Yesh Academy
Luna Gaea Solar System
Milky Way Galaxy, Charlie Sector
Neutral Free Zone
January 29th 2019
Samantha McCoy was born and raised in a small suburban town in Nova York State, a little town called Cedar Lake—a kind of quiet, idyllic place where nothing extraordinary ever seemed to happen. Life was simple, and for Sam, her family was small but enough: just her father and her Aunt Stella.
Her childhood memories with her father were hazy, except for the vivid moments they spent camping. Those trips were her happiest times. She could still recall the way they'd lie under a blanket of stars, his voice weaving stories about constellations and the mysteries of the universe. One story, in particular, stuck with her—a tale of visitors from the stars who came to Earth millennia ago, sharing their culture and knowledge for humanity's benefit. She always found his stories fascinating, even the most outlandish ones, and they inspired her young imagination.
Sam would often create her own stories, spinning worlds from her mind, and her father encouraged her to sketch them in her notebook. Those days felt timeless, magical even. But everything changed when she turned ten.
The accident happened during one of their camping trips, meant to celebrate her birthday.
"Samantha! Samantha!" Voices whispered her name in the suffocating darkness. She was drowning, the car being dragged by a relentless current. Her father was fighting to undo her seatbelt, his movements frantic as water surged inside the vehicle. Everything had happened so fast—the car chase, the deafening explosions, and then the crash. Chaos gave way to silence as the car was swept away.
Then came the darkness. It was calm, peaceful, and numbing, as though she were weightless. The pain faded, and for a moment, nothing mattered.
When Sam awoke, it was in the sterile brightness of an intensive care unit in a downtown Nova York hospital. She had no memory of how she got there, only the unsettling realization that she had been in a coma for four years. Her mind was a blank slate when it came to the events leading up to the accident.
But things didn't return to normal. They never could.
It started with the strange colors. She began seeing hues surrounding people, faint and shimmering like auras that carried melodies only she could hear. Those colors revealed emotions—anger, sadness, love—each one a unique symphony that overwhelmed her senses. Then came the anxiety attacks. They hit her like waves, leaving her feeling as though she were drowning all over again.
Sam didn't understand what was happening to her. Why was her life spiraling into something so inexplicably strange? And why had she been left to face it alone?
If not for Aunt Stella, she might have been completely lost. Stella was there for everything: the hospital visits, the endless psych evaluations that led nowhere, and most importantly, her father's funeral. Stella became more than an aunt—she became Sam's guardian, the one anchor she had left.
But even with Stella's care, there was no escaping the voices. They came to her from the shadows, soft and insistent, whispering her name in the dark.
"Samantha… Wake me up. Wake me up."
"She is the Asha'yee. The one to free us from the darkness."
"But can she…" the voices murmured, fading into silence.
And then came the pain.
It was sudden and all-encompassing, ripping through her body like a violent storm. Sam could focus on nothing else—no memories of her father, no fleeting images of her childhood. Just the pain, relentless and excruciating. Her muscles, her bones, her very cells felt as though they were being torn apart and stitched back together in an endless loop.
Someone was holding her. She didn't know if it was Rosa or the Sun Prince—the last faces she had seen before falling unconscious. Whoever it was, they held her tighter as she struggled against them, her body convulsing with each wave of agony.
She blacked out again.
The voices returned, more sinister this time.
"The girl has it."
"Then we must find her before the time comes. The Herald will not be pleased."
Sam resurfaced briefly, her awareness flickering like a candle in the wind. Someone was screaming—was it her? Or someone else, calling for help? She was being carried through a strange hallway, but everything blurred and faded as the pain consumed her again.
Her body felt like it was tearing itself apart, splintering and reforming, over and over. The voltage running through her veins was unbearable, as though she might disintegrate into nothingness. For a fleeting moment, she thought maybe that wouldn't be so bad.
Maybe death would be better. She had faced it numerous times since she became a Guardian, and yet death always rejected her. But now, in this storm of pain and despair, death seemed like a mercy. Maybe this time, she thought, it wouldn't let her go.
