Dawn of the New World: Saga of a New World, #1

By Louis F. Krahn

Who will stand in this new world of magic and technology... and who will fall?

 

The end of the world comes as a surprise, and as one world ends, another begins. Transformed into an elf by a magical apocalypse that ends civilization as we know it, Astrid awakens in a world filled with monsters, magic, and the remains of modern technology. Together with other survivors, she must find her family and figure out how to survive in this new world.

 

This 125.000 word book (about 13 hours of reading time) combines modern post-apocalypse with magic and monsters and presents the struggle for survival in a transformed world from the perspective of a young woman in an approachable and exciting way. You won't find any chosen ones among the main characters, just normal people in a completely abnormal situation.

 

To complement the story, this book contains illustrated descriptions of the featured creatures, as well as pictures of the main characters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Louis F. Krahn
• Release date: Oct 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215312094

Book preview

Published by Ember and Sparks 2023

Copyright © 2023 by Louis F. Krahn

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Second edition

Illustration by Tatum Fowler

Editing by Noelle V. Krahn & Friedrich Krahn

Proofreading by Johanna Craven

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I dedicate this story to my family and everyone else who listened to me when I wouldn’t shut up about it.

Contents

Preface

1. Dusk of the Old World

2. Dawn of the New World

3. Claws of Death

4. New Friends

5. A Mage’s Mind: Hard Love

6. The Early Bird Gets the Worm

7. The Farm

8. High Rock

9. Grim Return

10. A Mage’s Mind: Imperial Unrest

11. Grand Theft Auto

12. Firefight

13. Everyone Needs Gas

14. Reunion

15. A Mage’s Mind: The Girl and the God

16. The Dragon

17. Demons in the Dark

18. A Mage’s Mind: Pirates

19. Twilight

20. Return

21. Eclipse

22. Anger Issues

23. A Mage’s Mind: Bandits

24. A New Threat

25. Preparations

26. A Mage’s Mind: Southern Shores

27. Pyre

28. Slaughter

29. Death Comes

30. Requiem

Creature Compendium

About the Author

Preface

Saga of a New World is a unique story written in a unique way. In a normal novel, the author plans a story and determines what challenges characters face and how they are resolved. Instead of this mundane approach, this fantasy story works with a set of rigid rules that determine how challenges are resolved, not unlike a pen-and-paper role-playing game. As a matter of fact, the rules used to adjudicate Astrid and other characters’ actions are inspired by Dungeons & Dragons. This means that the author role-plays the characters. First, a challenge appears. Factoring in their personality, the author decides what course of action would make the most sense for a character in that situation. However, whenever they perform an action where failure is an option (such as when they climb a rope or fire a gun at a target) dice are thrown to determine whether their attempt succeeds or not. This means it is not the author that decides whether Fynn hits the target he’s shooting at, but chance. This creates an unpredictable story where a good roll can save the characters from certain doom and a single bad one can ruin a perfect plan. I hope you enjoy this unique experience.

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Astrid takes a deep breath, leans against the window, and turns her attention to the passing landscape. Oak, spruce, beech, and bushes are a single wall of green that’s occasionally broken by a yellow ray of sunlight.

She squirms in her seat. The position itself is comfortable, but as soon as the young woman places her head on the cold glass, she feels the vibrations of the vehicle. The droning in her skull quickly becomes unbearable. Astrid straightens her spine once more and nestles her head against the black fabric of the backrest. Her little brother Elijah is sitting to her left. Bright colors reflect off his eyes. With headphones jacked in, he’s focused on the movie playing on his phone. Kilian is sitting at the other window. Her older brother is pressing his long legs against the back of the driver’s seat, and with them, he supports a red paperback book.

Her father occupies the driver’s seat. Stiff and completely focused, he has his eyes on the empty country road in front of them and his foot firmly on the accelerator, so the speedometer stays well above the speed limit at all times. His eyes jump to the dashboard, then back.

In the passenger seat, Astrid’s mother slowly wraps her long brown hair around her index finger and hums along with the radio. A song is playing that Astrid doesn’t know and, as she just decided, doesn’t like either.

