from you. While you calm yourself. Just, don’t float away like a balloon.”

“I am not a balloon.”

“Could have fooled me with the amount of hot air you are spewing.” Ash mumbled under his breath.

“Do you want me to crush you?”

“Right. Got it. Not the time for jokes.”

Ash got up with his eyes closed and unerring walked to a small pile of sand and layed down white resting his head on his makeshift pillow.

Sheetal glared daggers at him and watched Ash for a moment. When Ash layed down, Sheetal took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. Every time she thought she had finally gotten a handle on things something happened which made her lose control. And the last twenty minutes were the perfect example of this.

First, they had slotted their sards. Only, in her case, she didn’t slot a shard. She consumed it. It was unlike anything that Ash did. Even Harry, the cowboy who had shown up out of nowhere and then disappeared in a blink had used the word slot and that had bugged her. But instead of worrying Ash, she had kept her unease down.

She could live with that fact since the speed of her movement had drastically increased. And now she felt she could move with the wind or against it. But then Ash, the dumbest guy she had ever met, had decided to slot one shard after another and blinded himself. Then the gods dang roof had started to cave in and the safe space they had been resting had literally fallen apart. Now they were back to square one, in a desert full of dangers.

Sheetal looked at Ash, he was looking up at the sky and blinking his eyes and cringed. She could still remember the phantom pain she had felt before he had screamed.

Sheetal frowned. How had she felt that? It was like somebody had sowed a bunch of needles through her eyes and into her brain. She bit her lip and opened her hud, and started scrolling through her notifications.

Ash watched Sheetal grumble and then relax. Soon her shards dimmed and he knew that she was reading her boxes. That was good. He had about ten minutes before things got exciting again. And he needed to figure everything out by that time. Luckily he had a hint of what he was doing now. And when he was ready, and with a bar full of potentiality, he wasn’t going to run. He was going to make them run. Or die. He liked the second idea more.

He took in a breath and panned his sight around. Nothing had changed. Four sand dunes away at the top he saw four bodies full of shards. They looked in his direction and started methodically making their way towards them. On the other side, there was something. Something that obscured his vision. But whatever that was, it wasn’t moving. If it was an animal or something else, it wasn’t hostile. After all, it had the perfect chance to attack them when he had been blinded.

Now that he was, if not back to normal, but close enough, he wasn’t worried about whatever or whoever was hiding on the opposite sand dune.

Ash smiled. The fact that he could see that far, and clearer than before was coming in handy. He could even comprehend the fact that there was something hiding from him. That already made him feel safer about his situation. What did one of his trainers say? Yeah, the most dangerous enemy was the one you didn’t see.

And now he could not only see people, he could see their shards every time they used it. Just like he could see Sheetal’s shard. He could see them slowly coming into some sort of equilibrium inside her soul. Unlike her, he didn’t need to read about what was happening, he could see the wind storm circling her pulsing polar forces shard in her body. Now more than ever, he understood that shard. It had nothing to do with cold, it was something like a magnet. Well, whatever it was, he wasn’t interested in that. He was more interested in the sky.

Please choose your next trial.

Trail of swiftness - 11.3 kms

Trial of power - 14.7 kms

Trial of magic - 9.3 kms

Ash hissed. The dang prompts were back in front of him again. He reflexively thought about shutting them off and then paused. He looked back at the crazy scientist and sighed.

“Hey, She? Want to go do another trial? ”

Sheetal closed her eyes and in a flat tone asked “What about the words, leave me alone, you don’t understand.”

Ash smiled. He wasn’t really interested in going to another trial but just wanted to probe her and see if she was calming down. He was going to need her soon.

Sheetal was one of the most amusing creatures he had met. She was, with her own admission on some other planet, swallowing glowing balls of power, while fighting blue people out of mythology, and she was annoyed about a phallic joke.

He grinned “You know, I am never going to do that right?”

“Why?” She asked in a pleading voice.

Ash chuckled “Because, I like you. You are almost as awesome as I am.”

She slumped “You are a weirdo.”