"Leon! She has to stay in the chambers alone. You can't be here," a gentle voice said, firm yet calm.
"I can't leave her alone," Leon countered, his voice resolute.
"Unless you can survive a blast of Celestial energy of this magnitude, I suggest you get out," another voice interjected. This one was deeper, rougher, carrying an edge that brokered no argument.
Silence hung in the air, thick with tension.
"Fine," Leon finally said, his words laced with reluctant defeat. "Just make sure she survives."
Survive. That was all she had ever done. Survive. But this pain? This was unlike anything she had ever endured. Who could survive this? Who would even want to?
"Shh, my darling girl," the gentle voice spoke again, softer now. "I know it hurts. I know it does, but you can let go. You can let go of the pain."
Let go?
The thought didn't make sense. How do you release something that has already taken everything?
Pain wasn't something Sam felt anymore—it was the air in her lungs, the weight in her bones, the shape of her thoughts. It filled every space inside her, pressing against her ribs, threading through her veins until there was no clear line between where she ended and it began.
There was no "letting go."
There was only enduring. The darkness around her pulsed, thick and suffocating, feeding on it—on her. Each breath dragged the ache deeper, stretched it wider, until even memory began to blur at the edges.
And then—
something shifted. Not outside. Inside. A fracture. A flicker. A voice—faint at first, like something heard through water.
"Your life is what you make of it."
The words didn't come gently. They cut through.
"Letting fear decide for you isn't living."
Master Emani. The sound of her voice didn't echo—it anchored. It carved a line through the chaos, something solid, something real. Sam's chest tightened. Fear.
It had always been fear. Not the monsters. Not the darkness. But the quiet, suffocating certainty that she would never be more than the girl who stayed inside. The one who watched life happen from behind a door she was too afraid to open.
She saw it—herself. Younger. Curled into the corner of her room, knees pulled to her chest, fingers clenched into fabric as if holding on could stop the world from moving without her. The silence of that room had been its own kind of prison. Safe.
Empty.
She had lived there. For years. And then—another memory surged forward. Clearer. Sharper.
"What is it that you want to do with your life?"
Master Emani stood in the doorway—real, solid, present—cutting through the dim light of that room like something that didn't belong to it.
"You can stay here," she had said, voice calm but unyielding. "Hide. Wait for time to pass you by."
A step forward.
"Or you can come with me."
Another.
"Step out."
The choice had never been forced. That was what made it unbearable.
"The choice is yours, Samantha McCoy."
Sam's fingers twitched. Even now—here, in this suffocating void—she could feel the echo of that moment. The way her heart had pounded. The way her body had resisted. The way she had wanted to move—and hadn't.
Until she did. Because somewhere, beneath all that fear…there had been something else. A quiet, stubborn refusal to disappear.
"I don't want this," she whispered.
Her voice didn't carry—but it existed. That alone felt like defiance.
"I don't want to fade."
The darkness pressed harder, reacting, tightening around her like it meant to swallow even that. But the memories didn't fade. They grew louder. She saw herself training. Failing. Getting back up. The first time she stepped outside, without looking back. The first time she fought. The first time she realized she could.
"I want to live."
The words came stronger now. Not loud. But steady.
"I want to fight."
The pain surged in response—violent, consuming, trying to drag her back under, to remind her of what she was. What she had always been. Small. Afraid. Insignificant. But this time—she didn't shrink from it.
She reached into it. Into the anger. The grief. The years of silence, of hesitation, of watching instead of living— She took it. All of it.
"That's it…"
The voice returned, softer now, closer. Not outside her. Within.
"Don't bury it."
A pause.
"Release it."
Sam inhaled. It hurt. Everything hurt. But for the first time, it wasn't drowning her. It was fuel. Her fingers curled. Her body—if she even had one here—felt like it was breaking apart and reforming at the same time.