I want to love you… A cold, artificial voice interrupts the music. In one kilometer, please turn left, says the navigation system in an emotionless, feminine tone. After a short pause, the song continues.

Astrid’s mother unravels her hair from her finger. We should have stayed on the highway.

The driver doesn’t answer. He just gives the navigation system a quick look. The detour may have spared them the traffic jam, but change the arrival time calculated by the computer, it has not.

The song on the radio continues to play and Astrid tries to decide whether she wants to pull out her smartphone or annoy one of her brothers. Kilian turns a page in his book.

A short flash of light from Elijah’s cell phone draws Astrid’s eyes to the small device. The screen reflects some sunlight, but she can still see that two characters are fighting each other. Maybe she should pull her phone out too, but unlike her little brother, she didn’t have the foresight to download her series and the mobile network is too bad to stream.

Her mother finally stops playing with her hair and turns to the three in the backseat with a smile on her face. I still can’t believe my little girl is an adult.

Astrid smiles. Come on, Mom. It’s been almost two months since the last day of school.

What? It just feels kinda weird that my kids are finishing school one by one. She leans back in her seat and puts her arms on the armrest.

Elijah pretends he didn’t hear what she said through the headphones, but grimaces and grinds his teeth – something his big brother, who just looked up from his book, notices.

With a smile on his face, Kilian lowers his paperback and gives Elijah a push. You still have a long way to go til you get to enjoy the sweet taste of never going to school again.

Elijah is pushed around in his seat but tries to ignore his brother at first. It takes a few seconds before he looks up from his cell phone. Wait a second. Kilian, you still go to school.

Pff. Police academy isn’t school. I haven’t had to do a real math problem in years… and I get to shoot guns, he replies somewhat theatrically.

I want to— The song on the radio stops mid-sentence and for a second, there is silence. Then the beep starts. The high-pitched sound is louder than the song and pierces their ears. Astrid starts, Kilian almost drops his book and Elijah looks up from his smartphone with a blink. The shrill noise is followed by a pause and then the voice of a male moderator: We interrupt this program. This is an emergency. The man sounds like he’s about to have a heart attack but is doing his best to keep his voice as monotonous and mechanical as that of the navigation. Another loud beep.

Dad, what’s going on? asks Elijah, but is silenced by a, Shhh, from his father.

The noise ends and the moderator continues: I repeat. This is an emergency. The following message is being transmitted at the request of the federal government. This is not a test. A nuclear attack has commenced against this country and/or one of its allies. One or more nuclear warheads may be inbound. The number of casualties and the extent and origin of the attack have not been identified. If a fallout shelter is nearby, proceed there immediately. Otherwise please do not leave your homes. Further information will be provided as soon as possible over the following frequency: 76.155/85.955 Megahertz. In the meantime, keep calm and await further instructions. This message will repeat.

For a moment, Astrid’s father takes his eyes off the road to roll them. For Christ’s sake. I’m always up for a little comedy, but… This has to be a joke.

The radio beeps once more and this time the driver gives his wife a brief look. Could you…?

Astrid’s mother is already stretching her finger out for the radio’s touchscreen. The push of a button makes the map disappear and pulls up a list of radio stations. The woman swipes across the screen and the square with the name and logo of the station slides to the left to be replaced by another. The moderator’s voice falters as the radio tunes, then the same monotonous man continues his speech undeterred on the other channel.

They all stare at the radio.

Loud beeping and buzzing fills the car, joining the moderator’s monotonous speech. The screens of their phones all have the same popup covering their lock screens. It reads, ‘Emergency alert. A nuclear attack is imminent. Seek shelter. In case of a network blackout, tune your radio to 76.155/85.955 MHz for further instructions.’

Astrid’s chest constricts. Even though she takes a deep breath, her ribcage feels too tight to accommodate any air. She can’t take her eyes off her phone.

Elijah dismisses the alert and looks up from his screen. Papa, what’s going on?

There’s a slight quiver in Astrid’s father’s otherwise calm voice as he replies: It’s probably a false alarm… Even if it isn’t, we’re not close to any major cities. If anything’s coming down, it’ll be far away. Delilah, could you switch to that frequency he mentioned? Just in case?

