I startled awake, groggy.

  I didn't know where I was. Reality and dream mixed, intermingled. I tumbled from the bed, landing on the floor in a crouch, face twisted into a snarl. I was a shotgun on a hair trigger. Only the presence of Vipera in my soul kept me from lashing out. My garbled mind recognized the waves of emotion from her as a feeling of safety. Confirmation. There was no attack. No enemies to fight. No monsters were creeping up on us as we tried to rest. I dragged a hand down my face, covering my eyes. I dragged in one breath, then another as my racing heart slowly stopped trying to batter its way out of my rib cage. I slumped down onto my hind end, back resting against the side of the bed. Until this moment, I hadn't realized the extent of the stress that had built up in me while I was in the Soul-Sheer, and now it was peeking through the cracks. It wasn't just this most recent incident, either. It was a problem I'd had for a long time. Run and run on, I'd run myself ragged to the bleeding edge until something broke. Then I'd stay stopped for a while. Until it was time to do it all over again. It was a painfully familiar cycle.

  "Let's get some food in you, you look like you could use it." My father's voice from the doorway drew me out of my fugue. I sniffed the air; the air was filled with the aroma of sizzling bacon, eggs, and hash browns, if I had to guess, though I wasn't completely certain. My stomach grumbled its approval of the idea of food.

  "Probably a good idea," I said, rising from my seat on the floor. My father gave me a worried look. "Just a nightmare, Dad." I shrugged. There was nothing else to say about it as far as either of us was concerned. That was one of my favourite things about my Dad. He rarely felt the need to pry. He'd wait until I came to him with whatever I wanted to say, good, bad, or otherwise.

  I followed Dad downstairs, my bare feet padding softly on the worn wooden steps. The kitchen was warm and inviting, sunlight streaming through the window above the sink.

  "There's bacon, eggs and hash browns. Grab what you want." Robert announced before settling into a seat on the opposite side of the table. He wasted no time in forking several eggs onto his plate and then a 'small' mound of bacon. I nodded, settling into a chair at the kitchen table. The familiar scents and sounds of home were soothing, helping to further calm my frayed nerves. Vipera's presence in my soul hummed contentedly, picking up on my improved mood. Dad poured me a glass of orange juice, reaching over to set it down in front of me. Perks of being from tall stock, we all had long arms.

  "So, what's the plan for today?" he asked casually, taking a seat across from me.

  I shovelled a whole fried egg into my mouth, chewing slowly. I was hungry, ravenous really. It was an easy excuse to delay talking for a moment or two more while I gathered my thoughts. I gulped down the egg, taking a sip from the glass of orange juice I'd been given. I saw my dad looking at me, and my lips twisted into a smirk as I kept slowly sipping at the orange juice until it was comical how long I was dragging it out.

  "Still a smart ass, I see." I grinned, setting down the glass of OJ. It felt good to smile again.

  "No more than usual." I answered in kind. "Honestly, I'm not sure what the plan is right now." I shrugged, trying to work through all the things I thought I should do and drag them all into some semblance of a plan. Or even just an idea of one.

  "I feel like I should check on Vicky and Sean," I froze for a moment. My younger siblings didn't know I was back yet unless Dad had called them, which didn't seem like a thing he would do. He'd wait until I reached out myself. "How bad did they get while I was gone?" My voice came out barely above a whisper. Vicky had probably fared the best out of the two of them, at least in some ways. She'd always been the most driven of the three of us. Last I knew, she was studying for the Bar. She was going to be a deadly lady in a courtroom.

  Sean was the question mark. Always had been. Impulsive and emotional, always in a fight or an argument. I had no idea what would have become of him while I was missing. Without me to look after him, or Vicky to balance him out and dull his worst impulses, he might have imploded.

  "They've had their share of problems since you disappeared. They're doing alright as far as I know." Dad rubbed the back of his neck. "Vicky passed the Bar, you know how hard she was studying for it back then. She moved out of the city and up to Toronto to be closer to the office. She still comes back to see her old man every Sunday, though." A soft smile played over my father's face. "Your brother is a more complicated situation, and I know less. After you disappeared, he went nuts for a time. Vicky helped me with the investigator, and we quietly carried on looking. Sean was shouting conspiracy theories from the rooftops. He started drinking more, partying more. Fell in with a crowd I didn't agree with. he doesn't come by much anymore, and he rarely answers my calls."

