Seventeen-year-old Leanie has learned to live with the void,

the familiar emptiness she feels inside.

But when her world disappears and she regains consciousness in an endless desert, she discovers a foreign land called Raenceul where only her own resourcefulness can keep her alive.

There, she’ll have to understand how the Aura cycle powers Raenceul's ecosystem, as the souls of the deceased fuel the planet’s core before travelling back to the surface to become monsters and Gods.

The almighty military corporation ruling Raenceul has understood the truth long ago. The Resistance, the Blue Deity and the Immortal, while all seeking their own redemption, will soon come to the same realization. That it is crucial for Leanie to master the Aura cycle and become a prescientist—a magician capable of turning energy into matter.

Because Raenceul is dying.

And only if Leanie kills the void within can she save Raenceul

Read the beginning of the novel below

ADVENTURE

“I wouldn’t trade three seconds of this life, my life,

for anything in the world—not even for an extra hundred years

of existence, if it meant a hundred years of dullness, comfort and predictability,

without the excitement of the unknown and the beauty of Nature.

High in the frozen altitudes, where every decision

is a matter of life and death,

I have found peace, meaning, and eternity.”

Uncle Jerr

Chapter 1

Lost

There were things she couldn't discuss. Things she was too ashamed to admit, even to herself—but none of these mattered at this moment. Not yet.

In this precise moment, it was just a regular late afternoon in sedate suburbia and two ordinary students chatting idly in the comfort of their shared friendship. It was a moment of peace, the type of moment that would have one yawn out of tranquillity, but if one truly paid attention, they’d have noticed the room was too quiet and too dark for that time of the day. They’d have wondered if a storm was coming. They would have looked up to the skies and they would have seen.

Leanie turned to peer at Charles with inquisitive eyes. She raised her chin to gain composure.

“Are you the instigator of this farce?”

Charles pouted and shrugged. She had her response.

“Of course you are! You genius!”

She was now laughing and rolling her eyes, which made some of her drink spill. She wiped the floor with a sponge. She wasn’t annoyed, on the contrary: this was by far the best moment of her week.

“So, how did you get everyone to write my name on their test? Did you promise them money? Free hugs?”

Charles was grinning with pride; it made him look like a friendly shark.

“Nah, nah, I’m not revealing my trade secrets. Let’s just say I saw the opportunity, and I took it. That’s what you get for being sick for your physics mid-term.”

“Only you can make the boredom of Senior Grade sufferable. Cheers to that!”

There was a clunk as their cups collided. Charles said, “I’d always imagined we’d go to Penn together. And now… Are you gonna take the offer?”

Of course, I will. But she didn’t say a word. She needed a diversion.

“How did it get so dark in here?”

She walked to the switch and turned the lights on. Charles added, “The stars are waiting for me, kiddo! And I need someone to help me understand math to get there.”

Of course, she would attend Penn with her best friend. Why did he even ask? They would major in astrophysics and her parents would be so proud. She was lucky. She had parents that had raised her to accomplish the best. Fun years were ahead, and a propitious resume would come as a conclusion. There would be graduation day and an office job. Charles, him, would go to the stars, but not her. She’d support him all along, of course, because his dream gave meaning to her life.

She wondered, if she was so blessed, why then was she missing something inside? And now, Charles asked stupid questions she didn’t want to answer, because of course she’d help him with the math, and the physics, and the girls.

Maybe he sees it too.

There are lies we tell ourselves because they’re too convenient to be shattered. Leanie wasn’t sure she wanted to be anything. Had she been able to admit it, she’d have said she was feeling empty and the emptiness within was one she had learned to live with; it was her pet and her friend. More often than not, she’d wake up feeling restless. Sometimes the sensation caught up with her during the day. Sometimes it turned into nausea. She had called it the void.

It’s quite painful for a piece of nothingness.

So Leanie was hoping with all her heart that her friend didn’t see the emptiness she held inside, the so-called void, because he would have thought less of her, and she’d have had to admit that she’d never thought enough of herself to give herself a chance, well, a chance to desire to accomplish anything other than being what was expected of her. There were things she was too ashamed to admit, even to herself.

