The Weight of a Backpack
The transition was violent because it was so utterly silent.
Sophie stood on the gravel path at the edge of the Whispering Woods, her knees buckling under a sudden, terrifying shift in gravity. Her body felt impossibly small. The sleek, weightless density of her Aetherium Exo-Suit was gone, replaced by the stiff, suffocating fabric of a cheap denim jacket. Her fingers clutched at empty air, instinctively searching for the smooth, humming curve of her star-wood bow. There was only a frayed nylon strap biting into her shoulder.
“My phone,” Evie whispered. Her voice sounded thin, stripped of the resonant, nebula-born authority that had directed galactic battlefields just moments ago. “It’s... it’s 6:43 PM.”
Patrick fell to his knees on the gravel, his hands shoving into the damp dirt. He stared at his palms, tracking the completely smooth, unblemished skin. The glowing, neon-blue mathematical arrays that had danced beneath his flesh for forty million nights had evaporated. “The equations are gone,” he breathed, his voice cracking with a terrifying mixture of grief and relief. “The quantum fabric... I can’t feel the grid anymore. It’s just dirt. It’s just normal dirt.”
Leah didn’t speak. She stood perfectly still, her standard steel hatchet hanging loosely from her right hand. Her eyes were fixed on the highway a quarter-mile down the road. A semi-truck roared past, its horn blaring a loud, obnoxiously mundane sound. On Earth, the world had kept turning. They hadn’t even been gone long enough for the school bus to clear the state line.
Sophie didn’t care about the time. She turned around, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Parker was standing beside a pile of plastic supply crates. He looked exactly like the quiet, unassuming high school junior who had boarded the bus that morning. His flannel shirt was slightly oversized, his dark hair messy from the mountain wind. He was staring down at his hands, his chest heaving as he took in shallow, panicked breaths.
“Parker,” Sophie said, her voice trembling.
He looked up. For a fraction of a second, his pupils dilated, and a fierce, blinding flash of silver starlight cut through his dark brown irises—the unmistakable mark of the Primordial Guardian. He dropped the crate he was holding, the plastic cracking against the rocks, and took three long steps toward her.
He didn’t say a word. He just pulled her into his arms, burying his face into the crook of her neck. He was warm, entirely human, and shaking. Sophie wrapped her arms around his back, pressing her face against his chest, listening to the rapid, human thud of his heart.
They had survived the deep void. They had survived the Screaming Oceans. But as Sophie looked over Parker’s shoulder at the paved road leading back to civilization, she realized the most terrifying truth of all.
They had to go back to high school.
