Traveler business

MONICA

Rays of golden sunlight tickled my eyelids. I opened my eyes and found myself staring at a sky so filled with stars that it was breathtaking. I look around at clouds of various hues swirling around me.

I'm in awe of this view until it registers that I'm among the clouds. Fear grips me, overwhelming me in seconds. I slowly stand up, but the view knocks me back down. Questions about where I was slammed into my mind. I look around me and find the bat from the night before. Hoping to calm myself, I reach for it, and it...flies towards me?

I grip the bat in my hands as fear and frustration threaten to overcome me.

"Where am I?" I ask myself

The tears came, and I let them out for a few moments before pulling myself together. I stand back up, dust my jeans, and walk towards the edge of the cloud I woke up on.

I become absolutely certain that I'm in a different world from earth as I stare at a world so far above earth's advancement.

I stare at buildings of gold and silver, flying cars, and, more bafflingly, flying people. I see people floating everywhere below me; it's almost chaotic.

I stare at the world below me for what feels like hours before raising my hands and calling out for help. A group of individuals turn towards me before I even open my mouth, and I realize with horror that I had somehow projected my thoughts towards them.

The group of three reached me in seconds. I'm surprised to see they are all humans; I had expected to see monsters or beastmen. I catch myself staring, a little embarrassed.

"Help me, please," I say.

The boys whisper to each other, and I hear the one on the left ask how I managed to even get up here. I want to tell him I'm just as confused, but the middle one turns and asks me instead.

"How'd you get so high up?" Telepaths don't fly."

I turn to look at the third guy, but he's staring at the bat in my hands, suddenly conscious. I tuck it behind me and shrug, letting them know I have no idea either.

"I woke up, and I found myself here." The boys just stare in confusion, so I point at myself and the cloud. "So, can you help me?"

The middle guy nods and holds out his hands to me. I hesitated for a second before I put my hands in his. I close my eyes to mentally prepare for what is sure to be a terrible experience when a voice like thunder rattles me.

My eyes opened to see the third boy staring at me in open-mouthed shock. He points at my arms, where a silver mark of a sunburst is imprinted.

"You are a traveler."

The boys turned to stare at the mark. "A telepath traveler," the middle boy whispered.

I'm even more confused with this whole traveler business. "What does a traveler mean?" The boy on the left is so excited that he squeals.

"It means you're a legacy."

The other boys are still shocked, so when I ask them what being a legacy means, they just stare at me and nod as if to say, "Definitely a traveler."

"What is your name?" the middle boy asks; his hands squeeze mine in a gesture of reassurance.

"I'm Monica," I reply.

The boy nods and points to himself. "Well, I am Asrai" he says, pointing to the boy on the left "Lutor" and the boy with the voice of thunder "Gerial".

I nod at each of them and ask what a legacy means again. Asrai nods and explains.

"A legacy is a person who inherits the seed of an immortal's talent; this means that," he points at me, "you inherited the talents of an immortal telepath."

"Or celestial," Gerial adds.

The concept of immortals and celestials leaves me wide-eyed and scared. I want to ask what a celestial is, but instead I ask what would happen if people found out about my traveler status.

"It'll be a disaster; you'll be swarmed the moment people find out, and many will want to recruit you into one faction or the other before the empire can snatch you up," Lutor explains.

"That'll be a best-case scenario," Asrai adds.

"Or they kidnap you or kill you, or agents of a neighboring empire find you and, well, kill you," Lutor explains.

"A little too much information, Lutor," Gerial murmurs.

I'm staring at the boys, and I can feel myself panicking. Asrai places his hands on my shoulders to steady me. Staring at me intently, he says, "That's why you can let no one know about this until you feel strong enough to defend yourself."

I nodded at his words. I can understand the politics of it; if a traveler was so strong, I can understand why others would want them dead.

"So, where am I?" I ask the boys.

"AEFLYM, the Sunstone Empire, Sector 7," Gerial announced, "and it's a very dangerous place for an unprepared traveler."

I nod at his words: "So, what do I do now?" I ask.

It's not much of a surprise that my life is in danger here as well, and if I'm to survive, I would need all the answers I could get.

"Well, first you would have to do a test." Lutor responds, his expression eager and excited. He notices my confusion and adds, "To know your class," as if that explains anything.

"Class?" I ask. Gerial smiles at my confusion but remains silent as Lutor explains.

"There are 7 classes of talents: mundane, enhanced, destroyers, shatterers, slayers, calamities, and world-enders." He pauses to see if I am following, so I nod, encouraging him to proceed. "The mundane classes have the weakest manifestations of a talent and are only a little better than untalented humans."

"The enhanced classes, class 2, are much stronger than the mundane classes but are still classified as weak in the grand scheme of things". He pauses dramatically to catch his breath. "The destroyer class is where things start to get interesting; a single destroyer is compared to about 10 enhanced talents." He mimes the word fun, while I try to understand these classes as we slowly descend to the ground.

Gerial shakes his head at Lutor's antics and carries on in his stead: "Class 4 talents are dangerous and should not be trifled with." He looks at me carefully and says, "If you find yourself around a class 4 talent, be weary."

"They are said to be able to destroy an entire state at the peak of their power," Lutor adds.

"Dangerous" Gerial confirms and continues, "Class 5 slayers, you'll probably never come in contact with any of those in this sector."

"Which is a good thing," Asrai explains, and I nod to convey my understanding and look towards Lutor for the fun part.

"They can supposedly annihilate an entire sector at the peak of their power." I swallow at how casually they speak of these higher and more dangerous classes.

"Calamities are rare, even in the capital itself," Asrai adds, shrugging. "Only a few are born every year, but they are very strong."

"The king is a class 6 talent," Gerial adds.

"Calamities can annihilate an entire empire at the peak of their power; that's why they are so dangerous," Lutor says. I just stare at the boys as they describe the annihilation of empires the size of continents back on earth. I almost dread what 7th graders would be capable of considering their names.

"Class 7 world enders are mythical and rarely ever appear on AEFLYM," Gerial shrugs. "There was a class 7 some thousands of years ago, and he was killed only a few months after he was discovered."

I don't turn to Lutor this time to understand the kind of power this world's enders wielded; if they could destroy a world at the peak of their power, I understand why people would sacrifice themselves to kill them before they became powerful enough.