Astrid’s mother blinks a few times before she reaches for the radio. Every time her finger presses the digital display, the device jumps to the next station. The emergency broadcast is interrupted every time, and every time, after a short pause, it resumes on the next frequency.

Astrid wants to believe her father, but that doesn’t stop her heart from racing or her fingers from becoming slick with sweat.

Astrid’s mother says, Got it.

The radio re-tunes one last time. Another moderator in the same monotonous voice says, This is the emergency frequency. Please stand by.

Kilian leans forward in his seat. What the hell do they mean? First, it says the world is about to end, but then we’re supposed to just stand by?!

Elijah looks confused. The only thing he knows about nuclear war is that it’s a bad thing that results in desert car chases and leather-clad bodybuilders. What’s going to happen?

Everything’s gonna be fine.

While the man turns his attention back to the road, everyone else looks back down at their smartphones. Astrid opens her messenger app. No new notifications, so she texts her best friend. ‘Did you hear? A nuclear strike.’ Just as she’s typing the next message: ‘Are you all right?’ She notices there’s no tick under the first one. Not even one. A quick look at the top right corner of her cell phone screen tells her that all four bars are full. Best possible reception. She should be online, yet her phone can’t send anything.

Kilian tries to google something, but the page doesn’t open. The loading circle just rotates endlessly, even though he too should have internet access.

Elijah is the only one of the three who puts his device down and looks outside. The sun still shines, but dark, almost pitch-black clouds swallow her yellow rays. The gray mass comes out of nowhere and covers the world like a veil. Mist, barely visible, falls from above, like black ink in clear water, and with the fog, the radio starts to act up. At first, it’s just a minor glitch. A faint crackling sound behind the monotonous voice of the moderator.

Astrid’s mother says, Grandma’s not answering her phone.

Her husband reassures her: They’re probably already in the basement and just can’t hear it.

A burst of static erupts from the radio, silencing the moderator and replacing his monotonous voice with crackling.

Astrid’s father looks at the device. What the…?

The lights in the car slowly start glowing without being turned on, and the dashboard display glitches.

What’s wrong with the car?! Astrid’s mother shouts.

Suddenly the lights flash. The engine stutters and dies.

Everything goes dark, and the radio silent. For a split second, all is quiet.

Astrid’s father hits the brakes.

The rest of them scream, as the force of the deceleration pushes them into their seatbelts. The tires screech, but Astrid’s father keeps the car under control. With a shudder, it comes to a complete stop.

The pounding of her heart is the only thing Astrid can hear. Her voice is shrill, What the hell was that?

Her father grips the steering wheel so hard that his fingernails dig into the black leather and his knuckles turn white. His body looks stiff as a board, but his voice sounds calm and collected: I don’t know. We must have been hit by one of those impulses that nuclear weapons produce, or… or something. I don’t know.

Astrid’s mother just sounds helpless and panicked: What do we do now?

The man grinds his teeth, looks out the window and takes off his seat belt. Come on. Get out. If the EMP was strong enough to disable the car, a nuke must’ve gone off somewhere nearby or above us. We have to find shelter before the radiation reaches us. The car won’t protect us. With a whirring sound, the seatbelt disappears back into the seat. The man grabs the handle, takes a deep breath and opens the door. The thick fog falls into the car like water. The dark mass glides over his body, flows into the vehicle and with it, come the voices. Soft whispers from the void, like an emotionless chorus:

"Seee hei fahhh…"

Astrid’s entire body stiffens. She watches the moving, growing and whispering mass. The cloud flows over her like a breath of cold air and the darkness swirls and twirls, like arms coming in for a hug.

She does not dare breathe. Through closed lips she whispers, What is that?

Her father doesn’t respond. His hand reaches for the door as if to close it, but then he gets out without another word.

More and more fog pours into the car and as her older brother opens his door, Astrid does the same. The dark mass pours over her legs and sends a strange tingling sensation through her. Her lungs start to burn. She’s running out of air, but fear paralyzes her chest. Instinct wins. She takes a breath.