"Then take it," she whispered.
And she did. She let it go. Not by discarding it—but by giving it form. The anger tore free first, sharp and bright. Then the grief, heavier, deeper. The fear—last of all—unraveled slowly, resisting, clinging… until it didn't. Everything spilled outward.
Not lost. Transformed. The darkness around her reacted violently, recoiling as if it had been burned, the void rippling under the sudden surge of something it could not consume. For a brief, impossible moment—there was nothing. No pain. No fear. No weight. Just—silence. And then—darkness.
****
Thunder roared across a desolate field, sharp and unrelenting. The stench of death clung to the air, thick and acrid, mingling with the coppery tang of blood and the foul, unmistakable scent of decay.
Bodies were everywhere. Bodies she recognized. Faces of those who had followed her into this bloodbath of war, their eyes now lifeless. The necrotic odor burned her throat, leaving an acidic tang on her tongue, but she couldn't stop.
Conflict was eternal. War was inevitable. There had always been war, and there always would be. As long as life persisted, so would the struggle. For life was nothing without it—the ceaseless fight to survive, to endure, to persevere.
That was what she was doing now, among the corpses of her comrades.
Sam pushed a body out of her way, the cold lifelessness of it stinging her fingers. Her eyes caught the faintest glimpse of light in the distance. It was there—the path to survival. The only way out.
She pushed harder. Against the weight of the dead. Against the suffocating stench. Against the numbing cold. Because if she didn't, she would fall.
And if she fell, the darkness would consume her, dragging her into an abyss where she would remain for another hundred years.
So she fought. She fought with everything she had, even as exhaustion clawed at her limbs, even as despair whispered in her ears. She wanted to stop. She wanted to collapse, to let the darkness claim her.
But she didn't.
She kept moving, kept clawing her way toward the light, inch by agonizing inch. It was so close now. So close.
And then the light vanished.
The world twisted, folding in on itself, and she was falling again—falling into the black void.
****
Sam could hear voices whispering, whispering about her, familiar voices mixed with strange ones. She struggled to open her eyes. For a minute, there was only glaring darkness. Then, after what felt like an eternity, the darkness cleared away, and she woke up to the sight of what looked like a hospital room.
The room was large, and she lay on what seemed to be a hospital bed. Devices surrounded her, a monitor telegraphing unfamiliar symbols. An infusion drip line was attached to her hand, pumping in a strange whitish liquid. A faint ringing noise echoed inside her head, though it was gradually fading.
She looked around, trying to piece things together. Where am I? What happened? Sam felt as though she had just woken up from a long nightmare. And there was something she was supposed to remember, but the memory was gone... all she could recall was the pain. Though the pain was gone now, she knew she would never forget it.
Outside, the whispering voices stopped, and the door creaked open. A tall man stepped in, his silver-white hair catching the light. His bronze skin and youthful face gave him the appearance of someone her age, yet something about him felt timeless—like the concept of age didn't apply to him. He wore a long white-sleeved shirt and black pants. Sam recognized him as the Co-Director of the Golden Dawn, and also the father of her Master.
"Hello, Samantha."
His voice curved at the edges—light, almost playful—but there was something beneath it. Something that watched even as it spoke.
Sam tried to respond. Her voice came out thin.
"Hi…" The word scraped against her throat. He tilted his head slightly, studying her.
"Do you know who I am?"
Sam blinked slowly, forcing her thoughts to align. Recognition came in pieces. Golden Dawn. Authority. Power.
"Yes…" she murmured. "Master… Adonis Yesh. Director of Golden Dawn. Master Emani's father."
Each word came easier than the last as her mind caught up with itself. The haze was lifting. Clarity returned. Along with questions.
"Where am I?" she asked, her voice steadier now. "What happened?"
Adonis opened his mouth to answer—But another voice slipped past him.
"You're safe now, Miss Samantha."
