As I waited in the void entry building for Dr. Diast, I got out an envelope Stel had give was one of those office delivery ones with a string on it and a bunch of crossed out names. I tried to look into the little holes punched into it but couldn't read any of the papers ihe way Stel described it made it sound like super b paperwork so I wasn't desperately curious. I was going to give it to Diast earlier, but fot during our m csses because I stayed up te the night before looking up specution and discussion on the ower episode, which opened up the potential for a fifth timeline and dimensional rift in the universe of the third reboot, causio sleep in and be in a rush in the m. Dr. Diast arrived to the void building with a of energy drink, taking off her sungsses as I approached her.

  "Here, Dr. Diast," I said, holding out the envelope. "Stel told me to give this to you."

  "Oh!" Diast said. She put the envelope in her bag. "Terrific."

  Diast didn't expin what it was, and tinued on to css. I trotted up beside her, deg I wouldn't pester her for info on it.

  "So you ready for the big day today?" Diast asked.

  "Kinda nervous." I said, cleverly disguising that I was really nervous.

  That nervousness stuck with me all the ast fang scrape and void jump. I had rehearsed it in my head a lot, but I still wasn’t prepared for what waited for us as Oka, Kalei, Aira, Laenie, Lillia, and I returo our void temple.

  Dr. Diast told us to sit for a sed. She started sing parts of the temple, mainly fog on the doors that had the weird creepy statues of us above them.

  “So I’m jumping the gun a bit here,” Dr. Diast said. “While Laenie, Aira, and Lillia haven’t doheir memory trials yet, I want you all to get a taste of some higher-level void bat.”

  “This stupid temple,” Diast said. “What the hell did they do to this pce?”

  Diast's wrist ser kept blinking red and buzzing, and each time she sighed roaned.

  "Do you need us to help, Dr. Diast?" Oka asked.

  "No, no," Diast said, sing another spot aing another buzz. “Ah, you know what, screw it. Wait, maybe...nah. No. Hang o’s go back to the gate room."

  “What were y to do here, Dr. Diast?” Lillia asked as Diast wallowed in her defeat for a moment.

  “I was trying to get your doors to open to the levels below," Diast said. "But it’s not letting me open them for some reason. Usually, I bypass it wheire pod hasn’t fiheir memory trials, but it’s not w this time, like anything in this stupid temple Wildfire Hearts cooked up. I’m feeling pretty inspired to get on the ‘find any source other than Wildfire Hearts for void temple geing’ campaign to the school board, but it’ll probably get ignored as usual.”

  “Still think pod is a gross name for roup,” Kalei said.

  “Hmmm, what about void buddies?” Oka suggested, doing jazz hands to really spice up her pitch.

  “Ew, that’s even worse.” Kalei said.

  “Jumpers?” Aira said. “Like, as in jump fifteen and such?”

  “But we do more than just jump fifteens,” Kalei said. “We need something badass, like void raiders.”

  “Isn’t Void Raiders that game ing out year?” Lillia asked.

  “I thought I heard that from somewhere,” Kalei said.

  Diast brought up the gate pedestal bowl thing, which I really wished had some kind of name (or that I ks name if it actually did have one), and ed back to the void entrance area at the school.

  “OK, so if I maybe…hm,” Diast said. She scratched her head as she looked at the big proje sole in the room used to plot out jumps into the void. “I guess we do it this way. Maybe.”

  Diast led us to another room as she muttered to herself.

  “I’m really gd we have a teacher that has it so together, you know?” Kalei said.

  “Shut it, Kalei.” Diast said.

  Diast opened a door to a room that looked a lot like the locker rooms and showers in the gym building. It had eight shower-like white por rooms.

  “Alright, this is the uhhh, what’s the word,” Diast said. She snapped her fingers. “Backup void room. It doubles as a void gunk up room if you get like really dirty ao full o out of your clothes and the other showers are all full.”

  “This isn’t gon inappropriate, is it?” Kalei asked.

  Diast held the bridge of her nose. “You wear me out sometimes.”

  Kalei looked like that was the best pliment she could receive.

  “This will basically act as aor to the void level we want,” Diast said. “Just make sure to not use these if you o actually shower without someoo set it to shower and not void entry. The regur showers are oher side of the building. But you all know that already.”

  "You're throwing a lot at us, Diast." Kalei said.

  "A lot of shower reted things, curiously." Aira added.

  “So what’s going to happen in these?” I asked. “Or rather, what’s supposed to happen in them in case something goes wrong?”

  “This isn’t going to be…scary, is it?” Laenie asked.

  “I think it’s better if I don’t expin what’ll happen,” Diast said. “And nothing’s going to g, these are just as safe as the other method.”

  “That’s like the worst answer you could possibly give to that!” I said. “Yoing to get my imagination all...imagine-y. Scary imagine-y."

  I was getting pretty freaked out now and nobody stopped me from trailing off rambling about my imagination being scary, which added embarrassment to my scaredness, which was socially frightening. Especially when we were directed by Diast to each stand in one of the shower room things. Diast pressed a button, and we were all sealed in by a door.

  “It’ll just take about three seds!” Diast said. “This is perfectly safe, so o worry.”

  I could feel my heartrate tinue increasing. There was a strange showerhead above me, and spots in the walls of the room that looked kind of like speakers. On the door were three lights that were currently blue.

  “Alright, everyone just stand still and be cool,” Diast said. “The tter won't be tough since you're all super cool cats. Dropping into the void in three…twooo…”

  The room shook. The three lights turned red. Then the middle ourned yellow. Then the oo it turned green.

  In an instant, it felt like the room was filled with water. It happened so fast I wasn’t even sure if I was breathing or not. Then, it felt like a skyscraper elevator as I dropped down into an abyss below. I was still in the shower chamber, but the walls were invisible now, and I could see I was falling down into void pne from high above. I felt like I was flying, while still feeling like I was surrounded by water. I shut my eyes so I wouldn’t throw up. Then, in another instant it was over. I was standing in the void, well, really ihe shower chamber thing. After stepping down out of it, I had to look myself over to make sure I hadn’t been seriously injured. Kalei, meanwhile was cheering and pumping her arms. I was strangely pletely dry.

  “Again!” Kalei said.

  “That’s kind of a newish iion,” Diast said, stepping down from her shower-elevator thing. “inally, they were designed as a way to get non-i into the void too. But that hasn’t panned out so far. But luckily, they work just peachy on us.”

  “’t we just use our fangs to go to whatever void spot like we did with the imagination node?” I asked. “Instead of ever having to use this again?”

  “You mean why ’t we do that every time we go into the void?” Kalei asked. “Zeta, are you afraid of elevators?”

  “I’m not afraid of elevators,” I said. “I just don’t like the magic void elevators that force me to stand in a shower prisohing, make me feel like I’m uer for a sed, then drop a huhousao the ground. I’ve literally had nightmares where stuff like that happens.”

  Kalei elbowed Oka. “Zeta’s afraid of elevators.”

  “It’s pretty cold here,” Oka said, ign Kalei as she shivered.

  “Oh yeah, make sure to set your adaptive gear to colder enviros,” Diast said. “You remember how to do that, right?”

  We all fiddled around with ear ger on our wristband, jumping bad forth between full snow gear and regur for a bit until we all settled on our preferred warm void hunting clothes. I had a light jacket with pants that were a bit more ihan my regur battle clothes. Oka’s gear added a heavy coat and a cute little hat with a little poff on it, I had to look away because she looked so precious all bundled up.