The mist has neither taste nor scent but feels cold. Almost like breathing ice. Astrid feels it slide down her throat and fill her lungs. A shiver runs through her body.

The thought that it might be a chemical weapon comes to mind, but she doesn’t dare voice it. For if it’s true, they are already dead.

As soon as Astrid gets up, the fog envelops her completely and the whispers grow louder. Her gaze glides over the edge of the forest and the road, but she can hardly make out either. Although there is no wind, the fog swirls and falls through the air as if in slow motion.

Kilian asks, What in God’s name is this stuff? He waves his hand around as if that would somehow clear the fog. Instead, it seems to almost follow his hand. Like it’s trying to cling to it.

Their father tears his eyes away from the swirling mass of darkness. He sounds confident, but everyone can hear the slight tremor behind his loud words: I have no freaking idea, but we have to get out of here.

Quickly, they follow the road and soon their car is swallowed by the darkness behind them.

The fog grows thicker with every step. The whispers follow them. Like the static did with the radio, they disturb their thoughts. Insignificant and yet… distracting and captivating.

Astrid is shivering from fear and the sudden cold. We should have stayed in the car.

The dark clouds obscure her father more and more. She sees his dark figure take a quick look back. The car is neither radiation-proof nor airtight. Out here we have a chance… and if this stuff kills us, then at least we die quickly from a high dose instead of slowly in the car.

Astrid’s heart sags and her entire body becomes stiff. Fear paralyzes her. She doesn’t want to die. Panicked, she stops and looks left and right. Nothing but fog. She holds her breath, but after a few seconds her body forces her to pull in another breath of corrupted air. Never in her life has she felt so helpless or been so scared. The fog obscures her view, but it is the disembodied voices that drown her thoughts. Astrid isn’t sure whether she’s just imagining it or already suffering from radiation poisoning, but the fog seems to be draining her strength. Her muscles feel like they’re flowing out of her skin like water.

Astrid searches for the silhouette of her father, but it has disappeared into the darkness. Her mother and brothers are gone too.

She wants to call out, Where are you?, but the words get stuck in her throat. Whether from the fog, or from the fear that makes her teeth chatter, her mouth fails to produce a single word. She will spend her last moments alone. Alone in this supernatural darkness.

Astrid exhales and utters a mixture of a low whimper and a barely audible scream. Her senses are so clouded that she no longer knows in which direction the others have gone. Panicked, she runs.

Too late does she realize that the soft ground beneath her feet can’t be asphalt. Before she has a chance to turn, one of her feet steps into nothing. Astrid lets out a squeaky cry and falls down the slope, her body sliding over leaves and breaking sticks on her way down. Her arms aren’t fast enough to catch her fall and she slams face first into the dirt. The impact should hurt, but she feels little more than a dull thud.

Papa? she croaks from the ground. The word echoes through the mist.

It takes all her strength to get back on her feet. She has no idea where she is or where she’s going. There is only one thought in her mind: push on.

So, even though the air feels like gel, she continues.

The pure gray is as crushing as the deepest abyss and the voices are getting louder and louder. They suffocate her thoughts, like the crackling on the radio did with the moderator. There are only the meaningless whispers and the void.

Her mind is torn away. Suddenly Astrid is no longer herself. Fear is replaced by anger and despair, by the excitement of battle. A wounded man lies in front of her. A blade was stabbed in his stomach.

Thanks, Novi, he says in a foreign tongue.

She places her pale hand on the bloody stain and golden threads run like veins through her skin and into the wounded man, but the wounded man dissolves into black mist. Everything crumbles to black fog and the void consumes the world.

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Astrid doesn’t know whether she’s alive, sleeping, unconscious, or dead.

She hears nothing, sees nothing, feels nothing and thinks nothing.