“You are a nerd.”

“You are a slut.”

“You are a prude.”

“You are shameless.”

“Virgin.”

Sheetal raised her hand to stop Ash “We are not feeling cold because our potentiality is warming us up. We are spending it to stay warm. But we are regenerating even faster by just breathing in the air.”

“I know.” Ash nodded with a smile.

“So, why did you ask me the dang question?”

“To make you understand that the world around us is magic. It’s literally in the air. To survive this place we need to accept it rather than take a conservative approach.”

She closed her eyes “That is nonsense. There is no such thing as magic. There is a scientific explanation somewhere here and I am going to find it.”

Ash watched Sheetal wave her hand in the empty space in front of her and shook his head “You know you need to accept whatever is happening to us and flow with it. You fighting everything is not helping.”

“You know what is not helping? You, stuffing things in your head leaving us in a precarious position.”

Ash knew that she was right about that.

He grimaced “Okay, maybe that wasn’t…”

“And you left your collapsible rubber water bottle in there. Now just like before we don’t have any water.”

Ash opened his mouth to argue and then tapped the large pocket on the back of his thigh. He closed his mouth with a soft “Oh.”

“Do me a favour, think…” Sheetal stopped mid-sentence and then started again “No, you are not good at that. Just when you are going to do something, don’t. Ask me first.”

Ash, who had lifted himself to his elbows, dug his toes into the sand like a child and muttered “Okay.”

Sheetal blinked “Okay? Just like that?”

“Yes.” Ash nodded “The next shards we are going to get are not far away. So, when we get them, I will not put anything in my head.”

She nodded “Okay….” Then she stopped “What do you mean, the next shards aren’t far away.”

Ash smiled “The owners of those dogs. They are almost here. And this time you are ready. You can take two or three of them.” Ash announced.

“What!?” Sheetal shrieked.

“Relax. I have a plan.”

“What?”

“Okay I have a part of a plan. It mostly depends on the sky and what I read in it.”

“On what?”

“Yes. You see, when I was in pain and lying on the sand something happened. It was all in the sky.” Ash began to explain.

“In the sky?” Sheetal said in disbelief.

“Hey, now you are just repeating everything I am saying.”

Sheetal looked at Ash with wide eyes “Start from the beginning. What do you mean by the owners of the dogs?”

Ash stood up and walked to Sheetal “No, let’s start before that. You know when we came out. There was a light that was stinging my eyes. It took me a while to get used to it. And I did and then it clarified.”

“What are you talking about? Actually, never mind that Ash, there are people coming after us. We need to…”

“Hold on, let me explain.” Ash took Sheetal by the hand and pointed at the sky. It was a majestic sight. It sparkled and shimmered gloriously. Ash pointed at it and his finger moved in a pattern.

“Do you see it?”

Sheetal looked at her partner “No.”

Ash frowned “You don’t?”

“What am I supposed to see?”

“The… Hmm…”

Was this something like the shards? Ash knew Sheetal couldn’t see them. But to him, they were clear to see. Was it something to do with the fact that he was good at digging out secrets.

“Ash?” Sheetal prodded him.

Ash’s eyes wandered the sky and picked out the pattern again. No, he wasn’t imagining it.

“She, what do you see?”

Sheetal’s was beginning to panic, and her words came out in a rush “Stars, and a night sky full of blue, red and green gas. Ash, have you lost it?”

“And before it?”

Sheetal gave Ash a concerned look “There is nothing before it.”

Ash raised his hand again and traced the pattern. It wasn’t in the stars. It was closer than that. It was being projected from various beacons. Like the light bat signal in the sky.

On instinct he pushed some potentiality through his finger and traced the pattern outline with his index finger. As he came to the end of the pattern, streams of neon coloured light formed around his hand trapping it.

“What the…?” Sheetal muttered.

“Ah ha!” Ash fist pumped with his other hand and turned to look at the woman next to her “See?”

Sheetal looked at the spot with Ash’s finger. The place had solidified and was refracting the light from the stars like tinted glass.

