Luna was lost. She had left two days ago and was following the drone that was supposed to lead her to someone, somewhere, but the stupid thing kept malfunctioning! Now it had her tromping through the woods, even though the person she was after was supposedly in a neighborhood! Even in her irritation she couldn't help but appreciate how great the day was. It was cold but sunny and, like Cass said, when she didn't think about how cold she was she didn't even feel it.

She also marveled at the drone, its little shiny body reminding her of Madison. Warmth filled Luna and her thoughts began to drift. Her eyes. Her brains. Her hair. Her hands and they way they could build anything…

And now Luna was lost. The woods were all around her and she had no idea which way was back to the golf cart.

"Some luck I have. Supposed to be lucky and here I am, lost in the woods."

Accepting that she wasn't going to magically find her way back to the cart she stopped and sat down against a large tree. She leaned back, closing her eyes and thinking.

"Okay, so what would Cass do? He'd probably pull out some knowledge about moss on the trees…" she opened her eyes and looked around, groaning in disappointment at all the tree bases being covered in a light layer of snow. "Okay then, which direction is north? Wait, I don't know which direction I was walking so that doesn't do anything. C'mon Luna, think!"

Luna knew she was smart, just not in the sciency way of her brother and dad. She was emotionally and socially smart, and that had always been enough for her. Lately, though, she'd been feeling more and more pressure to become System smart. Her dad was the man she looked up to the most, and he always had an answer. It may not always work out or be the right answer for that specific instance, but it was always a good answer. Despite the science and nerd stuff, she knew she was more like him than her mom. She and her dad laughed easily, got each others' jokes, and just loved life so much that it hurt. They both saw the beauty and humor in everything and if she could become more like him…

She could, she knew. She just had to do some hard things. Focus wasn't her strong suit, not like him, but if she was going to master her skills she needed to become more focused. She had to focus beyond anything she'd done before.

She reached into the small pouch at her side and pulled out three vials, locking the concentration potions in with a click. She left one for healing - she wasn't ready to start testing her luck with the healing pill box yet.

"Okay, let's get lucky." She closed her eyes and focused on her Luck, reaching deep inside of the well where it sat. She imagined herself walking through a warm meadow, brushing her hands across the rainbow of colored flowers as she did. She approached a large tree that flowered pink and yellow, its fallen leaves creating a beautiful tapestry on the ground beneath it. The well wasn't one of the narrow brick types, but more of a beautiful pool rimmed with natural rock. She could see her luck bubbling up from below, filling it with a shimmering kaleidoscope of colors.

She stepped to it, trying to keep the picture in front of her as solid as possible. She knew her mindscape was just an image she painted for herself to visualize it, and that knowledge made it less real. She reached out for the liquid but her hand passed through nothing, like trying to eat in a dream.

She sighed, firmed her resolve, and activated one of the concentration cylinders.

Not far from where Luna sat a crack formed in the air. It wasn't time and the creature inside knew this, but it was too hungry and too impatient to be set free. It didn't know why the crack had appeared and it didn't care, all it knew was that it had gotten a lucky break. It pushed one black claw into the tear and began to pull.

As the chemicals flooded Luna her mindscape suddenly snapped into sharp focus. She realized that before this moment everything had always been… fuzzy. Soft around the edges. Like watching a movie on an old TV. She reached for the water again and her breath caught in her throat - she could feel it! The liquid was cold and hot, comforting and painful, soft and hard. She cupped her hand to pull some out but it evaporated the instant it left the well, so she leaned closer, looking at it.

She saw that the shimmering colors were actually individual colors, an infinite number of strands of every size, color, and experience. She could feel the differences between them, even if the distinctions were lost to her. She leaned closer. If she could just see them a little more clearly…

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In the woods a dark limb emerged from empty space, long and with too many joints. It was skeletal thin, segmented, and sharp. It was impossible to tell any features from it since it was made of the purest shadows, light refusing to highlight any part of it. The slender form wriggled out of the crack, since if any part of it could fit through then all of it could. An arm longer than most men were tall was the first to emerge, then a bony shoulder, then a head. If anyone had been there to see it, the head would have looked like a silhouette cutout from the blackest of paper, a shadow split by a jaw that was far too wide and with too many sharp teeth. It struggled further before sliding the last of its form out of the crack, as smooth and silent as oil. The crack closed behind it, unnoticed by the creature as it stretched its long, angular body and howled to the sky in victory.