There is only emptiness. An all-encompassing and infinite nothing. But then a white light appears on the black horizon. The little dot grows. It pulls at her, drags her forward. The darkness swirls, a black mass that thickens and forms into a shattered world, but for Astrid there’s only one thing she cares about. The light is her anchor, her way out of this empty void. It grows, faster and faster. Her consciousness returns and a mixture of relief, euphoria and excitement fills her empty mind like an explosion. She longs for the colorful, hopeful, exciting thing that is life. The white light expands to fill her vision and Astrid feels as if she is struck against a liquid surface. She penetrates the barrier and that’s it. The empty shell embraces her and Astrid fills it like air an empty balloon. A head, a chest, arms, stomach, legs. The soul fills the body, adapts to it and gives it the last spark. Eagerly, she takes control of a mindless head. A motionless heart begins its lifelong service. New lungs fill with fresh air for the first time and lifeless muscles awaken, ready to serve their new mistress.

She opens her eyes and sees a blue sky. The dense treetops leave an opening directly above her so the sun’s rays can reach the forest floor and shine right into Astrid’s eyes. Blinded by the bright light, she winces as instinct forces her eyelids shut.

While her head still feels like it’s going for a spin in a washing machine, strength and a need to move fill her body. Astrid is no longer able to remain still; she turns her head so as not to be blinded and opens her eyes once more.

The forest is bright. The fog is gone, but the world looks a bit strange. A red, barely visible haze hangs over everything, but what catches her attention is the hair that is scattered among the decaying leaves and branches on the floor. The smooth threads are so blonde that they shine white in the sun. Astrid narrows her eyes. Her hair isn’t white. At least it shouldn’t be. She raises her right hand, wanting to touch one of the strands. The limb feels stiff but moves much faster and with more force than she intended. Her stiff fingers slam into the forest floor. They are thin and long and part of a pale hand that sits on the end of a thin upper arm. The hairless skin covers thin and well-developed muscles like vacuum packed foil and emits a red glow. Astrid pauses. White hair already forgotten, she brings her hand in front of her eyes. The limb twitches. Sometimes it moves too fast, then not at all, even though Astrid wants it to turn slowly and at an even pace. The red glow does not go away. It’s as if it shines from underneath her skin and yet doesn’t change the actual appearance of the limb. A light that covers the living tissue and yet comes from underneath it.

Astrid feels lightheaded, a moment away from panic. She tries to lift her head and sit up, only to immediately regret it. Her view does a somersault. Dizziness overwhelms her and her head slams back into the grass.

To calm the raging storm inside her skull, she stays as motionless as possible and takes deep breaths. After a few moments the headache subsides, but the nausea remains. She closes her eyes and listens to the sounds of the forest. Insects buzz all around, while a warm autumn breeze makes the leaves rustle in the canopy above.

For a moment, a loud roar drowns out all other noise. Her mind barely registers the distant sound, and it ends as quickly as it started.

She waits for the storm in her skull to die down, and only once it’s finally gone does she give lifting her head another go. This time, Astrid manages to pull herself into a sitting position from which she can see the rest of her body. A sight that sends a shiver down her spine. Her shirt has shrunk all the way up to her belly button, leaving her abdomen exposed. She looks thinner and fitter than before, but there is something off about the muscles clearly visible under her skin. They are more pronounced than they could ever be on a normal human woman and the skin that covers them looks like a thin piece of paper. Her pelvis has grown big enough to tear the belt she was wearing.

Her legs have gotten longer and more muscular as well, ripping the sides of her jeans. The same thing goes for her arms and shoulders, but her shirt has managed to somewhat accommodate the growth, with only a few tears around the armpits. The only thing that hasn’t received an increase in size are her breasts, which actually seem to have gotten smaller in comparison to the rest of her body.

But these changes are dwarfed by something much more unsettling: Her body glows red. Not in the way that it has a red color. Her skin itself is almost as pale as paper, which would be weird enough without the red light literally radiating from her body.

Her breathing speeds up.

Questions race through her head. ‘What is happening to me? What the hell is going on? Maybe I’m just hallucinating?’

Astrid’s teeth clench as a thought that freezes her blood forces itself into her mind: ‘Did I suffer some sort of brain damage from the radiation? No nuclear weapon could do this, but what else can this be?’

She yells, Hello? Is anyone there? Even her voice is different. It sounds much more mature than before.

Astrid waits, but rustling leaves are the only reply. She is alone.

