Morgan and I stand next to the new Fracture in the middle of the refugee camp, one of dozens scattered across Long Island. Marines and the Army have replaced the exhausted National Guard, and they form a perimeter fifty meters away.

  Both to keep people away from it, and to prepare against any monsters that should pour out from it. Despite the danger a Fracture poses, hundreds of civilians lean around soldiers, trying to get a look of it.

  I lean over to Morgan as we both study the Fracture.

  “Why the hell are so many people sticking around? If I were them I’d be making a run for it, personally.” I ask, casting a glance at the rapidly growing crowd.

  She chugs the third energy drink in twenty minutes, tossing the empty can away before responding.

  “Here to watch us, probably.”

  She gives me a million dollar smile.

  How can someone so tired look so good?

  “We’re heroes, you know? Saviors of DC and New York City.”

  “And where else are they supposed to go? Long Island is stuffed to the brim as it is.” She adds, more grimly this time.

  She pulls another energy drink out of a pocket, cracks it open and chugs that one too. She grimaces at the taste.

  “Wish being a hero meant being less tired.” She mutters, eyeing the nearly empty can.

  “We weren’t the only ones there. The National Guard really did most of the work. Without them, any defense would have been a lost cause,” I point out.

  She shrugs.

  “Yeah, but we look good on TV. Easy to put a single, powerful person on a screen. Can’t exactly put the entire National Guard on camera.”

  She gestures to the Fracture.

  “Anyway, got any ideas? People tell me you’re the expert on Fractures these days.”

  “Personally, I’d dispute that. In any case, I’m pretty sure this Fracture won’t rupture for at least several days. Nine is my guess.”

  She gives me a side eye.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “It looks a lot like the Fractures that ruptured nine days after they formed. Beyond that? Nothing. But it looks very similar.”

  She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. After a few moments, she opens her eyes.

  “Hm, yeah. It does feel like it’s pushing a similar amount of Potentia out. It’s hard to tell exactly, though.”

  I nod in agreement.

  “Yeah, it’s not exactly the same. Just mostly exactly.”

  Morgan turns to me, a deeply confused look on her face.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It’s hard to describe.” I think for a moment. “It’s like a model of a car. This model of a car, the ‘nine-day-rupture-car’, looks the same in all the places that count for functionality. Except this one has a different paint job and heated seats.”

  She nods thoughtfully.

  “You think the Fractures have set rupture times?”

  “Hmmm, more like energy levels. The more energy they have, the longer they take to rupture.”

  “And the deadlier the monsters,” Morgan says darkly.

  She turns around and begins walking to a tent set up to help coordinate our response. I join her, my long strides letting me quickly catch up. I look down at her, exhaustion clearly slowing her down.

  “If you want to get some sleep, I can watch it. I don’t need to sleep and I’m damn near certain it won’t rupture for over a week.”

  “Ryans, I just downed enough caffeine to kill a man. The only reason I’m not in the hospital is because I’m an Ascended and we’re magically durable. There’s not a chance I’ll sleep. Not like I could sleep anyway, knowing a Fracture is in the middle of a refugee camp.”

  “Right, yeah. That’s true.”

  We both step into the tent, and I have to bend over a little to keep from knocking it down. Lieutenant McKinley stands behind a table with a map of the camp on it. She looks up at us as we enter, clearly nervous. I don’t blame her, I would be too. General Briggs, the general in command of New York’s defense, is on a tiny field laptop screen. He’s tuning in remotely from the primary command center a few miles away at the airbase.

  “Well? Anything?” McKinley starts.

  Morgan looks at me, yawns, and pulls a fifth energy drink from another pocket.

  How does she fit so many in her coat?

  I take her silence as a suggestion to speak first.

  “Alright, well, I have a few ideas. On Fractures as a whole, actually. Keep in mind this is not proven mathematically…”

  McKinley nods.

  “We’ll take whatever you’ve got under close advisement.”

  “Alright, well, I think Fractures form in energy levels, and these energy levels generally set how long it takes for a Fracture to rupture. I’ve seen three energy levels so far, but there could be more.”

  McKinley is rapidly taking notes, and General Briggs nods.

  “The first energy level, Category-1, I suppose, generally rupture 72 hours after they form. The second energy level, Category-2, rupture 216 hours after they form. As for the third energy level, Category-3, I have no idea. We have yet to see them rupture and we cannot assume that it’s a linear increase. It could take half again as much time or to the third power or something. I have no idea.”

  General Briggs leans forward, his gravelly voice growling out through the field laptop.

