Buckle Up, Buttercup (Literally!), Magic Frequencies for Dummies (That's Me!), and Red Airspace: Where Turbulence is the Least of Your Problems.
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Author Note: Our heroes are officially airborne and it's... a bumpy ride. Sawyer's getting a crash course in Magical Frequencies 101, courtesy of the surprisingly informative Mark. Meanwhile, the Red Desert sounds less like a vacation spot and more like a place where reality goes to take a very long, unstable nap. Fasten your seatbelts, folks, things are about to get weird (again).
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No sooner had the heavy cargo door clanged shut behind them, sealing them within the cold, metallic interior of the transport aircraft, than the engines roared to full life. A deep, guttural sound vibrated through the steel frame like a growl from some mechanical beast. Then came the jolt—a sudden, bone-rattling lurch that sent a ripple of panic through Sawyer's body.
The entire plane shuddered as if gripped by invisible hands—hands that twisted and tested the integrity of every bolt and rivet. The aircraft groaned in protest, its massive wings flexing against the raw power of the air currents outside. It felt less like they were taking off and more like they were being ripped from the earth, forcibly dragged into an unforgiving sky.
Sawyer's breath caught. He gripped the harness strapped across his chest with white-knuckled desperation, his fingers trembling as he locked them tighter around the safety straps. His back was plastered to the cold seat, and his heart thundered against his ribs like it was trying to claw its way out of his chest. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears, faster and louder than the engines. The world tilted, then dipped, then violently shook again, a relentless reminder of how little control he had.
He darted a glance around the interior. To his bewilderment, no one else seemed remotely fazed. Not a flinch. Not a flicker of fear. If anything, most of the soldiers around him looked bored. A few even chuckled as if they were enjoying the wild turbulence like it was just another thrilling amusement park ride. The aircraft pitched hard to the left, then leveled out again, and still, no one seemed to care.
And then there was Sarah.
She wasn't just calm—she was thriving. While Sawyer clung to his seat like it was the only thing tethering him to life, Sarah was practically dancing through the chaos. Her booted feet moved with uncanny ease over the unstable flooring, her balance unshaken by the stomach-churning lurches of the plane. It was as if the laws of physics bent around her, too respectful or too afraid to interrupt her rhythm.
With a grin stretched across her face, she led a loud, off-key chorus of a military drinking song, her voice rising over the engine's growl and the rattle of unsecured gear. Others joined in with varying levels of enthusiasm, clapping, laughing, even throwing cards down on a makeshift table that slid comically back and forth along the floor. They were playing dice, shouting over the turbulence like it was background noise.
Sarah moved among them like a figure out of a dream—or a nightmare. Where others stumbled, she floated. Her long, muscular tail extended behind her, occasionally wrapping around a stray strap or pipe to anchor herself when the aircraft pitched too hard. She even ascended the side wall at one point, perching momentarily near the ceiling as if gravity had become optional. Her expression was one of effortless command, amusement playing at the corners of her mouth as if chaos was her element.
Sawyer watched her with wide eyes, part awe, part disbelief. This was a woman who had seen war, death, and fire—and walked away grinning. Compared to her, he felt small. Fragile. Out of his depth.
And as the plane continued its violent climb into a sky thick with sand, noise, and uncertainty, that quiet truth settled deep in his bones: whatever came next, he wasn't ready.
Not yet.
Occasionally—between the bursts of raucous laughter, the blaring off-key songs echoing through the metallic cabin, and the disorienting jolts that made the aircraft feel like it was being slapped around by a vengeful god—Sarah would glance in Sawyer's direction. Her eyes, sharp and ever-alert, would flick toward him for only a second, but even that brief contact felt like a spotlight had turned on him. Her gaze was unreadable, balancing somewhere between amusement and professional duty.
"You good back there, buttercup?" she'd call out over the commotion, her voice cutting through the air like a whip-crack. The tone was teasing, almost dismissive—more of a rhetorical formality than a true check-in. She didn't wait for his reply. Before he could muster up anything beyond a startled blink and a strangled half-nod, she had already turned away, laughing at some crude joke made by one of her squadmates.
Sawyer exhaled shakily and leaned his head back against the cool metal behind him. He could feel the vibrations of the engines through the panel, a constant mechanical growl that felt more alive than stable. His stomach churned with a combination of nerves and motion sickness, and the air inside the aircraft smelled of sweat, machine oil, and something faintly metallic—blood, maybe, or just the ghosts of old battles.
At least he wasn't the only one not singing along or enjoying the ride.
