A thunderstorm shatters the garden, and one flash leaves me standing in a strange place beneath a sky full of stars. Then a shadow warns me to find my way back before my hands change forever.
The storm came out of nowhere. One minute I was in the garden, chasing the wind between the wet flowerbeds, and the next the sky had gone the colour of iron. The trees bent and shuddered. Rain spattered the ground in hard, cold drops.
I turned for the house and sprinted toward the back door, but a blinding flash split the air right above me. Lightning cracked so close I felt it in my teeth. Thunder slammed down after it, deep and violent, as if the earth itself had been struck.
When I blinked, everything had changed.
The house was gone.
The trees were gone.
The garden, the path, the hedges, the whole familiar world had vanished without a trace.
I was standing on a smooth, dark surface that gleamed like polished glass, but it felt warm under my shoes. I looked up and forgot how to breathe. There was no sky above me. Instead, stars swirled overhead in slow, shining clouds, and pale ribbons of light drifted between them like smoke.
I took a shaky step backward. My heart thudded so hard it hurt.
"Am I still on Earth?" I whispered.
A voice answered from behind me.
"You are here. Finally."
I spun around.
A figure stood a few steps away, tall and still, wrapped in shadow. Lightning flickered along the edges of her shape, but her face stayed hidden, as if the darkness had swallowed it whole.
"You have to find your way back," she said. "Before it's too late."
"Too late for what?" I tried to ask.
Another flash lit the strange sky, brighter than before. The light shot through my hands, and I stared in horror as something began to glow beneath my skin.