Confusion and fear turn into frustration. A weird, unnatural rage pushes the questions out of her head.

Her breathing is fast and her heart races. Her mind searches for something to be angry at and the pain her tight clothes are causing her is the perfect subject.

Her feet hurt the most and a quick look tells her why. They have grown several sizes and ripped open the front of her sneakers, while the sides crush her feet.

Her arm jerks forward to grab her shoe, but her hand misses and grabs air. Astrid pauses to stare at her hand, then tries to grab her foot again. Again, her hand doesn’t behave as it should and her fingers slam into her foot. She growls at the pain she feels in the tips of her fingers.

Her eyes twitch as a weird, irrational rage consumes her. The fact that her arms feel like disobedient noodles only makes her angrier, and after a halfhearted third attempt, she feels like she’s about to explode. She carefully places her arms on the ground behind her and with a loud growl-like scream, starts kicking her left foot with her right foot as hard as she can.

Her legs also feel like they’re made of wet paper, but every movement makes it a bit easier to hit her shoe instead of her foot, and every kick that hits loosens her shoes a bit. Those that miss cause her to either kick the ground or her own foot. By the time she gets her feet out of their prisons, they both hurt and feel free at the same time.

This small victory allows the frustration and rage to die down a bit. Enough for her to think, ‘Okay. First thing, call Mom and Dad. And maybe the police.’

With a bit of fumbling, she manages to grab the phone in her pocket, and as she pulls the small device out, her finger presses the lock button. Instead of the usual lock-screen that tells her to put her finger on the fingerprint scanner, she is greeted by a black screen. Within that black screen is a dark version of her reflection. Her eyes can’t help but focus on it.

The person staring back looks nothing like her. At least nothing like what she used to look like. The face is longer and more angular. Its nose is slightly upturned, giving the person in the screen an almost arrogant look. Astrid used to have thick lips, but her reflection’s mouth is little more than a line. Her ears are slightly triangular, and her brown locks have been replaced with slick, pale-blonde hair that shines white in the sun.

But the most unsettling change is the one to her eyes. The new irises are large and their original brown has become a piercing yellow. They are like those of a wolf, glaring at her through the dark screen.

Astrid feels a weird weightlessness in her head. She should look shocked and confused, yet the angular features and lupine gaze of the stranger in the screen glare at her with what looks like anger.

Astrid’s fingers feel numb and stiff. Her grip on the phone loosens, and it slips from her fingers.

While she expected something to be different, seeing a complete stranger in her own reflection gives everything a certain finality.

She sits there for a while, staring into nothing. Astrid can’t believe that whatever has happened has turned her into what she can only describe as some sort of elf.

For a moment she considers that all this is a dream, that her real self is still lying in the middle of the road, dying from whatever that fog was – or perhaps she’s already dead, and this is some sort of afterlife. She considers these possibilities for a moment but quickly discards them.

No dream she’s ever had felt this real.

Her mind races. ‘Then what in God’s name happened? It wasn’t a nuclear apocalypse. Nukes don’t turn people into evil elves. They turn you into dust.’

Astrid shakes those thoughts out of her head. She can worry about what the hell happened yesterday when she doesn’t have more important things to worry about. Like, for example, where everyone is.

She looks around once more and, just like before, finds that she is alone. Nothing but plants surround her.

Astrid racks her brain in an attempt to remember what happened. It’s fuzzy, but she manages to recall that the rest of her family disappeared right before she fell unconscious. That means they must be nearby. Unless, of course, something else has happened.

Before her thoughts can wander any further, she shakes them out of her head. ‘Focus,’ she tells herself. ‘First find the others, then figure out how getting nuked translates into being transformed into… whatever this is.’

Having a goal clears Astrid’s mind. She still has no idea what’s happening, but now there’s something to accomplish. It makes the whole situation feel a bit less chaotic.

Her eyes take another look around, and this time Astrid tries to focus on the life around her. While the forest looks more or less like a normal forest, several new plants have invaded the woodland. Most of them are almost impossible to distinguish from normal plants for an untrained eye. For example, one tree looks just like a normal oak with extremely thick bark and larger leaves, but others are unlike anything Astrid has ever seen before. She takes in everything, her eyes lingering on every single new plant she sees.

