Nat's back was against a rock as he held hands with Lyn's diminutive form, hidden beneath a fireproof blanket. He was looking out at the sky to the east, but could see little in the newly fallen darkness; the barest light from the sunset could still be seen faintly illuminating the sky over the horizon to the west, but that hindered — rather than helped — his ability to see.

  The world to the front and right of him — southeast — suddenly was filled with dark shapes in the sky, and the trees and ground lit up with a gorgeous mass of varied lights.

  A wave of invisible pressure splashed against Nat, like the start of a storm, except he wasn't feeling it on his skin. It somehow abraded his very sense of being, leaving it raw and exposed; like trying to stand against a torpid river congested with jagged shards of ice.

  He felt Lyn jerk and shudder suddenly, a mirror of his own response, and their hands separated as they both recoiled. And then everything went utterly black.

  Oh, come on!

  But something was different this time; he didn't have any of the usual feelings that came with an episode, nor was he seeing those strange system messages from before. He closed and reopened his eyes to be sure. And he could do that — so it wasn't like earlier today.

  He tried to stand and met unexpected resistance, like he was being crushed under a weighted blanket. He pushed harder, the weight gave — slowly, and he made it to his feet. The world lightened the tiniest fraction as he did so — the glowing animals all around him just barely visible. As he finished getting to his feet, everything went dark again.

  Okay, that's bizarre.

  Taking a step forward was met with the pressure again, this time from in front of him, rather than above. Again, he pressed forward, and managed to take a step, though he had to almost slam his leg and foot to the ground to do so; it was like walking through thick mud. The faint light returned briefly as he moved, and then vanished again when he stopped.

  He took another step. Light again, then dark.

  Okay. Interesting. I can just barely see, but only when I'm moving?

  Turning around to step back where he'd been was more difficult than it should have been — it was hard to orient perfectly in the dark.

  There was resistance at the edges of his motion, but not where he'd been. Stepping back into the area that did not resist, he almost tripped; the lack of resistance was inconsistent where he'd stepped, like legs moving through a heavy ash fall. What was weirder is that he would have tripped, except the… air caught him? How did that work?

  Also, wait, he wasn't breathing. He felt no need to, not since everything had gone dark. Oh, that was bad. Was this what being dead felt like?

  No, he could see the glowing animals around him when he moved, so that made no sense unless this is what it was like to be a ghost.

  He tried to inhale, but found that he could not. There was nothing there to take in, somehow. He exhaled; that was much harder than it should have been. He got the barest amount of air out, and then suddenly it was like he was breathing against a pillow. And now he felt resistance in front, against his face. Stranger and stranger still.

  Nat was not sure if he preferred this to his usual episodes. Was this a temporary effect from the aetheric wave, some new episode type, or something to do with the system from earlier?

  He stood there, pondering next steps for a half minute or so before deciding he should see if he could ask Lyn. Maybe they were stuck in the same thing?

  When he tried to move forward, he suddenly met resistance in front of him again, as if he hadn't gone this way before. There was also something else — his hand was caught somehow. It felt like… slick… nothing? It had absolutely no give to it when he pressed lightly with the trapped hand.

  Pushing his head forward and down through the thick nothingness so as to look down at his trapped hand, he got the barest glimpse of… was that Lyn's glowing blue eyes he'd seen down to the side, next to his stuck hand?

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  He felt around his snagged hand with his free one, trying to feel out what was holding it. It felt like… fingers? Was that Lyn's hand?

  This was absolutely, without a doubt, the weirdest day of his life. That he could recall, that was.

  He pressed his free hand against what he assumed was Lyn's, trying to squeeze it to send a signal across, to let them know he was stuck in this too.

  It felt like pressing against smooth, hot stone, or metal. Then there was suddenly the smallest amount of give.

  [ Moira: Hi, Nat! Fancy meeting you here! ]

  [ Moira: Whatever you do, don't let go of Lyn, please. Things are going to get a little odd here. Odder. ]

  Nat tried to speak in response, but without breath, nothing came out, and he couldn't both force air and form words at the same time. He tried the system ‘chat’ instead.