Next to him, strapped securely in with a harness that looked like it had been reinforced with spare armor plates, sat Mark—the half-giant IT technician whose broad shoulders practically swallowed the seat. Despite the chaos around them, Mark looked like he was in a completely different reality. Calm. Steady. Maybe even... bored.
Mark's massive frame hunched forward slightly as he worked with total focus. In front of him floated a glowing red holographic keyboard, suspended mid-air in a flickering grid of light and symbols. Sawyer had never seen tech quite like it—part magic, part engineering, all headache. Mark's thick fingers, which looked more suited to smashing concrete than typing, moved with stunning agility across the shimmering keys. His touch was confident, exact, and unnervingly fast. There was a strange kind of grace in it—like a pianist hammering through a war song.
The half-giant mumbled to himself constantly, voice low but intense, muttering what sounded like a mix of arcane equations, digital coding terms, and near-nonsense gibberish into the comms embedded in his headset. His brow was furrowed in deep concentration, the skin creased like weathered stone. He didn't even blink when the aircraft pitched violently to the side, as if turbulence were just another background hum he could ignore.
"Uh, Mark?" Sawyer finally managed, his voice barely audible over the engines and the bizarre, chaotic choir echoing around them. He sounded tentative, like a child trying to interrupt a scientist during an experiment. "What exactly are you doing there?"
Mark didn't look up. "Measuring the ambient magical frequencies, kid," he replied, voice gravelly but calm, his gaze never leaving the bright patterns dancing across the keyboard. The red symbols shifted and morphed, displaying graphs, runes, and what looked like fluctuating energy readings. He continued typing like a man possessed, completely unmoved by the panic building in Sawyer's chest.
"Wait… measuring the what now? What exactly is a… a magic frequency?" Sawyer asked, his voice wavering between confusion and curiosity. The fear that had gripped his chest moments earlier loosened slightly, retreating just enough to allow a fragile spark of interest to flare. For a brief moment, he was no longer the terrified newcomer clinging to his seatbelt—he was a young man trying to understand the impossible world he had somehow landed in.
Mark froze mid-typing. His large, calloused fingers—more like slabs of concrete than flesh—hovered over the glowing, red-tinted holographic keys. The ethereal light shimmered across his knuckles as he slowly turned his head toward Sawyer, his expression twisting into something between disbelief and reluctant amusement.
His eyes, dark and heavy-lidded, narrowed ever so slightly.
"Are you… are you actually serious right now, kid?" Mark's voice rumbled, low and disbelieving, like the beginning of a storm just beneath the surface.
Sawyer blinked, caught off guard by the incredulous tone. His mouth opened slightly, but no words came out. He wasn't sure whether to laugh, apologize, or crawl under the seat. The flush of heat crept up the back of his neck and spread to his ears, prickling at his skin like embarrassment had a physical texture. In the presence of someone like Mark—so big, so sure, so in his element—Sawyer felt like a toddler fumbling around in a room full of sharp objects and ancient secrets.
"You're… you're not joking?" Mark asked again, his tone slightly louder now, disbelief settling like thick dust on every word. "They've actually sent you out here… to save the world… and you don't even know the basic principles of magical frequency detection?" He stared at Sawyer as though trying to determine whether this was a prank or a cosmic mistake. "That's… that's just unreal, man. Absolutely unreal."
Then came the sigh.
It wasn't just a sigh—it was an event. A deep, cavernous exhale that seemed to vibrate the very bolts holding the plane together. Mark leaned back in his seat and let the moment hang there, the kind of silence that demanded a reevaluation of everything.
With a quick flick of his large, surprisingly nimble hand, the glowing keyboard flickered once and vanished into thin air. The light evaporated, and the only thing left was the heavy weight of Mark's attention, now fully focused on Sawyer.
His earlier disbelief was still there, but it had dulled into something else—an almost paternal resignation, the way an older sibling might look at a younger one who'd just tried to microwave soup in a metal bowl.
"Hey! Cut me some slack here, alright?" Sawyer snapped before he could stop himself. His voice rose with frustration, his hands lifting slightly from his lap in a helpless gesture. "I literally just got here! Like, Friday! Nobody has explained anything to me. No manuals, no crash course, nothing! I've just been tossed headfirst into this whole 'magic' world, and everyone seems to assume I should already know how it all works!"
Mark rolled his eyes. Actually rolled them. It was strange, seeing such a simple, human gesture come from a creature of his sheer size. Somehow, it carried the weight of centuries of babysitting clueless recruits.
