1 Prologue

Once, life had been bliss. Now those days had long gone, together with her ignorance.

Under labored breath, Eileen's head spun around, in search for a way out of her nightmare. Still in full sprint, her magic power exploded from her heels and slung her haggard body around the corner.

As she rushed past the black machinery along the walls, Eileen's feet carried ever further away from her prison. Beyond the bubbling pipes and churning pistons she would find her freedom, that was her desperate hope. Although her bare feet slapped on the hard steel floor, all she could hear was her own erratic breath and the rush of blood in her ears.

How long had it been since she could let loose and just run? Eileen knew the answer, but forced her brain to ignore it. Before she reached the next crossroad, her hazy thoughts refocused.

*Stay sharp, Eileen.*

Any mistake could spell her doom, and she only had this one chance. So when she saw an intersection come up, her strides slowed. Careful to silence her breathing, she spied out the right intersection and saw two more of her pursuers, those alien creatures who dared call themselves human. Slick red robes made from plastics and a hood to match hid their grotesque features, but she had seen their faces just minutes ago. Though she still understood little of the tower's real, hideous truth, she knew that whatever these things were. They weren't guardians of the peace, despite their self-proclaimed title.

Although she had been ever so careful in her approach, one of the beasts still spotted her. The thing froze up only for a second, before it raised its cylindrical weapon to take aim.

*Get away!*

Once again, Eileen wasted some of her inherent magic force to propel herself up and past the crossroads, and past the alerted monsters. Behind her, the gun's magic burst ripped a fist-sized hole out of the steel floor, but her body had left the ground behind already. When her legs touched down again, they quivered under the excessive force. Stumbling forward, she tried to convert her momentum into a roll and fire back up, but her body wouldn't follow her will.

*Too weak. Too hungry.*

She forced another blast of precious mana out of her hands and propelled herself back up, onto unsteady feet. Her happiness lasted less than a second, only until she saw the end of the hallway. All the pipes along the walls led into a small room full of servers. The cables snaked all across the floor and formed dens along the walls. There was no way out. She was trapped.

With the realization, despair set in. As Eileen sank to her knees, barely conscious, a silent scream escaped her muted throat. Not even tears of relief would escape from her withered eyes. With the monster's steps on the floor behind her, Eileen stared at her reflection in the artificial, shiny surface of the floor. Somewhere inside those two pitch-black holes hid her dim, sunken eyes. Her dried skin stretched over her face like paper. After its continuous retreat, her skin had developed red cracks all across her face and her mouth had turned into a wide, skeletal grin, to make a mockery of her misery.

The vibrant young girls had turned into a monster to fit her captors over no more than two years. Once she had realized the tower's goals, learned of her true duty, she had started to count. Through anger, anguish and resignation she had counted the days. Seven hundred and twelve times, two years on the dot. Her brother was two years younger than her. Today would be the day of his own aptitude test, the day he might retread her path. If there was one thing she would do in her desecrated life, she would spare him of her own fate. It had been all she could do to retain her sanity. Without purpose, she would have gone insane, like all the others.

She had taught herself to use her gifts beyond the lies the beasts had fed her, in secret so they wouldn't know. When the monsters had come to take her from the numbing comfort of her hamster wheel and into the unspeakable terror of the slaughter house, she had taken them by surprise and escaped, reached here.

"Target has been cornered. Proceed with caution until the threat is neutralized."

The words of the monsters mattered little, for the cables to her left called out to her. They would lead all over the city, all the way down the towers, into the Aether which spanned across Astralis like a net. Through them, she might reach her brother, reach out one last time. She had never had any proper training in magic, but a faint hope was better than a worthless death. Determined to die with purpose, Eileen grasped her last straw and forced her shaped mana down the line.

Before she lost consciousness, one final thought broke way.

*Good luck, little brat.*