If Shen's time keeping was correct they had been in the spaceship now for five days. That was five days with no food or shower and yet, there were no signs of hunger on them. They were all trudging along just fine.

Things like 'a full stomach' did not affect their health in any way. They had even gotten closer in the time they spent there. However, their minds could not handle the tight space that they had been forcefully put in by an unknown power, so they were slowly going insane. 

The new member of the group, Alexander, still sore from the prank they pulled on him when he first arrived, kept his distance from them at first. But even he started hanging out with them.

The nature of their relationship, Shen wrote, was that Dana and Kayode were always arguing. The origins of their conflict begins with the fact that they both liked to be in control. However, despite their constant arguing, the two of them spent a lot of time together. 

Suryat was always wandering when he was not plotting. There was not much in their tiny spaceship yet he always managed to find something to use and pull on someone. When he was not bothering himself or another person, he was surprisingly quiet. He would linger in the one room were Angela was asleep and he'd sit and stare. 

Shen figured that, out of all of them, he was probably taking this living situation the hardest. 

Alexander was quick to adapt despite his rocky start. And not long after he had become made himself indispensable to the rest of them in a way that although Shen would not admit to his journal, made him a bit jealous.  

When Dana and Kayode fought, he broke them up more effectively than Hayazaki ever could. He helped Suryat on some of his pranks, which served as a good get back. He then helped everyone prank Suryat. 

He could sing and sometimes he would sing by Angela's bedside. It was the only noise she welcomed when she slept and sometimes while he was deep into his singing, he swore he heard her snore. 

Another thing that Shen noticed but would never admit to his journal, was that he knew how to charm.  And he'd been talking to Riley a lot lately. 

Riley, Shen noticed, was not much. She went along with everything and everyone but if you looked away you might miss her. She had a nice smile and she listened well. That made it easy for people to talk to her. 

They trusted her a lot. Even telling her how they died. Something she would not tell Shen although Shen never asked because it would be rude. Even Kayode, who got angry with ease never stretched out his anger towards her and once Angela let her sleep on the bed.

She was special that way, Shen thought. 

Sometime in the middle of the fifth day, another hologram sprouted up in the center of the room. It did a 5 second countdown and then it disappeared. The floor where the hologram stood opened up to reveal a black hole. It was strange, they all thought, they didn't know the room could do that. 

After the hologram had disappeared and the hole opened up, several holes opened up on the floor of the room. Then long marble columns sprouted out of the holes and reached out at least five feet tall. 

On top of these marble columns were strange looking visors with green lines of runes cascading through their screen.  On the column ground, where the visors laid, a sentence was etched. It said, pick up and wear.

They all looked at each other and shrugged. Suryat went to wake Angela. They talked about it for a bit. Whoever did this, is the person that put them there, Kayode told the group. but they did not have a choice so they put on the visors as they were commanded since it was the only thing that gave them a clue as to where they were. 

When they wore the visors on their heads as commanded by the words etched on the marble, they found themselves transported to a blank space. And it wasn't just their vision they felt had changed, their whole body was in this new place.

A screen appeared in front of them. It read.

"This is the Axis speaking. If you're here, you're dead. And per the contract agreement signed and notarized in the moment before your death, you will be enlisted in various missions across multiple universes. Your mission is clear, prevent the universe from falling into critical failure. Your race as well as other benefits have been pre-assigned to you for this first excursion but for the other excursions, you may choose to your content. In that case, good luck".

They did not have the time to question this being who called himself the Axis, nor did they remember ever signing a contract in the moments before their death. What happened instead was that their body collapsed and their minds were sent far into another universe. 

///////////////////////////////////////

It was supposed to be a great battle, the monk thought, the final battle to end the spread of the Undakwin. All the great kingdoms assembled their greatest heroes, and those heroes assembled their greatest soldiers, who were followed by a host of armies more so than the world of Svethlaad had ever seen.

They ventured deep into the Undawild, clearing out the dungeons until they reached the deepest part and there they found her, the amalgamation of loose spirits and their pent up resentment, but not even their combined efforts were enough. 

Only a few heroes survived, stragglers here and there remained of the mighty hosts, but the vast majority, roughly seventy percent, if what the Monk heard from the estimator was correct, had perished.  

Now he had to collect their bodies and burn them, lest their spirits become loose and set free in the dungeons before assimilating with the Undakwin.

Looking around him, the Monk realized that not everyone shared his hesitation in the mass looting and why would they. There were so much wasted in this battlefield, so much metal, so many antiseptics and oxotin, freshly washed and boiled bandages that had never been used and most important of all, so many bodies. 

You burn bodies, you get ash. Ash and fire-crystals make the world of Svethlaad run. The looters have already formed huge bonfires of the fallen bodies in the battle. They had acclaimed rings of helpers and watchers to make sure that nobody messed with their pyres. 

The Monk did not fault them, not only because these looters were the young type who were very likely to get violent but because even if they burned and burned, it still wouldn't be enough to clear all the corpses. 

As for him, he collected personal trinkets and mementos from the corpses, he and some other monks, things that he could take back to the families on the surface. His basket was already full and his old age could barely stand him up but he went on.

As he picked an icon wrapped in a soiled bandage from the hands of a soldier, along with a dog tag to notify his family, he found eight corpses sprawled out around each other. 

One of them was a Zelion, large and red skinned with teeth of purple ivory. Another was a Malara, thin and ink skinned. There was a third who was as Pathos, the rest were un-ridden. 

What an odd group of people the monk thought. Then just as he was about to rummage through the pockets of the dead group, their eyes opened. All eight of them. 

The Monk was short of words.