  “What energy level is the one that formed here?”

  “Category-2.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “And the higher the energy level, the more dangerous the monsters are?”

  I shrug.

  “As best we can tell. These energy levels are not hard and fast. There’s room for variance inside of them, at least to a degree. How far that variance can go, I have no idea. But I do have one more thought, though the crash team put together at DARPA adamantly disagrees with it. The math doesn’t support it. Well, so they say. All of it goes over my head.”

  The General rubs his short, graying beard.

  “Lay it on me.”

  “I think that we can enter the Fractures. Not sure how yet, though I’m pretty sure that at the very least, I could.”

  The General’s bushy eyebrows shoot up.

  “What would happen when you do?”

  I shrug again.

  “No idea. As far as I know, it’s never been done.”

  The General runs a hand through his steel gray hair.

  “I can’t ask you to go into it. You’re not military. But if that Fracture were to rupture… There’s no where to evacuate the civilians around there to. The collateral damage would be…“ He trails off.

  He doesn’t need to say it. We all know it would be beyond catastrophic. That category of Fracture spat out everything from giant spiders that can slambang it with tanks to living angry mountains that would take a cruise missile or three to put down. In the middle of a refugee camp? Even a week of preparations might not even be enough. Especially if there’s no where to send the refugees.

  “You don’t have to ask, General. I’ll go.”

  Oh boy, time to jump into a hole in space and time filled with monsters. What could go wrong?

  Morgan tosses the empty can into a garbage can behind her with a sound of disgust and yawns.

  “I’ll go too. Low on Potentia, but that’s solvable if you’re awesome like me.”

  “I mean, we can just wait until tomorrow. You should get some sleep.”

  Morgan gives me a grin, and draws her legs up in a lotus position, floating in the air. An oppressive feeling of power and energy fills the room. The smell of lightning, gunpowder, and more besides wafts over us all.

  Potentia flows from the ground into her. Her hair floats and flutters in the air, like she’s in an unseen breeze. After a few minutes, the smells dissipate, and the Potentia stops flowing from the earth. Morgan opens her eyes, and they’re no longer filled with an inner fire, but instead are green plasma, roiling with barely contained energy. After a moment, they settle back into the vibrant emeralds they normally are.

  As she returns to standing on the ground, she gives me another grin.

  “Magic powers, right? Don’t try this at home, kids. You’ll probably explode unless you’re awesome like me.”

  She rolls her neck and shakes out her arms.

  “Let’s get it. Come on, Seth. Let’s go dive into a monster-filled spatial anomaly. What could go wrong?”

  I look at the Lieutenant and the General and shrug.

  “Off we go then.”

  We both stand next to the Fracture, and the crowd beyond the perimeter is even larger than before. A few work up the courage to wave at us.

  Morgan leans towards me.

  “So, how do we get in?”

  “I have no idea.”

  I step up, and put a hand into one of the shimmering, reflective panes floating in the air. I feel a tug on me, something trying to pull me in. I pull away, and the feeling vanishes.

  “I think we just step through.”

  I walk into the Fracture, and step back into the refugee camp, although this version is warped and empty.

  The sky and everything beyond a mile is obscured with a deep, opaque mist. It’s fairly dim, the time of day completely obscured in that strange overcast day way, where the sun is fully hidden, yet the light diffused equally.

  A light fog fills the area, making it feel claustrophobic. It’s deathly silent, too. The sounds of hundreds, thousands of people is gone, and the sound of the wind that pervades Long Island is absent. The air is eerily still. I step farther into the intersection. It appears that whenever the Fracture forms, it takes on the environment of the area it forms in. Or at least, this one did.

  After a moment more, Morgan steps in behind me, and looks around.

  “Woah, creepy.”

  “No kidding,” I reply.

  Slow footsteps echo out, the foggy air hiding their direction, but I can see through the tents with my multitude of sensors. The fog strangely clouds even my vision, but not enough to hide the sources of the noise. I point in their direction.

  “There. There’s six person-like creatures.”

  Morgan jumps into the air, hovering over the tops of the tents. A look of disgust crosses her face.

  “Well, they’re not people. Eugh.”

  I move around the corner to get a better look, and I have to agree with Morgan’s feeling of disgust. They’re zombie-like humanoids made up of rotting garbage, plastic, and metal. Their head is faceless, but they have jagged, broken glass for claws.

  She quickly sketches an arrow in the air. She points with one hand at a zombie, and snaps her fingers. A wordless shout fills the air, her ethereal voice flowing out from her.

  GATH!