Luna tried. She tried so hard, but the secrets of her Luck were just out of reach. The frustration built in her and she saw the area outside the pool start to shimmer and fray at the edges. She didn't know how long she'd been in here, but felt like she still had plenty of concentration juice left - the fraying of her mindscape was due to her frustration.

"Why can't I get this?? This is my skill - I should know how to work it!" She was unaccustomed to the frustration and despair that was filling her soul. "WHAT ELSE DO I NEED TO DO??"

But even as she said the words, she knew. She knew what dad would do - he would push. Push harder than was safe. Push to a dumb level. He was all or nothing, and even if it didn't work out half the time, the times that it did were spectacular. But could she? Madison had warned her what would happen if she used two vials in one day and Luna trusted her. She didn't think Madison was wrong at all.

But she also knew that her girlfriend was never in the situations their family was. The Bouchards advanced and grew, but they never had to push. They never had to go beyond their limits. It might hurt her, it might be bad for her, but she knew she needed to do it.

"What would dad do?" She activated the second vial and felt her brain begin to boil.

All Luna knew in those first moments was pain. Everything around her was too bright, too clear. The edges of the leaves were so sharp they cut her eyes just looking at them. The grass underneath her felt like swords pressing into her body, even through her clothing. The water that was previously just an array of sensations became painful and discordant, each strand cutting into her soul like concertina wire. She looked down and expected to see her hand in ribbons, shocked to see that she was still whole.

"Concentrate! Concentrate!" She checked her health and saw that it had dipped, but wasn't dangerous. She'd had enough experience fighting to rely on that display more than her own senses, so she tamped down on the pain, gritting her teeth as she forced herself to keep her hand in the water.

"You are MY power. I control YOU, not the other way around!" The feelings of being controlled by The System added strength to her words, her defiance pushing back some of the experience. She realized that she was forcing herself out of control by painting a beautiful landscape around her and immediately cut it all off. The flowers went first, then the tree, then even the sun. All that was left was her and the well. With the distractions gone she felt slightly more in control, yet she couldn't ignore the burning in her mind. She checked her health again and realized that it had dropped below 75% and was falling rapidly.

She had no idea what to do about that - it wasn't like she could force the chemicals back into the vial. They were in her body - in her mind - and she would have to figure out a way to control it or… Well, she didn't know what. She had to figure it out or end up lost in the woods, brain dead and drooling.

The creature sniffed the air, catching a scent. It couldn't believe its luck! It was the first out and placed close to a victim. The first kill always brought the greatest rewards, and it was salivating at the thought. It leapt into the trees, landing soundlessly on a branch that didn't even bend under its weight. It leapt from tree to tree, finally stopping when it found its target. Beneath it was a human, smallish, sitting with its eyes closed. It smiled and began to climb head-first down the tree.

Luna was losing control. Nothing she did helped and she was out of ideas. She'd tried drinking the water, which seemed silly in hindsight. She knew it wasn't really water, it was potential. What she was seeing were potential paths - some good, some bad, but all just paths. They weren't even a liquid, they were strands of infinite possibilities. She understood this and could even see how being able to identify them would be useful and were the next step on her path, but she was unable to figure out how to make that happen.

To make matters worse, her head was heating up and her heart was doing uncomfortable flips in her chest. Every inch of her skin felt like it was tingling with electricity, pain forcing its way out of each pore. She knew it was unsustainable. If she didn't figure this out soon she was going to die, and she still wasn't any closer to the answer.

She knew it was a bad idea. She knew it would likely end up frying her brain.

She also knew it was what her dad would do.

Luna activated the third concentration vial in the same instant she felt teeth on the back of her neck, and the universe exploded around her.

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