"Yeah, yeah," Mark muttered, waving a dismissive hand. "The classic 'I'm new here' routine. Heard it a hundred times." He leaned forward slightly, resting one thick arm across his knees. "Alright, fine. Consider this your impromptu 'Welcome to Magic Class 101.' Today's lesson: what the hell magic frequencies are and, more importantly, why they actually matter in the grand scheme of things."
He paused just long enough for Sawyer to swallow hard and nod once, bracing himself for whatever wild explanation was coming next.
Sawyer shifted uncomfortably in his seat, trying to brace himself against another sudden jolt of turbulence that rocked the aircraft like a toy boat on stormy water. The relentless shuddering wasn't easing up, and the occasional overhead creaks did little to calm his frayed nerves. Still, he found himself oddly grateful for the temporary reprieve his conversation with Mark offered—a momentary anchor in the chaos.
Despite the man's gruff demeanor and the way he had initially ridiculed Sawyer's lack of magical knowledge, Mark seemed—surprisingly—willing to talk, even teach. That alone gave Sawyer a small, tentative sense of reassurance. Maybe he wasn't as completely alone in this strange new world as he'd thought.
Just as he began to relax a fraction, a loud, sharp ding erupted from his pocket.
The sound, so jarringly normal amid the chaos of magical keyboards and otherworldly turbulence, made him flinch. For a second, he couldn't even place it. His heart stuttered in his chest before the realization hit him—it was his phone. He had almost forgotten it existed. Forgotten that somewhere beneath all the magic, he was still tethered to technology, to something from the world he used to know.
He hesitated. The idea of pulling it out right now felt oddly intrusive, like trying to check your email during an apocalypse. Still, curiosity got the better of him. He fished the phone out with one hand, his fingers stiff and a little clumsy from the tension in his body.
A single notification lit up the screen in stark white against the dim interior of the plane.
"One new document attached."
Sender: Unknown.
Sawyer's brow furrowed. That was...odd.
He stared at the message, his thumb hovering just above the screen, a tight knot forming in his gut. Something about it felt wrong. Not in a logical way—just a deep, instinctive wrongness. The kind that starts low in your spine and spreads like icewater. It was the kind of feeling he'd learned not to ignore.
"Uh, Mark?" he asked, holding the phone up slightly, the screen still glowing ominously. "Should I… I don't know, open this?"
Mark glanced at the phone, then at Sawyer, then back at the phone again with a theatrical sigh that vibrated in his chest like a grumble.
"Of course you should open it, you clueless newbie," he grunted, clearly unimpressed. "What are you waiting for? A personal invitation written in glitter? The universe isn't going to spoon-feed you every answer."
Sawyer exhaled slowly through his nose, not entirely convinced.
Still, he swiped his thumb across the screen.
The phone unlocked instantly—and then exploded with activity.
Not literally. But close enough.
In an instant, the screen was overtaken by flashing notifications. Dozens—no, hundreds—of messages began pouring in, almost too fast to read. PDFs. Video files. Audio recordings. Fragmented data. Unsolicited images. Half-named attachments. Everything came at once like a dam had burst and a tidal wave of information had been unleashed into his palm.
The device buzzed violently in his hand, the vibration so intense that it nearly slipped through his fingers. He clutched it tighter, but the small rectangle of glass and metal felt like it might shake itself apart under the pressure of whatever it had just been forced to download.
His eyes darted across the chaos flooding the screen, but there was too much—far too much—to process in real time. His pulse spiked again, the initial calm he had fought to hold onto now crumbling under the weight of confusion and unease.
"What in the unholy name of… what the actual hell is all this?" Sawyer breathed, his voice cracking slightly under the pressure of disbelief. His thumb hovered uselessly over the phone screen as his eyes struggled to process the chaotic storm of digital information erupting across it.
A relentless cascade of unfamiliar symbols, corrupted text strings, ominously titled PDF files, and short, buffering video clips played in random intervals—each one seeming more obscure and potentially dangerous than the last. His heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was trying to punch through his ribcage, and a tight knot of dread had begun to settle somewhere deep in his gut.
It was too much, too fast. The rush of data didn't feel like information—it felt like a trap.
Mark, however, didn't look concerned. In fact, the corner of his mouth lifted into a knowing smirk, his warm brown eyes flashing with the kind of wicked amusement reserved for people who know what's coming next, and who have the luxury of enjoying someone else's confusion.