  I ground my teeth. I wanted to be angry at Sean for falling away from the family in my absence. In truth, I was the one who disappeared, whether I had wanted to or not; it was at least partly my own fault. It seemed like my little brother and I were going to have to have another 'Come to Jesus' type of conversation. It wouldn't be the first we'd had, or the last, but it seemed we were overdue for another one.

  "What day is it?" I asked tentatively. I could have looked at my stolen phone, but I couldn't be bothered, and the small talk helped fill the empty space.

  “Friday.”

  "If Vicky is going to visit on Sunday, might as well send Sean a message, tell him to make sure his ass is here."

  "Works. We can do a family dinner. It's been a while." I nodded. It wasn't long, but delaying seeing my siblings for a couple of days would give me time to prepare myself mentally. And make other preparations. I nodded, pushing my plate away. The food had done its job, settling my stomach and clearing my head. Now that the immediate concerns were addressed, my mind turned to the bigger picture.

  "Dad, there's something else I need to do today," I said, my voice low and serious. "I need to go into town and check on some things. See what's changed while I was gone." That was true, I'd need replacements for all my ID, and I'd have to stop in at the bank and get new cards. I'd lost all of that; my wallet and phone had vanished when I entered the Soul-Sheer.

  My father's brow furrowed slightly, but he nodded. "Alright. Just be careful out there. Things have been... tense lately."

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I raised an eyebrow. "Tense how?"

  He sighed, leaning back in his chair. "There's been an uptick in strange occurrences. People are going missing, and there is unexplained property damage. The police are getting more militant about it, and folks are getting paranoid. Lots of what they call readiness exercises at random times and places." Robert sighed, running a hand through his short-cropped hair. "Your uncle doesn't know what's going on either. Or so he says. I can't help but feel like he knows more than he's letting on." Robert shrugged helplessly. That was concerning. Uncle Wolf didn't hide things without a good reason. If he knew more than he was letting on, then there was something beyond the obvious going on. The question was whether it was magical in nature or more mundane. There was no telling right now; I didn't have enough information.

  "I'll be careful. I still need to have a look around in the daylight. Maybe check on some friends." I said, rising from my seat at the table, making for the stairs. I needed a fresh set of clothes before I went anywhere.

  “No disappearing this time, I just got you back.”

  “I don’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon.”

  "By the sounds of it, you didn't last time either."

  I didn’t have an answer for that.

  —-

  "Yeah, Wolf, he's back. No, I don't know where he's been; he doesn't want to talk about it. Wherever he's been, he's been up against it…" I could hear my father on the phone in the house. The stat upgrades really were the greatest drug. I was stronger than an Olympic athlete had senses that would shame any other human without magic. I snorted. It came at a price. Part of me wanted to snicker and dismiss that idea. While there was certainly some mental and emotional damage done during my time in the Soul-Sheer, I was also certain I was better off than I had been in my dead-end job, going nowhere fast. I couldn't deny that I would have to sit down soon and do some real soul searching.

  A single night back home, somewhere familiar to me, had done wonders for my beleaguered psyche. It wasn't enough, though. Not yet.

  Freshly changed, I stepped out onto the street, the hood of my [Mirage of the Root-Nexus], still in its hoodie form, drawn up over my head, keeping my face covered. My aura pulsed around me at its maximum size as I made my way through the familiar streets. There was a tension to the auras of the people I could sense. An undercurrent of worry, maybe? It wasn't the relaxed feeling I would have expected on a Friday morning. Last day of the work week, I figured people would be relaxed, maybe excited for the weekend.

  I plodded along, hands deep in my pockets, following wherever my feet decided to take me. Eventually, I found myself in front of the park I'd arrived at late last night. It looked different in the daylight. Not least because of the bright yellow tape over the entrance and the half dozen police cruisers that were pulled haphazardly into the park itself. I activated [Stealth] immediately; it couldn't be a coincidence that the place I had arrived in was cordoned off now. Uniformed police officers milled about, mixed with red RCMP uniforms and others I didn't recognize on sight. CSIS was a common one, emblazoned on the backs of windbreakers and jackets, or on velcro patches attached to plate carriers.

