---
All of them baffled in disbelief, anxious and don't know what to do.
Mikha said "I think I saw this in one of the anime's I watch a long time ago this is what they call ISEKAI right?" Colet asked "Explain?"
Mikha replied "Well mostly in that story there are people from Earth sent to another world to help defeat an evil Lord. Then they have these amazing powers, something like that."
Sheena's eyes went wide. "Powers?! Wow! What should I do to have one?"
Mikha shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe say 'status open' or something? I don't really understand how this whole ISEKAI thing works. But I think we're in a different world."
Jhoanna stepped forward, her leader instincts kicking in despite the chaos. "Well, whatever that is, first we need to survive. We need to secure water, food, shelter, and source of heat too." She started assigning tasks, her voice gaining confidence with each word. "Colet and Gwen, gather nearby firewood. Sheena and Maloi, gather every last food and water from our van. Stacey and Aiah, create a temporary shelter—we can use the van as a base. Me and Mikha will make a fire."
They scattered to their tasks, grateful for direction, for something to do.
---
Colet and Gwen moved through the undergrowth in silence, gathering dry branches and fallen wood. The forest was too quiet—no birds, no insects, just the rustle of strange leaves and the distant creak of massive boughs.
Gwen stopped. Her head snapped to the left.
For just a moment, she saw it—a small figure in a worn, tattered robe, half-hidden behind a massive silver trunk. The silhouette of a child. And then, soft as a whisper carried on the wind, a child's voice, thick with tears.
"I'm sorry."
Gwen whirled around, her heart hammering. "Did you see that?"
Colet looked up, arms full of sticks. "See what?"
"A child. Behind that tree." Gwen pointed. "I heard a voice. It said it was sorry."
Colet followed her gaze, then shook her head slowly. "There's nothing there, Gwen."
"I swear I saw—"
"This place is messing with your head." Colet's voice was gentle but firm. She shifted the wood in her arms. "Come on. Let's get back to the others."
Gwen hesitated, her eyes lingering on the empty space. Had she imagined it? The voice had been so clear. So sad. But Colet was already walking away, and the forest was pressing in, and Gwen couldn't bring herself to stay alone. She hurried after her.
Neither of them noticed the small figure still watching from deeper in the shadows, tears streaming down its ancient face.
---
Night fell like a hammer.
The darkness here was absolute, swallowing the space between the trees until the world shrank to the small circle of light cast by Jhoanna and Mikha's hard-won fire. They'd used the van's cigarette lighter and some dry moss—a trick Jhoanna remembered from a survival show she'd watched years ago. It had taken an hour, but the flame was real. It was warmth. It was hope.
They sat huddled around it, eight figures drawn close against the cold and the fear. They had food, for now. Water, for now. A broken van at their backs. But the weight of their situation was settling over them like a suffocating blanket.
Sheena's lip trembled. Maloi, usually so vibrant, stared into the flames with hollow eyes. Stacey hugged her knees to her chest, rocking slightly. Even Colet's stoic mask had cracked, revealing the raw uncertainty beneath.
Mikha sat apart, her eyes scanning the darkness. That silver flicker came again—brief, but there. She saw traces of something in the air. Energy patterns, like heat shimmer. She blinked, and they vanished.
"We're never getting back, are we?" Gwen whispered. It was so quiet it was almost lost to the crackle of the fire.
Jhoanna heard it. She looked around at her members—her friends, her family—and felt a surge of something fierce and protective.
"Listen to me," she said, her voice cutting through the heavy silence. "I don't know how. I don't know when. But we are going back. To our families, our stage, our lives. This?" She gestured at the alien darkness. "This is just another performance. Another challenge. And we have never, ever failed a challenge. Not once."
One by one, the girls looked at her. The words didn't erase the fear, but they lit a small spark of something else. Hope.
The fire crackled and popped. Slowly, exhaustion won over terror. Sheena was the first to fall, her head resting on Maloi's shoulder. Then Maloi, her breathing evening out. Then Stacey, then Gwen, then Colet. Aiah followed soon after, her gentle snores joining the chorus.
Jhoanna stayed awake, the self-appointed sentinel, watching over them until her own eyelids grew heavy. As sleep finally claimed her, she felt something strange—a warmth that wasn't from the fire, a sense of calm that made no sense in this terrifying place. It was as if something vast and ancient was watching over them, cradling them in dreams.
Behind her, hidden in the shadows of the van, a small figure watched. It had followed them from the forest, drawn by guilt and hope and desperation. It watched them sleep—eight girls who had no idea why they were here, no idea what they'd been chosen for.
"I'm sorry," Anel whispered again. "I didn't mean for this to happen. I was just so desperate." It wiped tears from its ancient child's face. "But you're here now. And the world needs you. I'll try to help when I can. But for now... sleep. Dream. Tomorrow, you'll begin to understand."
The figure faded into shadow.
And the dreams came.
---
Jhoanna stood in a void, but she was not alone. Surrounding her, reaching out from the darkness, were hands. Hundreds of them. Thousands. And she knew, with a certainty that went beyond understanding, that she could wield them all. She could build, create, command. Nothing was beyond her reach. But as she reached for them, she felt something else—a barrier. She could use any hand, but none would be truly hers. Jack of all trades, master of none. The knowledge settled into her bones like a promise and a warning.
Stacey drowned, but not in water. In numbers. Equations swirled around her like a current, atomic symbols burning in her vision. She saw the building blocks of reality, the hidden code beneath all things. A rock floated before her, and with a thought, she watched it transform—solid to liquid, liquid to gas. But the transformation stopped there. Plasma remained out of reach. Earth logic. Only what she already knew. The limitation was clear: she could only work with the science of her world. To go further, she would need to learn more.