"Well, congratulations, kid," he said, dragging out the words like they were part of a game show announcement. "That, my bewildered friend, is your personalized study material for Magic Class 101. Consider yourself officially enrolled in the fast-track, crash course edition."
He gave an exaggerated nod toward the screen, then added with a chuckle, "Now buckle up, buttercup—class is officially in session. Let's begin your magical education, shall we?"
Sawyer let out a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a groan, his shoulders slumping in defeat.
It was the sound of someone who had stepped onto a rollercoaster expecting a slow ride and suddenly realized there were loops ahead. "Oh, fantastic," he muttered under his breath, dragging a hand down his face. "This is going to be one of those journeys, isn't it?"
Already, he was regretting asking questions in the first place. Curiosity might not kill cats in this world, but it sure as hell looked like it came with homework.
He stared again at the device in his hand, watching the endless scroll of mysterious files and digital gibberish with a dazed expression. Some of it almost made sense—almost—but most of it felt like he'd stumbled into the back end of a high-level hacker's spellbook.
Still, through the fog of frustration and mental exhaustion, something clicked.
"Wait a minute…" he murmured slowly, narrowing his eyes as he leaned closer to the screen. "Okay, I think… I think that actually explains a few things I've seen."
His voice wavered with cautious hope. Like someone fumbling in the dark and finally brushing fingertips against a light switch, even if he wasn't quite ready to flip it yet.
Bits and pieces of strange moments since his arrival began to fall into place—lights flickering when no one touched them, a humming in the air that had no source, and that unshakable feeling that something was always just beyond the edge of his perception.
Now there was a thread connecting them.
"Now you're finally getting the hang of it, kiddo!" Mark exclaimed, his laugh booming through the aircraft's cabin like thunder.
He clapped his massive hands together with such force that Sawyer jumped slightly in his seat. Despite the roar of the engines and the eerie distant hum of the singing—wherever that was coming from—Mark's laughter somehow managed to cut through it all, grounding the moment with an odd sense of encouragement.
Sawyer found himself smiling a little, in spite of everything.
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"So," he said, cautiously leaning forward, brows drawn together in thought. "You're saying this… this magic stuff is kind of like… like a radio signal?"
He paused to make sure he wasn't completely off track before continuing. "I can't actually see it, but it's always there, right? All around us. And I can… somehow learn to tune into it? Like finding the right station on a dial?"
Mark's smirk widened, and for a moment, he looked genuinely proud.
"Exactly! You're a surprisingly quick study for a newbie," Mark said with a pleased nod, his gruff voice carrying a note of genuine encouragement.
He gestured broadly as he spoke, his large, hairy hands moving with a surprising grace that contrasted sharply with their rugged appearance. There was a rhythm to his explanation, a quiet pride in the way he laid out each point like a seasoned professor finally getting to share a secret he's long held close.
"It's not just hearing the magic," he continued, leaning forward slightly. "It's more like tuning a highly sensitive radio receiver. You have to fine-tune yourself—your focus, your energy, your intent—until you hit the precise frequency that the spell responds to. Each spell has its own unique energetic signature. It's like trying to find one exact song on a spectrum filled with static. You can't force it. You've got to feel your way there."
Sawyer's eyes narrowed slightly as he tried to keep up. His fingers unconsciously curled around the edge of the seat, anchoring himself as he visualized the comparison.
"So, it's like every spell is a different station?" he asked, cautiously. "And you have to dial in the right one just to… play the spell?"
"Exactly," Mark said, snapping his fingers. "And if you don't? Well, you either get nothing... or you end up blowing a hole in the ceiling. Depends how badly you miss the mark."
Sawyer let out a dry chuckle, but the thought of exploding ceilings didn't help calm the growing tightness in his chest.
"And those… those weird words you guys shout before every spell?" he asked after a moment, his voice lowering slightly. "The ones they screamed when their hands started glowing?"
Mark grinned, clearly impressed. "You were paying attention. Good. That was the incantation—the channel language."
He tapped two fingers to his temple, as if revealing an ancient truth. "Those words might sound random or crazy, but they're anything but. Every incantation is a precise, structured command. When spoken correctly, it locks in the magical frequency and triggers the desired effect. It's like pressing the 'execute' button on a spell. Without the right words, or the right tone, the energy either fizzles out or backfires."
Mark's voice dropped slightly, more serious now. "That's why mages practice vocal training for years—one wrong breath, one broken syllable, and a simple healing spell might turn into a fireball."
Sawyer slowly rubbed his chin, his brow creased in deep thought. He tried to visualize it—the air around him humming with invisible waves of potential energy, each one requiring careful tuning, each one demanding exact words to unlock.
