When I was at Tesata, one of the totally super fun and not at all pure evil games they'd like to play was to put us through challenges at random. One of those times they said they were going to do a test of my fortitude, then effectively locked me in a closet. In hindsight, I am not sure if they had me figured out and were doing some kind of literal metaphor for me, but it didn't really matter either way.

My main caretaker, Mikkel, the awful man who ran Tesata, oversaw this challenge. The closet I was in was all stone, and had no visible way out. Not much of anything was visible, as it took forever for my eyes to adjust in the darkness.

"Cani get themselves into all sorts of awful situations," Mikkel's voice echoed around me, as though he were in there with me. "Say you stumble into the void due to your overabundance of power mixed with your own ignorance and find yourself in darkness like this."

"Well, then I break my way out!" I said. I conjured up a vine and smacked the wall.

"Incorrect," Mikkel said. That sounded like he was right behind me. I whirled, accidentally swinging my vine around like a whip. Well, maybe I subconsciously hoped to hit Mikkel where I'd have an easy excuse with the whole darkness thing if he really was there. But it was just me, alone.

I felt around next, trying to find a lever or something.

"It's like you're not even trying," Mikkel said.

That sounded like he was directly to my left. I reached out, accidentally punching the wall.

"Ow..." I said.

"If you'd use your mind instead of your fists, you'd be on your way to a solution," Mikkel said.

This was to my right, sounding way too close. I felt out palm first this time, trying to trace the sound of his voice. The walls didn't have any immediate features outside of stone, but Mikkel kept talking about me not utilizing my full skillset, not reaching my full potential. Instead of a big vine, I decided to try little vines next, with five snaking around each of the fingers on my right hand. The next time Mikkel spoke, I tried to catch his voice with the vines. It was to my right again.

Sometimes when I use my plant powers, I can almost feel through them. Say I make a big stick and poke something, I can feel the texture of what I poke. In this case, I was able to find grooves in the wall. My tiny vines reached out through it as Mikkel continued to berate me.

I could feel the vines reach outside, and channeled everything I had into making them grow even bigger, clamping down on whatever was waiting out there.

"If you'd simply think instead of just—ACK!" Mikkel screamed as I caught him, giving even more than I thought I had, wrapping him up like a tight blanket. If he wanted fortitude, I was gonna show him fortitude.

"Ha! Got you!" I said.

"Let...go!" Mikkel said.

"You locked me in here, now you let me out," I said.

Mikkel could only stand my attack for a few moments before the door opened, blinding me for a second from the bright, sunny day. The peaceful nature of the small island Tesata was built on was at odds with the cruelty we were subjected to, and that dichotomy really rang true for me as I stepped forward.

"So, did I win?" I asked.

Mikkel spat at the ground.

"Monsters," Mikkel said, rising to his feet and storming away. "Monsters, the lot of you."

"Yeah, well, this monster figured out your stupid game," I muttered.

I couldn't help but think of that day as I stood in Falling Shards, giant lockdown doors dropping, trapping myself, Zeta, Myles, and Raytris together in a section of hallway. A monitor in the hallway broadcasted a video feed of Penteldtam and this weird, squiggly, stick figure guy with a poster for a face, who went by Reed. The initial red lights had faded, but now the only illumination was from the screen.

"We'll give our contestants some time to adjust," Reed said. His weird arms kind of reminded me of my vines as he held up a book. "Let's take a little study break before we explain the game!"

Personality wise though, he reminded me way too much of my former caretaker.

"I don't know if I can put into words how much I hate that thing," I said.

Reed and Penteldtam each got a book and read in silence, with the stick figure lying on his belly and kicking his feet as he read.

Zeta was understandably not adjusting to being suddenly trapped in a lockdown shelter by some strange entity well. She pointed at one of the heavy doors that dropped down with a shaky hand.

"Imagine if we were fricking under that, we could've been crushed!" Zeta said. She gasped and looked behind her. "Oh my god, are our tails OK?"

"We were like five feet away from it, we're good," I said.

"Still!" Zeta said. "The big...the big doors...that freaking loud noise..."

"Let's take some deep breaths," I said, patting her shoulders.

"I'll...I'll try..." I said.

The eyes of the devil with us glimmered in the dark.

"You good over there?" I asked.

"Yeah, this is nothing new for me," Myles said. "I've been in a lot of situations like this."

Normally, I'd ask some follow up questions, but I needed to assess how serious this was first.

"Oh, and Raytris!" I said. The slime girl had been chased towards us by Myles, and I wasn't sure where she'd ended up. "Are you alright too?"

Zeta yelped like she saw a mouse. "Oh, there she is." Raytris was in her smaller form and slid along the ground by our feet, still keeping her distance from Myles. The two apparently had history in the world they came from.

"Oh my god, wait," I said, thinking of my own recent history.

"What is it? Is another door gonna come down?" Zeta asked, clinging to me in a panicked, yet very adorable way.

"No, I just remembered," I said. "In my training with Caya, the void monster we fought, that shelf guy? He said he was a servant of Reed."

I looked at the monitor again, where the strange poster faced guy was still reading, lying on his belly with his stick legs kicking behind him. I guess it provided some comfort to put a face to the name, but not much.

"Alright, reading break over!" Reed said, clapping his book shut. "Time for our fun, deadly game to really begin."