Maryanne Carter’s eyelids inched open slowly, only to meet the flaring radiance of the sun overhead. Hissing in pain, she rolled over and avoided the cosmic fireball’s heated gaze, allowing herself to somewhat savour the sensation of its warmth as it caressed her back. Beneath her, she felt silky smooth sand, and as an almost idle afterthought, the sound of splashing waves resounded in the background.

Suddenly remembering the events of the past month, her eyes snapped open, and she shot up. As she identified her surroundings as unfamiliar, she frantically searched around for her son, who had been with her up until the moment she had fallen asleep. She didn’t find him - not even a trace – but she did realise the vast ocean that stretched ahead of her and the beach she was stationed upon.

As she prepared to get up and look around for her beloved son, a figure flickered into existence a distance away, holding what appeared to be a wooden spoon high overhead, “I’ll instil the fear of God in you, boy!”

Maryanne watched on in silence as a woman furiously struck the sand with her impromptu weapon, ultimately doing nothing other than sending some of it flying into the air. It took a few seconds for her to realise that she was now somewhere other than wherever she’d been beforehand, and with furrowed brows, she glanced around, eying the beach with a madman’s suspicion.

“Um… hello?” Maryanne spoke out hesitantly, flinching slightly when the woman’s sharp eyes locked onto her own.

The woman - who was a tad bit overweight - sized the other woman up slowly, glancing at her from head to toe before once again meeting her in the eyes directly. Maryanne couldn’t hold her intense gaze for more than a brief moment and she looked away nervously.

Getting up, the lady swiftly approached her and leaned her face in real close, “You seen my boy? Curtained hair? Skinny? Too much sass for his own good?”

She emphasised the final part by rubbing the shaft of her spoon menacingly.

Contrary to how she acted, her voice was soft and tender, with only a slight edge of meanness to it. Either way, Maryanne hadn’t seen her ‘boy’ and shook her head, “I… was going to ask the same thing. My son was with me a little while ago…”

“…Me too. My poor Hazzy…” the lady whimpered, shaking her head softly. She sucked in a breath, “HARRY, WHERE ARE YOU!?!?”

The other mother flinched again from the abrupt appearance of noise, but ultimately did the same and began calling out to her son, James, albeit at a volume that wouldn’t terrify heinous criminals.

Together, yelling out to their respective children, the mother-mother duo wandered the expanse of the beach, spending no mind to admire the crystal-clear waves and the delicate ocean breeze as it lapped at their cheeks. Even hours later though, the search proved entirely unfruitful, and they only ended up at the final dregs of the beach as it gave way to an expansive stretch of woodland plains.

The woman, who Maryanne had learned to be named as Emma, fell to her knees and wailed with all the grief of an overdramatic high school girl, “My poor boy! Where are you…?”

Despite that, Maryanne had to admit she was feeling in much the same mood, though she didn’t feel comfortable showing it. Hiding weakness was something she had long ago learned to do. For their sake. She brooded silently, desperately hoping that her youngest son had been teleported near some kind-hearted people, or perhaps even his elder sister. She’d certainly be able to protect him.

Her eldest son crossed her mind as an option, but she quickly dismissed it. She loved her Brock dearly and very much hoped he was alive as much as any of her children, but the boy was… a bit of an idiot. She said that with as much love as possible, but she truly feared for what shenanigans he would get into with the supernatural powers the so-called ‘System’ appeared to grant people.

Especially in his younger years, the boy had been a magnet for trouble. He was rather well behaved, don’t get her wrong, but he couldn’t help but get into a slew of idiotic schemes. It hadn’t shown as much as it had used to since he had settled into a new office job in some city, but she was always prepared for it to return. Spectacularly.

If there was one thing her charming son was lacking at times, it was common sense.

She supposed it was her own fault at the end of the day. The boy had had a patchy upbringing at best, with no father to nurture him and his mother being forced to stretch herself thin to care for each of her children. She was just glad that he turned out to be such a great man. One that she was no doubt proud of.

I hope they’re safe…

Sighing to herself, she comforted the sobbing Emma and eventually, the two got back to walking, opting to return to the beautiful shoreline in case their sons showed up later, though they both doubted it. Neither voiced their beliefs, however.

From what she could tell, Emma seemed to be a mother that was severely overprotective of her son. Maryanne could understand her thought process perfectly, but she also knew that being overprotective only served to create sneaky children. That aside, the woman seemed to be nice enough, if a bit confrontational and over the top.