  The purple bolt hammers into a Trash-Zombie’s chest, and it punches a hole clean through it. It keeps slowly trudging towards me, uncaring of the damage. More zombies come pouring out from tents, dozens, hundreds of them.

  Where the hell did they come from?

  Low groans emanate from them, the only sound in this strange place. Morgan lets loose with more magic, and I charge forward with blade in hand. I cut one down the middle with an overhead chop, and it falls apart. I carve through the first group in just a couple of seconds with wide slashes, and they crumble into piles of garbage. Morgan notices what I’m doing, and changes tactics.

  She claws the air, leaving behind bloody red streaks.

  BùIDSEARACHD!

  Another group, this one comprising of nearly a dozen Trash-Zombies falls apart as each one is hit by a dozen blood red slashes. I look at Morgan’s floating form, her hair dancing in an invisible breeze.

  “How long can you keep that up?”

  She looks down at me for a second before scanning the strange, warped reflection of the refugee camp.

  “Long enough.”

  As another group closes on me, I dash for them, tearing them apart. I poke at their remains with the tip of my blade.

  “They’re just garbage. Rotting garbage and trash.”

  More groans emanate from inside tents.

  “Okay,” I call out. “Where the hell are they coming from? I was looking at that tent and the zombies popped into existence. They’re just spontaneously forming. How the hell are we going to empty out this place if they just keep appearing?”

  Morgan lets loose with another burst of magic, and a dozen Trash-Zombies pouring from tents fall apart just as quickly as before.

  “We just keep killing them until they stop showing up. Ruptured Fractures didn’t pump out endless hordes. There must be a limit.”

  Morgan claws the air again to punctuate her statement.

  BùIDSEARACHD!

  Another dozen zombies fall apart.

  “And if they don’t stop showing up?”

  She shrugs.

  “We figure that out when we get there.”

  “Works for me.”

  I dive into a horde, blade swinging.

  It takes us an hour of ripping apart angry, walking piles of garbage before they stop spawning. After the last group, we wait nearly fifteen minutes without anything else showing up before calling it clear.

  Morgan looks around the foggy encampment.

  “Well, I don’t see anything else. I think we’re in the clear?”

  “What about the boss? You know, the big ones that came out last?”

  She looks down at me with an eyebrow raised.

  “Boss? What is this, a video game?”

  I shrug.

  “You got a better term?”

  She looks away with a huff before replying.

  “Right, boss. Maybe the center?”

  “As good an idea as any. But before we go for it, let’s take a look in a few of these tents.”

  Morgan drops to the ground.

  “What, looking for loot?” She snarks.

  I step into a tent, bending over as I call back to her.

  “No, I’m curious what else this Fracture copied. It copied the camp, or at least, part of it. Come on, let’s look for just a few minutes. Maybe we’ll learn something, at the very least.”

  I look around the cramped tent, only to find nothing. It’s completely empty. I look into a dozen more, finding the same thing. All of them are completely empty, devoid of anything that would make them a ‘real’ tent for a displaced person or family.

  “It’s like it copied the barest part of the encampment, not all of it. It’s only superficially the refugee camp.” I mutter.

  “Maybe we’ll find something closer to the center?”

  “Well, let’s find out.”

  We make our way to the center of this strange realm, weaving through rows of identical tents.

  Just Add Mana by SilverLinings has been a guiding light for me in many ways. I've learned A LOT from JAM just by analyzing it. What I like, what moments were hype, and why those moments where hype. What was done to make the aura farming impactful? Not only that, but also how to write better dialogue, how to make interesting characters, etc. I've also received a few pointers and some advice from SilverLinings and I could not be more grateful for all their help. So let me introduce to you, Just Add Mana!

  The more lives you've lived, the more mana you have, and Cale has lived too many lives to count.

  At this point, his core is closer to the magical equivalent of a nuclear reactor. The downside to this is that conventional spells have become impossibly difficult to cast: Cale simply has too much mana. His spells collapse under the weight of his magic.

  Then he finds himself summoned to a new world. One with a spellwork system capable of adjusting to his ridiculous reserves, creating new spells just for him.

  Of course, things are never that simple. New magic means new things to learn, and if he wants to make spells worth having, that means going to a magic academy. On top of that, an old dragon has taken an interest in him, the kingdom's hunters seem alarmingly intent on attacking his classmates, and Cale's pretty sure at least one ancient evil has followed him from a past life.

  But who knows? With magic back on the table, he might finally be able to perform what he sees as the true pinnacle of spellwork: baking.