Right next to a common birch stands a tree whose branches are covered in thousands of tiny leaves that look like a mass of green wool. There is even a plant that looks like a miniature tree with purple, almost melon-sized fruits hanging off it, their surfaces dappled like golf balls. But the ones that stand out the most are the small plants that dot the clearing. They consist of a thin green stem that ends in a large red leaf shaped like a half-open ice cream cone.

These plants don’t look too different from normal ones, but the fact that they’re new gives them an odd beauty. Astrid wants to know what they feel like, what they do and how they taste. Before she can really get into it though, she shakes these questions out of her head. ‘Focus,’ she tells herself.

Slowly, she tries to stand up. The commands sent to her muscles would have gotten her back on her feet if she were her old self, but her new, well-trained legs are longer and much stronger than her old ones. The movement she makes is a bit like a jump as her legs push her up, but her torso doesn’t balance properly. Astrid stumbles and falls as her left leg does something akin to a kick. Leaves rustle as her butt painfully reconnects with the ground.

Her chest feels empty, like her heart just fled her ribcage. Seeing the world in a completely different way is weird. Seeing a stranger in a reflection is unnerving, and coupled with the fact that she feels like she can’t properly control her own body, it’s panic attack material. This helplessness makes her blood feel like ice being forced through her veins. Her heart rate and breathing increase, but before her newfound sense of clarity can turn into panic, Astrid catches herself.

It’s all right. Just focus, she tells herself. Just like when she pulled out her phone and took off her shoes, she concentrates on every move. Every motion she makes is deliberate, and as she slowly stands up, everything falls into place. It’s almost as though her brain is learning, or rather remembering, how to control her body. Standing at her full height, Astrid is much taller than she used to be. It gives her a light kind of vertigo, the same kind you feel when someone lifts you onto their shoulders.

‘So, this is what it’s like to be tall. Pretty nice,’ Astrid thinks. She feels almost like a corn stalk. Tall and thin, but bound to tip over if a strong wind were to blow her way.

As soon as the young elf feels like she’s gained enough balance, she takes her first, careful step. One bare foot in front of the other. Her legs obey and move her forward. One small step for them, one giant leap for Astrid’s confidence. As soon as she’s taken the first step, the next one is only half as hard, and the third feels as natural as one she would have taken yesterday.

The feeling of being disconnected disappears as she moves every muscle. Astrid giggles and immediately feels silly for being happy that she’s able to do something as mundane as walking. Still, as simple as it may be, that feeling of helplessness was terrifying.

Astrid takes a deep breath. Now, she needs to find her family… and a new outfit. Then she can freak out.

Long legs take a step forward, only to place a bare foot on the cellphone she dropped a few moments ago. She wonders whether she should pick it up. ‘Whatever shut down our car probably fried that little, frail thing,’ she thinks, but ever the optimist, she decides to give it another chance. Her hand closes around the little device. The fingerprint scanner doesn’t respond. Neither does the lock button.

For the first time in a long time, she is truly on her own. A friend or even the police are usually no more than a few button presses away, but right now that safety is gone. She feels vulnerable and yet, for some reason she can’t explain, also a bit free.

With a shrug, she puts the broken piece of plastic and glass back in her pocket.

Her bare feet feel cold on the forest floor as she climbs back up the small incline she fell down in the fog.

Reaching the top, she sees that the road they drove on yesterday is still there, and so is their car. It’s apparently undamaged, blocking the left lane about a hundred or so paces away. She tiptoes to the car, trying to keep as much of her feet from touching the dirty and cold bitumen as possible.

As expected, the car doors are still unlocked. Astrid takes a halfhearted look inside and notices that while her father didn’t lock the car, he did take the key out of the ignition. She’s about to pull her head back out when something catches her eye. There’s a piece of paper under the windshield.

Her hand closes around the note and pulls it out. On it is a message scrawled in her mother’s handwriting. Astrid is a fast reader and familiar with her mother’s script, so her eyes just skim over the paper to read the message. Yet as