Colet stood on a battlefield, facing a giant wreathed in shadow, its body a living armory of blades. Its eyes burned like forge-fires as it extended a hand, offering her a single dagger—small, unremarkable, thirty centimeters at most. She reached for it, and as her fingers touched the hilt, she felt the power surge through her. But when she looked for a sword, a spear, anything larger—there was nothing. Only the small blade. Only what she could hold.
Aiah floated in a space where nothing moved. Fire hung motionless in the air, frozen mid-flicker. Water droplets were suspended like tears of glass. Random objects drifted lazily—a shoe, a book, a flower—caught in a moment of perfect stillness. She reached for them, and they came to her hand. She tried to send them away, and they vanished. But when she tried to summon something without touching where it would appear—nothing happened. The lock was firm. Customization impossible. For now.
Mikha stood under a sky of impossible stars, constellations she had never seen stretching to infinity. She looked down at her hands, and when she looked up, she was staring at herself from across the void. But this other Mikha's eyes glowed with silver light, seeing everything, knowing everything. The other Mikha spoke: "You see, but you don't understand. Not yet. Keep watching. The truth will come."
Gwen floated weightlessly, surrounded by circles of unfamiliar symbols, glowing glyphs that rotated around her in an intricate dance. Fire. Water. Earth. Air. All of them answered her call. But when she tried to move from one to another, a wall slammed down. A timer appeared in her mind. Ten minutes. Ten minutes between each element. The price of versatility.
Maloi held the world in her palm. Not a globe, but the world—oceans swirling, continents turning, life pulsing beneath her fingers. It was heavy, but she was strong enough. She had always been strong enough. But when she tried to heal the world's wounds, she found she had to touch them directly. No distance. No shortcuts. Only her hands, only her presence.
Sheena blinked. And when her eyes opened again, she was smoke. Formless, free, drifting between the cracks of reality. She could go anywhere, be anything. But when she tried to reform, she found herself limited—ten meters, line of sight, two seconds of waiting. The freedom had boundaries. For now.
---
Dawn broke, painting the alien sky in hues of amber and rose. One by one, the girls stirred, sitting up with the strange, disoriented feeling of waking from a dream that felt more real than reality itself. They looked at each other, silent questions in every pair of eyes.
Then Mikha screamed.
She was clutching her head, her hands pressed tight against her eyes. The others scrambled to her side, panic erupting.
"Mikha!" Aiah was there first, her hands gently gripping Mikha's wrists. "Mikha, look at me! What's happening? Are you okay?"
Slowly, trembling, Mikha lowered her hands. She opened her eyes.
And they were glowing.
Not bright—just a faint silver shimmer, like moonlight on water. But unmistakably there.
Everyone stared.
Mikha looked at her hands. Looked at the world around her. Her breath came in gasps.
"I can see..." she whispered. "Everything. The trees—I can see their age, their health, the flow of sap inside them. The ground—I can see the layers of soil, the rocks beneath, the small creatures moving underground." She turned to Aiah, and her eyes widened. "I can see you. Your pulse, your breathing, the minor injuries you didn't even notice from the crash. I can see—" She stopped, her eyes focusing on something next to each of them. Something only she could see.
"What?" Jhoanna demanded. "What do you see?"
Mikha swallowed. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.
"Status windows. Like in a game." She pointed at Jhoanna. "Jhoanna. Level 1. Class: Jack of All Trades. Limits: Can use any weapon or skill, but cannot master any—for now." She moved her gaze. "Stacey. Level 1. Class: Scientist. Limits: Restricted to Earth logic. Colet. Level 1. Class: Essence God of Blades. Limits: Thirty centimeters or less. Aiah. Level 1. Class: Unlimited Storage. Limits: Cannot retrieve items without touching their location. Gwen. Level 1. Class: Mage. Limits: All elements, but ten-minute cooldown between switches. Maloi. Level 1. Class: Healer. Limits: Touch-based only. Sheena. Level 1. Class: Thief. Limits: Ten-meter teleport, two-second cooldown, line of sight required."
She paused, breathing hard.
"And me. Level 1. Class: Eye of Truth. Limits: Information overload. Too much to process at once. I have to focus to control it."
Silence fell over the group.
Sheena was the first to break it. "That is the COOLEST thing I've ever heard!"
"You have a class!" Maloi grabbed her arm. "We ALL have classes!"
"We have powers," Gwen whispered, wonder breaking through her fear.
"We have limits," Colet noted quietly, her hand finding the box cutter in her pocket. Thirty centimeters. She looked at the small blade. Thought of the Cyclops. Something clicked.
Jhoanna stood slowly. She looked at her members—her friends, her family. Terrified, confused, but alive. And now, apparently, empowered.
"Okay," she said, her leader voice steady despite everything. "We have powers. We have limits. We don't understand any of it yet. But we're alive. We're together. And we're going to figure this out."
She looked at the forest around them—alien, dangerous, but now also full of possibility.
"First, we survive. Then we learn. Then we find a way home."
Behind them, hidden in the shadows of the trees, a small figure watched. It had seen the dreams. It had felt the powers awaken. Hope flickered in its ancient child's heart for the first time in centuries.
They're starting to understand, Anel thought. Please. Grow fast. The world doesn't have much time.
Then it faded into the forest, leaving the eight girls to face their first morning in a world that needed them more than they knew.
---
End of Chapter 2