It was overwhelming. And yet, some part of him, buried under the fear and confusion, was intrigued—maybe even excited.
"But…" he started, hesitating, "I still don't hear it. That static sound you mentioned. That… background hum of magic."
Before Mark could answer, the comms system cracked to life, blasting through the cabin with a sharp burst of static.
"Attention all personnel!" came a loud, commanding voice—Sarah's. Crisp, focused, and almost mechanical. "T-minus five hundred seconds to designated red airspace entry!"
Sawyer flinched at the sudden volume, snapping his attention back to the present. His stomach twisted with fresh anxiety. Whatever red airspace meant, it didn't sound like a picnic.
The theoretical world of magical frequencies and incantations vanished in an instant, replaced once again by the cold, vibrating reality of a turbulent aircraft rushing headlong into danger.
"Red airspace?" Sawyer echoed, his voice slightly higher than usual, a note of unease threading through his words as his eyes darted between Sarah's distant figure at the front of the cabin and the more grounded, solid presence of Mark seated beside him.
His throat felt dry. The phrase sounded official—too official—and it had the ring of danger buried in its syllables. Something unspoken, but deeply foreboding.
"That translates to approximately eight minutes and thirty seconds until we enter the airspace directly above the Red Desert," Mark replied calmly, though his tone had shifted from casual amusement to something far more serious.
He glanced down at the minimalist black watch strapped to his thick wrist, his brow tightening slightly. For the first time since they began this bizarre journey, he looked less like a carefree guide and more like a soldier preparing for deployment.
Sawyer swallowed and quickly turned to the sleek, unfamiliar watch on his own wrist—the one Mark had handed him earlier. His fingers fumbled slightly as he tried to recall the button layout. After a few seconds of pressing and swiping, a glowing digital countdown appeared in sharp red digits, blinking aggressively with each passing second.
8:25. 8:24. 8:23.
He shifted his gaze back to his phone, which was still open to the chaotic bundle of files Mark had dropped on him not long ago. Text scrolled past his vision—complicated runes, intricate glyphs, strange sequences of numbers, and what looked like mathematical formulas written in a language that danced on the edge of comprehension.
Sawyer's frown deepened. It felt like trying to read a textbook from an alien civilization. His brain buzzed with effort, but none of it made immediate sense.
Just as the silence between them began to feel heavy and brittle, Mark spoke again, his voice lower now, carrying a weight it hadn't before.
"Did you know that the highest magical frequency ever recorded in history happened over two hundred years ago?"
Sawyer blinked, startled by the sudden change in subject, though the tone suggested it was still connected. He turned his attention back to Mark, noting the thoughtful way the older man stared into the distance—as if seeing a memory or something he couldn't quite name.
"Two hundred years ago?" Sawyer asked slowly, torn between distraction and curiosity. "That's… a long time. But why bring that up now?"
Mark didn't answer immediately. Instead, he offered a small, cryptic smile. There was something almost reverent in his gaze now—a quiet awe that made Sawyer sit up a little straighter.
"Because, even now—centuries later—we still get spikes," Mark said. "Strong ones. Every few years. And always, always from the same place."
Sawyer felt the back of his neck prickle.
"The Red Desert?" he asked softly, already guessing the answer.
Mark nodded once, slowly. "It's like the place never forgot. It's constantly humming—like a sleeping giant breathing beneath the surface. Residual energy, they used to call it. But that name doesn't really do it justice."
He shifted in his seat slightly, as if the memory made him physically uncomfortable.
"Some of us think it's not residual at all," he continued, his voice lower now, almost as if he feared being overheard. "We think it's active. Alive. It's just… waiting for something."
Sawyer's mind began racing. He could feel the puzzle pieces clicking together with frightening clarity. The strange magical frequencies. The desert's unnatural energy. The ominous countdown.
"Wait a minute…" he began, his voice barely above a whisper. "Are you saying… the highest frequency on record—the most powerful surge of magic in known history—came from right where we're headed?"
Mark didn't smile this time.
"Yes," he said simply. His eyes were grave now, stripped of their usual warmth. "Right from the heart of the Red Desert. And no one knows exactly why. All we know is that the rules change out there. Magic doesn't behave the way it should. People who go in unprepared… don't always come out."
A silence stretched between them. The hum of the engines suddenly felt louder, more menacing.
Sawyer's chest tightened as the countdown continued to tick away on his wrist. 7:42. 7:41. 7:40.