In the aftermath of their desperate search, the sun had long fallen from grace in the sky and had begun dipping beyond the horizon, illuminating the rippling sea in a stunning tapestry of sparkling golds and pinks. Despite the inner turmoil both mothers unceasingly felt, they could certainly stop for a moment and appreciate the sight. It’s… beautiful… where are we?

It wasn’t until their stomachs started to rumble and the chill of evening settled in that they realised they both had no food nor warmth to last them through the night. Neither wanted to persist in the cold of dark, and they quickly got to scrapping together pieces of wooden debris along the shoreline, seeming to have resulted from some unseen shipwreck out at sea.

Several minutes later, they had formed a small pyre of the wood, although it was positively soaked with water. Maryanne had openly voiced her concerns about it, but Emma had dismissed them, making her privy to the fact that the woman’s Ascendancy could circumvent the issue. Maryanne herself had completely forgotten about the use of the so-called ‘Ascendancies’, though in this situation she was certain hers would be of no use.

Emma crouched over the stacked pyre and Maryanne felt a flow of energy travel to her fingertips as the woman began to tap each piece of wood one by one. She was confused by her action for a moment until a thin mist started to rise off the splintered logs. The water’s… evaporating?

Afterwards, all the other lady needed to do to start the fire was snap her fingers until sparks flew and it caught alight. Maryanne was shocked by the display. It went against everything she had ever known about both reality and science. It was incredible.

“Wow…” she muttered.

Emma gave a small, but proud smile, “Some plant person taught me that my superpower could change the… ‘properties of objects’ or something like that. There were too many big words for me to understand anything else.”

The two sat in silence, enjoying the increasing heat the flame radiated. Maryanne turned her eyes to the water as the final dregs of sunlight were removed and replaced by silver moonlight, idly wondering if they could catch a fish and cook it to eat. Her… ex-husband had always loved to fish, so she was well acquainted with the process of catching and preparing the animal fresh.

They could go the night without food, but she knew both of them would prefer not to.

Instead of leading with that, however, Maryanne tried to ease her companion's mind off of the situation of her son, “Where… do you come from, Emma?”

“…Boston. You?” She was still brooding on her missing son, but the presence of another’s voice seemed to calm her somewhat.

Maryanne smiled in the light of the fire. “Australia. I can hear the accent in your voice.”

She could. It was quite a strong one too. The two chatted with each other for several minutes longer before their conversations died down and Maryanne finally pitched the fishing idea to the other woman. They didn’t have any bait to lure anything, but there should at least be some smaller creatures swimming around near the shore.

Turns out there were, and using a sharp piece of shipwreck, Emma managed to spear one and capture it for them to share, though it was far from large enough to fill them up. They didn’t have any piece of wood thin and stable enough to make a spit for it, so they opted to just lay it atop a few pieces of wet shipwreck and let it cook in the fire’s ambient heat.

I just hope it doesn’t fall in…

A small period of time later, they took it off, grimacing at the flakes of ash that had clung to its fried, scaled exterior. Either way, they took turns in eating from the fish, avoiding the organs within and chewing on the stringy flesh around the outside. It was a somewhat disgusting meal, but it would do for now.

It was only when they threw the unwanted remains aside did they sight their first monster. It crept up from the waters, akin to some sort of sea lizard with two front legs and a fish-reminiscent tail. The creature had a reptilian head and sharp fangs, and it gobbled down the corpse in one go before approaching them and snarling menacingly.

[F] Bottom Feeder (LVL 4)

Maryanne scuttled back in fear and Emma reacted immediately to the creature, somewhat familiar with the monsters from her Tutorial. Her voice came out as a growl, “Boy if you don’t fuck off, I’ll smack you so hard you’ll feel it yesterday.”

Her wooden spoon was raised high above her head as she stood tall, and the beast snarled at her once more.

The other mother cursed as the monster rushed toward them, while Emma threw a string of screeching expletives at the creature and punted back into the ocean as it neared her. Giving it the finger, she told it to ‘fuck off’ once more and moved to settle down back around the heat of the fire.

Maryanne would have felt relief if not for one simple thing; the fact that she saw dozens upon dozens of the very same beast beginning to crawl up the shore and bare their fangs at them, “…Emma… I… think we have a problem…”