  [ Moira: Let me explain. No, wait, that will take too long. Let me sum up. I've always wanted to say that! ]

  [ Nat: Does this work? ]

  [ Moira: Yep! ]

  [ Nat: Oh good, it does. ]

  [ Moira: Okay, we'll get to your questions in just a moment. But first, your talent has activated. Lyn recognized it immediately, so knew what to do, but couldn't manage to press against you hard enough. I'm guessing you managed to complete the circuit, as it were. ]

  [ Nat: Ah, so it was Lyn — I'd wondered. I'm mostly blind in here. All I can see is faint glows, and only when I move. ]

  [ Moira: You're not blind, but not enough light is getting to you for you to see anything. You're acting in an isolated time dilated reference frame — outrunning your own light cone. The short version is you are moving too fast for light to reach you. When you move, you're colliding with it, instead of it with you, so if you need to see, move yourself — your eyes specifically — straight at what you want to look at. Fun fact: the human eye is so sensitive that it can detect even a single photon! ]

  [ Nat: Okay, move to see. Easy enough. It's hard to move in here though. Everything's like mud. ]

  [ Moira: Yeah you're going to have to fight to move through the air — you can bring some mass into your frame with you, or push it out, if you press hard enough against it. Apparently this is what your talent is supposed to do, in very short bursts. I'd know more, but Lyn can't think at this speed. I'm inferring a lot here, honestly. Anyway, the important thing you need to know is that we only get about three seconds between each time you freeze. It's going to feel like a lot longer than that to you, since you're moving at accelerated speeds, but you get three seconds of action before you turn into a statue. ]

  [ Moira: Basically, we're playing a turn based game where you move, we move, you move, we move. Now that I'm in here, though, we can coordinate, as long as you, or Lyn, doesn't let go. ]

  [ Nat: Okay, so, I'm moving fast, is what you're saying? And then you move fast? ]

  [ Moira: Close. We move at normal speed, but you slow down as much as you sped up, to balance the equation. The faster you go, the slower you go in response afterward. That's not a bad thing, actually. The difference in speed can have some protective qualities we can discuss some other time. ]

  [ Nat: Okay, so what's the plan? How do we sync back up? ]

  [ Moira: The easiest thing to do is to stop the skill. There's a problem with that though. ]

  [ Nat: Okay, and what's the problem? Is this danger from heat like before? ]

  [ Moira: Not quite. Your skill is automatically stopping and starting correct at the moment, so you're not in danger of burning the entire field down or anything right now. Though if you try to move too much, for instance, you can still manage it — don't run anywhere right now or move anything heavy, is what I'm saying. ]

  [ Nat: Okay, so then what's the issue? ]

  [ Moira: Well, what you can't see right now is that we did not, in fact, lean up against a rock together earlier. ]

  [ Nat: Okay…? What does that mean? ]

  [ Moira: Well, just for reference, the rock is actually a claw. The good news — you asked for that first, remember — is that the claw is actually fairly big compared to the rest of the Ber that the pulse disturbed. ]

  [ Nat: And the bad? ]

  [ Moira: The rest of it is now aboveground, and it's terrified out of its mind and attacking Lyn. ]

  [ Nat: Oh. Okay. What can we do? ]

  [ Moira: Okay, so, that's just way too calm a response. Nat, we're low on time, but I want to ask you seriously just so I know how to calibrate my responses to you. Did you have either a lot of bad things, or maybe just one or two terrible things happen to you early in life? No details, just, yes or no. ]

  [ Nat: … Yes. ]

  [ Moira: Got it. We're going to talk later about that. Okay — to business — here's what you need to know. First, if you lose contact with Lyn, you need to find them and grab their hand again. Specifically contact with the silvered palm. Then we can talk, else you're on your own and half blind it's going to be hard for you to be effective. Second, if at any point things start getting weird, or you get system warnings of any sort, you need to immediately cancel your Talent. Immediately. No waiting. The energy needed to mitigate the interface between two frames moving at near light speed is, well, frankly someone's playing loose with the rules here, and I'd like to ask them some pointed questions later. Hint, hint — That's not to you, Nat. ]

  [ Nat: Okay, got it. Hand holding's a go. Turn the Talent off at the first sign it's going wrong. So, how can I help? ]

  [ Moira: Oh, I knew I liked you. Here's the best part about reference frames. You might feel like the most effective you can be is to move and take action, but there's something very important about the three seconds when you can't. ]

  [ Nat: What's that? ]

  [ Moira: You're like a statue made of the hardest stone imaginable. You can be moved, but think about how hard it is to move the air. Well, it's a lot harder to move heavier things. What? No, it hasn't been three seconds, why are we getting cut off? Nat, no time. Lyn's probably going to have to move. Find Lyn again! ]