Charles and Leanie turned their heads to the kitchen door simultaneously. They could hear the pounding, irregular racket of someone stumbling frantically down the wooden stairs. Leanie’s brother entered the kitchen. He was panting heavily. His curly brown hair looked more disheveled than usual. He just stood there, his finger pointing at the kitchen window. Charles and Leanie turned their heads back to the room and peeked outside. There was the clatter of ceramic shattering on the checkered black and white tiles of the floor. Leanie had dropped her cup. They had seen it. The smashed cup and splattered drink were forgotten instantly. They had seen it, the phenomenon. Excited, curious and frightened, they sprinted down the hallway and rushed into the garden.

*          *          *

Everything was blue. Everywhere around her, Leanie could see tiny shining particles floating freely and graciously in the azure atmosphere. There were thousands of them. The sapphire gleam that surrounded her was soothing and comforting, but she knew better than to let herself indulge completely into its embrace.

If this is heaven, this is sure not what I expected.

It was funny, really, because she didn’t remember taking any illegal substance prior to this. In fact, she didn’t recall a thing. How she had ended up in this state of levitation was a total mystery. Again, it occurred to her that she might be dead. Dead, but conscious—could that be?

She couldn’t feel anything; nor physical pain, nor emotional distress; nor sadness, nor joy. She could only witness the movement of the little particles. Time seemed a mundane matter—as when one found out the person they cared for loved them back; as when one was hit by unexpected, dreadful news. Time was irrelevant. It had stopped.

Leanie didn’t notice the change in the atmosphere at first. The little particles were slowing down, becoming brighter. She realized she was feeling warm.

I guess I’m not dead after all.

The bright particles melted altogether into a reddish, burning radiance.

WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!

Her body. Every part, every limb, every inch of her skin. Her body was alive. But every atom of her was ablaze as though she was the sun itself. She couldn't bend her fingers; she couldn’t move an inch. She wondered if her nerves had been peeled off like skin from a ripe fruit. Her eyelids seemed glued together. She couldn’t see. Sweat ran down her temples as her back throbbed violently. It seemed she was lying down on a hard and dusty surface. Hell. A million ants clogged her throat as giant hands were tearing her brains apart. She could feel the monsters closing in; she could hear them crawl toward her, smelling the aroma of her flesh, about to pierce her through with their claws and their teeth. Her mouth was too dry to scream. She needed to see, to open her eyes. Adrenaline jolted her spine. Her fingers straightened up in a jerk.

Gathering all her strength, she pulled herself up with an elbow and flipped to her side. Thud. Her head had sunk heavily onto the ground. At least the red radiance had dwindled. With a trembling hand, she touched the area of her eyes, but instead, her fingers jabbed at what seemed like a layer of compacted and dried dust. She started scratching the surface. She’d need a bit of her saliva to remove it. She spat a thick and sticky drool into her hand.

No, no, no… What happened to me?

Her eyes had finally opened but she still couldn’t see. The light was too bright; it was burning her irises. Shading them with a hand, she raised her head and slowly spread her fingers. At first all was red but a picture gradually emerged in front of her dazed eyes. What she saw was wondrous… and disheartening.

There were no monsters. In fact, there was nothing, nothing at all but a natural and gigantic oven. As she squinted toward the horizon, she first noticed the plain blue sky. It was stretching above her head as a low, infinite ceiling. There was no cloud in the offing that might disturb its surface; it extended to the horizon where it blended with the symmetric surface of the dry soil. Only the sun, implacably ablaze above her head, was intruding upon this motionless sky. The ground on which she was sitting was pale yellow; it seemed to be clay and was arid and cracked into countless irregular shapes. A deep crack was breaking open to her left. Leanie followed it with dismayed eyes. The crack joined another, which joined another, and so on, until her eyes could not distinguish earth from crack. Her glance navigated all the way to the skyline. All around her, there was nothing but empty space between the two parallel, limitless planes made up by the sky and the ground. From where she was sitting, the world was nothing but a never-ending dry land. She was lost in the middle of nowhere.

There was really only one way to accurately describe her situation.

WTF.