POV Elder Korush:

I was standing on the stage in front of the house of elders. I still remembered the first time I was standing here.

Hundreds of sunlcycles ago I was initiated into the council as a proud ambitious man at its best time but today it is only a remnant of its former glory. Back then the daemons and demons were a united and strong race. Not like today where the daemons are balancing at the edge of the cliff.

 We were the rulers of our realm and three nearby ones. Our rise started with an astral named Laz’ra. She built portals between ours and the other worlds and after she left our nation started to explore the realms.

After a while discord started to spread in our ranks: One half wanted to conquer the other worlds and the other half wanted to live in peace with the other races.

We split into the demons and daemons and ours and our neighboring worlds were shaken to the ground by a gruesome civil war. A sad smile spread one my face and my eyes started to get wet but a long time as a politician allowed me to disguise my sadness. The war ended with a bomb of the demons which literally ripped our world in half.

I shook the sad memories off and prepared myself for my yearly speech:”Fellow citizens, we have gathered here today to say goodbye to our young generation. They will search our multiverse for help for our great nation. I wish you farewell and hope that we will meet again.”

 I saw them walk to their doom believing that they were saving their nation. Instead they were sent into a defect portal which would probably kill half of them. Secretly, our best magic engineers tried to repair it, without success. Announcing it defective would probably destroy our society. While watching them I searched for some kind of remorse or guilt but suncycles of cruelty killed every part of these feelings and left a ruthless old man.

POV Sarus:

After the enthralling speech of elder Korush we marched to the portal. We were the selected ones of our generation-every second young one that was strong enough to leave our home.

My family consisted of low merchants. We weren’t very close to each other like most other families because that made the separation less painful. Every young one had a special drug in their pocket which protected their mind from the astral.

I was the next one in the queue. I took the bottle out of my pocket into my sweaty hands. Then I opened the bottle with a *plop* and gulped it in one go down. It tasted like rotten blisterroot. I was next the next one. I stopped in front of the portal and tried to bring myself to step forward but before I did that someone pushed me from behind.

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I don’t know how much time I spent outside of my world. Possible hours or only minutes. I slowly noticed my surroundings. I was floating in absolute darkness and in the distance were a lot of different colored globes.

I knew that this picture of the astral was a twisted hallucination of the real astral made by the drug to protect my mind. The longer I floated around the more aware I got. I assumed that the globes were different worlds.

Sometimes, I bounced against the globes but every time I bounced back. While the effects of the potion lessened a feeling like drowning started to intensify. I started to panic and when I bounced against another globe I tried to open it with my fists in vain.

When I was a child my best friend and I dove into a pond in the forest. We did little competitions on who could longer stay underwater or dove through little parkours. Once we overdid it and I almost drowned. This was the last game we played near that pond.

The same feeling returned while gliding through the darkness.  Slowly black dots littered my vision and I felt my mind slipping away. Moments before fainting I hit another globe but instead of me bouncing back it gave in.

When I opened my eyes I saw that I was sitting in a room. Around me was a circle of glowing symbols which formed an almost transparent wall from the ground to the ceiling.

 A man with red hair and iris with little blue specks came into the room and said:” You will tell me what I want to know and if you lie or I don’t like your answers you will stay here for a looong time. Do we understand each other?”