Jay Doemuaka slowly blinked awake in a space he didn’t recognize. He was floating in the air, sleeping—or at least he thought he was. But when he came to, he heard his name being called.

"Jaylin… Jaylin."

He was back at his mom's house, hearing his name echoing to wake him up. He never liked getting out of bed, but when he peeked his eyelids open, he realized he was floating in mid-air. His body was adrift in an endless plain unlike anything he'd ever seen. The hills seemed to roll, except they were actually rolling. Fragmented islands floated, defying gravity as far as the eye could see. He clenched his fist, ready for a fight.

The long hills and endless plains extended into infinity, their surfaces appearing to be some kind of crystal with a brown, textured quality. Silence surrounded him, thick and heavy, before he suddenly started falling. Panic set in as he tried to wake up, but the fall jolted him fully awake.

As he plummeted, Jaylin noticed a Painite-like gem floating alongside him. Unlike everything else, the gem seemed to fall with him. He reached for it instinctively and grasped it with his fist. As soon as it touched his skin, the Painessite gem burned with unbearable intensity.

The pain was indescribable. It was bad but somehow good, like something inside him had shifted. The sensation burned and stabbed its way up his spine, radiating into his shoulders. He arched his back against the freefall as the feeling surged and then exploded into his hand. The gem was no longer there.

Instead, the Painessite gem began traveling through his hand, up into his face. It settled under his eye, forming what looked like a small, blue mole—but it shined. He touched it in disbelief, and then he heard a voice.

"JAY DOEMUAKA… YOU FOUND ME."

The gem under his eye glowed subtly as the voice echoed.

He was still falling, but this time slower. The fragments of land beneath him began to shift, forming into a stretch of solid ground.

"What… who said that?" Jay spun around, thinking the voice came from behind him. But when he turned forward, he saw nothing but endless blue.

Then another voice spoke. "He’s unaware that we’ve bonded to him." This second voice was deeper, vibrating strangely as if giving him strength.

"We are here. You have no need to worry. Now fly. Fly to that piece of land."

Jay wasn’t fully aware of what was happening, but he felt different—lighter somehow.

As the rush of the fall returned, he pulled his shoulders forward… but nothing happened. Frustrated and confused, he shouted, "I can't do it!"

The voices corrected him. "You have to think of the power being pushed all around you, starting from your back. You must believe. Otherwise, it will not listen to you. That’s how it works—beliefs and emotions. We are connected now, so you can do it."

Jay closed his eyes and allowed himself to drop back, arms out. He took a deep breath, releasing his doubts and all negative emotions. A smile crept onto his face as a memory surfaced—his old girlfriend. He’d always wished to save her from the inevitable doom on Mars.

Suddenly, his mind felt lighter. Fueled by that love, he believed.

Jaylin Doemuaka felt a surge of power erupt from his back, extending to his face. An aura enveloped him, spreading three square meters around his body. Just before he hit the ground, he stopped falling—floating briefly—before collapsing face-first into the crystalline shards that made up the land.

"There. You did it—just a little. Now it’s time to test your sync," one of the disembodied voices said.

Jay pushed himself up, shards of useless gem fragments falling from his face as he wiped them off. He looked ahead.

"Who are you?" he asked, his voice cracking slightly.

"We are Pain. The feeling you get when you hurt—physical pain, emotional pain, aching, even false pain. We are Painite—or Painessite—the spiritual realm of pain. But not only that. We are Essence. The essence of life. The glow of that essence is what we call the Essite. Together, Painessite is infinite—crystalline dimensions of spiritual evolution. The ever-changing void. We have existed long before your universe and will exist long after it."

Jay reached the altar ahead of him. He hesitated, then placed his hands upon it. A voice echoed triumphantly: "He did it. We are ready for the rest. Now you can join your friends."