  I crept closer, my [Stealth] skill allowing me to move closer to the blockade that impeded entrance to the park itself. Considering the way I watched several eyes sweep over my position without pausing, I was starting to think [Stealth] was really more like an invisibility effect. If I had to guess, it was probably based on the people around me who might detect me. If they didn't have enough Perception, they probably couldn't detect me, though I wasn't sure what would contest that. Would it be my Charisma versus their Perception? Dexterity maybe? If this were an MMO and I were a rogue, that would be likely. I stopped leaning against the chain link fence, looking into the park. I didn't need to get any closer, though; my enhanced hearing was already sharp enough to pick up bits of the many conversations occurring in the area.

  "...never seen anything like it..."

  "...energy readings are high, very high..."

  "...keep this contained, understood?"

  My eyes narrowed as I scanned the area. Near the center of the park, where I'd emerged from the Soul-Sheer, a group of men in CSIS-branded jackets were taking readings with strange, beeping devices. The grass was scorched in a perfect circle, about eight feet in diameter. It looked like the aftermath of a lightning strike. I hadn't noticed last night when I'd arrived. I'd been too busy dealing with the ramifications of being home again and all my new Skills.

  A familiar voice caught my attention, and I turned to see Uncle Wolf speaking with a stern-faced woman in a crisp suit. His usually languid demeanour was replaced by a grim seriousness that set me on edge immediately.

  "We need to increase patrols," the woman was saying. "If this is what we think it is..."

  Uncle Wolf nodded, his eyes scanning the perimeter. For a moment, I could have sworn his gaze lingered on my position, but that was impossible. Wasn't it? On instinct, I triggered [Analyze]. I felt the contest succeed and the information spread through my mind. It wasn't enough to completely reveal his status sheet, but it was enough to get a look at the basic sheet. I was certain that if I pressed for more, I could get it, but it would alert him to my presence.

  My blood ran cold. Ice cold.

  Uncle Wolf is like me?

  Confusion ran rampant through my mind as I tried to fit the few pieces of information I had together into something that made a modicum of sense. Practicality rose through the confusion if Uncle Wolf had magic like me, I couldn't rely on [Stealth] working on him the same way it seemed to on normal people. I backed away slowly, my mind reeling from the revelation. Uncle Wolf was like me - a part of the System. How long had he been hiding this? What did it mean for everything else going on in Hadford? As I retreated, I caught another snippet of conversation between Wolf and the stern woman.

  "...We expect more incursions. We need to be ready."

  Incursions. The word sent a chill down my spine. I'd seen enough in the Soul-Sheer to be able to guess what that might mean. Monsters. Things that didn't belong in this world. My aura flared around me, and the occupants of the park flared brightly in my senses. Where animals were like lit matches, nature and plant life were a dull glow at best, and regular people were like small, heartily burning campfires. These people were like bonfires.

  My uncle included.

  I needed answers, and I needed them fast. But confronting Uncle Wolf here, while he was surrounded by others, wasn't an option. Not yet. I needed more information, more context for what was happening in my hometown. My feet carried me away from the park, towards the bustling downtown area. The familiar sights and sounds of Hadford washed over me, but everything felt different now. Tainted by the knowledge that there was something lurking beneath the surface. I made my way towards the downtown core, my thoughts whirling. I ducked into an empty alley to catch my breath and process what I'd learned. Vipera stirred within me, sensing my agitation. Her presence was comforting, a reminder that I wasn't alone in this strange new world I'd found myself in.

  "What do we do now, girl?" I murmured, a hand reaching up to cover my heart where I often felt my familiar resided when she wasn’t manifested in the world. A soft hiss echoed in my mind, and I felt a surge of determination. Vipera was right - we needed more information before jumping to conclusions. Uncle Wolf might have answers, but confronting him directly could be dangerous if he was involved in something sinister.

  I took a deep breath, calming myself. "Alright, let's think this through. We need to find out more about what's going on." It sounded a bit insane when I thought about it, but I was starting to miss the Soul-Sheer already. Things had never been great there, but they were simpler, that much was true.

  "Aiden?" A familiar voice called from the open entrance of the alley. "That you, Brother?" I looked up, finding myself staring into the face of my best friend, Cade Schnieder.

  “Fuck.”