“Now who is going crazy? I told you I was awesome. Do you believe me now?”

Ash continued rambling while Sheetal observed the solidified piece of air. And yes, it was air, she could sense that much through the wind in her soul structure. She raised her hand and touched the spot. It felt like touching a warm piece of smooth glass. Then she tapped it.

Clink. Clink.

Sheetal looked at the spot in awe and muttered “It’s like crystal.”

“I call it the Ash Signal.”

Sheetal turned to look at Ash “The Ash Signal? Wait, do you mean like the Bat Signal?”

“Yea…” Whatever Ash was going to say faded away in a sigh.

“What?”

Ash grumbled and took her hand with his free hand and Sheetal felt a new box appear in vision.

Analysing.

Analysing.

You have created a cosmic glyph.

Accuracy of Glyph Created - 96%

Warder Shard detected.

Congratulations Warder.

By understanding the world around you. You have taken a step towards a higher level of understanding.

Glyph added to personal lexicon.

Glyph type - Hold

Generating Hint.

Warder everything in a reactive universe has will. From a grain of sand to the breeze it travels on, to the final destination it has been called to. Everything has a will, no matter how small it is. May these words find wisdom in you.

~ Tesh Arakha. 8th Chakora of Devang

Number of Glyphs Acquired - 2/5

Trace

Hold

Collect and Identify five glyphs to get a rank of Glypher.

Sheetal read through the notifications and the hint. She did not know what that was all about, but she knew Ash was able to see shards. And now he had dug out another thing in this strange desert.

Ash grumbled “But, it is just hold. What am I supposed to do with hold? Tell the oncoming blue freaks, here night stalker, hold my tonfa?”

Sheetal looked at Ash and now in a much calmer voice asked “There are nishachars coming here?”

“Yes.”

“Can we outrun them?”

Ash shook his head “We can try but…”

“But?”

“There are two of them who have speed shards. I have two but sooner or later, they will catch us.” Ash scowled.

Sheetal muttered incoherently while looking at the spot with Ash’s finger and then asked “You said you had a plan?”

“No, I said I had part of a plan. And it depended on this glyph being something better. It just looked so awesome in the sky. You know?"

“Hold.” Sheetal muttered.

“Hold.” Ash nodded grumpily.

“Hold?” She asked.

Ash looked at Sheetal “She, let's stop doing the repeating thing.” He sighed “I guess we run and fight.”

Sheetal snapped her fingers and smiled “Hold!”

“She?”

“I have a plan.” Sheetal smiled

“Uh…”

Sheetal turned around look at Ash “Don’t give me that look.”

Ash exhaled loudly “She, but its hold.”

“I know.”

Ash gave Sheetal a concerned look “Umm… She, why are you smiling?”

“Don’t you get it? It’s hold.”

“No.” Ash shook his head.

She rolled her eyes “Really? That’s stupid. Even for you. It’s hold. And nobody but you can see it.”

Ash ignored her and turned back towards the four blue auras with shards moving towards them. They were much closer than they were supposed to be. The speed shard ones were moving slower than they could. Most probably to keep pace with the heavy hitters in the group.

Ash’s eyes turned to the three and four shard nishachars. The four sharder looked powerful. He couldn’t see his face or make out his body but that was the feeling he got from his shards. The feeling he got from the three-shard guy was of an immovable object. What their shards were, he couldn’t tell.

She looked at Ash’s pensive expression and asked “What is it?”

“How much do you like living?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“A good one.”

Sheetal grimaced “I like living Ash.”

“Enough to kill one or two people?”

She grimaced and swallowed “I hate this.”

“But you will do it?”

“Yes.” She exhaled

“Good, because there are four of them and you are the one with the plan.”

Ash watched as Sheetal’s face transformed in fear and then she took in a breath and visibly calmed herself “Okay. We can do this.”

“Great!” Ash nodded “We can start by freeing my finger from this.” Ash waved at the glyph he had just created.

“What?” Sheetal blinked

Ash whined “She, I am stuck. And now my shoulder is starting to get tired.”

“You, idiot!”