Voices, he could hear voices sprout from the nothingness. They would suddenly start and stop speaking in random intervals sometimes interrupting each other with totally different conversations.

“Soon, we will be able to get him soon.”

      The first coherent voice seemed to be totally inhuman and strange. All the voices eventually stopped and instead he was left alone in the emptiness with nothing but a chorus of tears. He felt a hand hold on to him, it was his sister's hand. He could feel it, it was small and rough; it was probably rough from all the badminton she played. He wasn’t sure exactly where they were, but it seemed to be raining just over their hands since he could feel water droplets fall onto them. He had the sense that she was trying to speak to him, but she was on a different planet, he couldn’t quite hear what she said.

“I will see what can be done.”

      There was another voice on that planet that his sister seemed so attached to, but he could hear that voice perfectly clear. The voice seemed to puncture through the emptiness, and he could almost see the doctor before him. It was the girl who he gave his number to.

“I’m sorry but you will have to leave while we perform the operation.”

      He just realized that his sister wasn’t alone, his whole family seemed to be there and also Kith, he totally forgot to pick her up at five. He was glad that his mom was here though, he almost forgot that he had something important to say to her before taking his nap.

‘Happy birthday mom.’

      He wasn’t sure if she could hear him from that planet, but he thought he would say it anyway. His sister tried saying something to him, he couldn’t quite make out what she was saying but he tried his best to squeeze her hand with his to comfort her from whatever seemed to be so distressing. He never wanted to see his little sister as sad as she was now, he only wished he could do something to make her feel more relieved. Having her hand squeezed seemed to make her feel a little better but their father still had to pry her out of the room. She was flailing around trying to run back towards him through the arms of their father. He felt bad that he couldn’t comfort her more, but he really needed this nap.

‘Can you take care of Nubnub while I nap dad?’

      His dad didn’t answer but he felt that he could trust him. Finally, it was just him and the girl no longer wearing her yellow headband. The two of them on opposite planets, she gave him her beautiful smile.

“When I wanted to observe you, I didn’t realize it would be so soon.”

‘Couldn’t stay away from me, could you?’

      He didn’t seem nervous with her anymore, maybe it was thanks to this strange liquid he just realized was being pumped into him. It didn’t seem to matter much though; it would seem her ears weren’t as good as his since he could hear her, but she couldn’t hear him.

“I’m not going to save you. Sorry about that, but if it makes you feel better, for some reason my eye looks at you and I just can’t help but feel like I’ll see you again.”

‘You’re a weird doctor. What doctor starts off by saying they won’t save the patient?’

“We got him.”

      A room. He could suddenly see again, it felt like his mind had disappeared for eons, but he was finally back with all of his senses. In the room before him were five beings. The five beings were humanoid but just not fully human in some hard to explain sense. They each wore long flowing white gowns except for one of the beings at the back of the group which wore a faintly glowing gold gown. Many of the beings had many arms and large feathered wings. The beings had all reflexively repulsed from Radix when he appeared and they noticed his disgusting green eyes. The being at the center of the group quickly recovered and spoke up.

“O great one, we have pulled your soul from time and space in its moment of greatest weakness. We have summoned you here to humbly ask of you to defeat the evil white witch which plagues our world with unforgivable evil.”

      The end of the being’s sentence was followed by the chime of a bell. In front of Radix their seemed to be a small pink rhombus, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes. While the ever-changing pink shape continuously morphed the being spoke again.

“To accomplish this task, we have blessed you with our divine devadoot blood to reinforce your soul with god-like power and have granted you an invitation.”

      The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with two limbs. One arm was outstretched towards the being with the golden robe and the other towards Radix. Each arm held onto a glowing parchment. Radix looked at the parchment facing him: It read.

       You have been invited to

               The Tournament

          You are The Antecedent

      He reached out to grab the parchment with his left arm but when no arm moved to do any such thing his mind finally processed everything that had happened. He emptied his stomach, vomiting all over the pink organism and its invitation.