For the first time since stepping onto this aircraft, he wished he had stayed home.
Sawyer leaned back heavily into his cramped seat, the stiff, worn fabric pressing into the curve of his spine. It was the kind of cheap material that clung to old body heat and held the faint, lingering scent of metallic air and recycled pressure. He barely noticed. His mind was spiraling, reeling from the weight of what Mark had just said.
His mouth opened before he fully processed the thought. "But… but wouldn't it be theoretically impossible for a magical frequency to remain that potent for so long?" he asked, his voice uneven, too fast. "I mean—shouldn't it have dissipated or faded by now? Centuries have passed, right? Magic should weaken over time, just like heat escaping into cold."
Mark didn't even hesitate.
"Precisely," he said, cutting in sharply, his deep voice tinged with a hint of something unsettling—excitement, maybe, or unease. "That's what makes it so disturbing. A sustained magical frequency of that intensity over that span of time? It's practically unheard of. Unless…"
He paused for just a breath—long enough for Sawyer's stomach to tighten.
"Unless the Red Desert isn't just a place. Unless it's something… far more unnatural. Something entirely different."
Mark leaned forward slightly, his eyes narrowing as if the words themselves tasted dangerous. "Unless it's a Mundus Fictus."
"Mundus… Fictus?" Sawyer repeated, stumbling over the words as if his tongue wasn't quite sure how to shape them.
The phrase echoed strangely in his mind, like a whisper from a dream half-remembered upon waking. He frowned, trying to place it—there was a familiarity to it, something buried deep in old readings or fleeting conversations, long dismissed.
"A fabricated world," Mark said, his voice quieter now, more thoughtful. "An entire reality, artificially created and sustained by concentrated magical energy."
He didn't look at Sawyer as he spoke. His gaze had drifted—past the cabin walls, past the desert below, past the world itself. His eyes had turned glassy, unfocused, as though he were staring into the folds of some invisible tapestry only he could see.
"A world woven entirely from magic," Mark continued. "Every grain of sand, every gust of wind, every unnatural fluctuation in magical readings—engineered, shaped, sustained. Theoretically possible, but…"
He stopped again, his lips tightening.
"But it's just that. A theory," he finished, his voice a touch lower now. "A fringe idea at best. Most serious researchers call it fantasy. A child's tale for scholars who've read one too many forbidden books. But the data…"
Mark's words trailed off, replaced by a long, weary sigh. It was the kind of sound that came from years of carrying a burden not easily shared—a mixture of exhaustion and reluctant belief.
Then, with a quick flick of his wrist, he called up his holographic keyboard again. The soft hum of energy responded instantly, casting an ethereal red glow across his weathered face.
"We're too close now," he murmured, not really talking to Sawyer anymore. "Can't afford to miss anything—not even a second of data. Not when we're this close."
Sawyer watched as Mark's thick, calloused fingers flew across the glowing keys with mechanical precision. His face was all focus now—jaw tight, brows furrowed, mouth set in a grim line.
The cabin felt colder somehow, the hum of the aircraft louder and more intrusive. Sawyer turned back to his phone, which had defaulted to a dense, alien-looking diagram.
The screen displayed a tangled web of magical frequency charts, lines crossing over each other in impossible patterns. Symbols—some mathematical, others resembling ancient runes—glowed faintly in shades of red, gold, and violet.
As he stared, the diagram seemed to breathe. Not literally, of course, but something about the rhythmic pulsing of the lines made it feel alive—like it was trying to tell him something he wasn't yet capable of understanding.
Sawyer's fingers twitched on his lap, his thoughts spinning in all directions. The more he saw—the more he understood—the more he realized how little he actually knew. This wasn't just some hidden world layered beneath the surface of his own. This was an entire system, ancient and alive, built on rules his world didn't even recognize.
And now he was hurtling straight into the center of it.
He closed his eyes briefly, overwhelmed. Questions pressed in from every direction—What was the Red Desert really? What kind of being could build a world like that? And more urgently: what the hell were they walking into?
His phone buzzed softly in his hand, a new spike in the magical readings lighting up the diagram in crimson.
Sawyer stared down at it, and for the first time, truly felt it in his bones:
They weren't just crossing into dangerous territory. They were entering something designed to be crossed into. Something waiting.
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Note: The School of In-Flight Etiquette would like to remind all passengers that singing off-key military anthems during extreme turbulence is generally frowned upon by those experiencing existential dread. Please keep your terror internal and your volume down. Also, that "unknown sender" notification? Probably best to leave that unopened until after saving the world.