Sam's gaze snapped to the doorway. Her breath caught. Leon Haravok stood there. He didn't need to move. Didn't need to speak. His presence filled the space anyway. His eyes found hers immediately—bright, piercing blue that seemed almost too sharp for the room. For a moment, something in them softened, a faint curve touching his lips.
"It's you…" Sam whispered.
And then—it came back. Not gently. Not in pieces. The Echo Field. The collapse. The fight. The way the world had torn itself apart around him. The Abomination. The destruction. The people—Her expression faltered.
"…Dr. Dingle." The name left her quietly, but it landed heavily. She saw it again. The falling debris. The moment it happened. Gone. Just like that.
Adonis exhaled softly.
"I'm sorry," he said. "He didn't make it."
The room felt colder.
"Many didn't," he continued, his tone gentler now. "The Echo Field was unstable. We recovered as many as we could… thanks to Mister Haravok."
Sam didn't look at Leon. Not immediately. When she did, he was watching her. Not with sympathy. Not with regret. His gaze moved over her slowly, deliberately, like he was taking something apart piece by piece. Measuring. Weighing.
Assessing.
It made her skin crawl. She owed him her life. She knew that. But that look—
It didn't feel like someone who had saved her. It felt like someone deciding what she was worth.
"Interesting," Leon said, almost to himself.
He began to pace, slow and unbothered, his attention never fully leaving her. Sam shifted slightly under the weight of it, her fingers tightening against the sheets.
Adonis sighed.
"Leon… you shouldn't be here."
"I wanted to see her," Leon replied simply. He stopped. Turned. Looked at her fully now. There was no hesitation in his expression. No uncertainty.
"The Pleiadian girl."
Sam's brow furrowed.
"…Pleiadian?"
The word felt distant—familiar, but disconnected. She knew it. One of the nine races that existed.
"Why would you call me that?"
Leon didn't answer immediately. He studied her for a moment longer. Then—
"You're a half-blood."
The words landed without weight. Like a statement of fact. Sam's breath hitched slightly.
"What are you—"
The door slammed open. Emanu stepped in. Her presence cut through the room instantly, sharp and controlled. Her eyes went straight to Leon, irritation flashing across her expression. Leon didn't acknowledge her. Didn't need to. He had already seen what he came for.
"It was nice meeting you, Miss Samantha," he said. The faintest hint of amusement lingered in his voice. Then he turned—
and left.
Just like that. No explanation. No elaboration. The door shut behind him.The room felt different without him in it. Lighter—but heavier in another way. Sam stared at the door for a long moment, her thoughts scrambling to catch up.
Pleiadian.
Half-blood.
The words echoed, unresolved, unanswered. She swallowed slowly. And for the first time since waking, the confusion hit harder than the pain ever had.
"Sam."
The sound reached her like something distant—muffled beneath the noise still echoing in her head.
"Sam."
Closer this time.
Her eyes shifted, slow to focus, until they landed on Emanu standing beside the bed. The room steadied around her, the hum of the machines settling back into place.
"Master… Emani," Sam said, her voice quieter now, fragile at the edges. She swallowed, forcing the words out. "What he said…"
Her fingers tightened slightly against the sheets.
"…does it have something to do with my mother?"
Emanu didn't answer right away.
She watched her.
Measured.
"Sam—"
"My father never told me anything about her," Sam continued, the words slipping out faster now, as if they'd been waiting too long. "Not her name. Not where she was from. Nothing."
Her gaze drifted, unfocused.
For a moment, the room faded.
And she saw it—
A younger version of herself, lying on cool grass beneath an open sky. Her father beside her, pointing upward, tracing patterns between the stars with quiet fascination.
He used to do that a lot.
Just… stare.
As if he were looking for something.
Or remembering.
Sam's chest tightened.
Why?
Why the stars?
Why always the stars?
"Sam."
Emanu's voice cut cleanly through the memory.
"Your father… wasn't human."
The words didn't land all at once.
They settled.
"He was a Pleiadian."
A pause.
"An off-worlder."
The room seemed to tilt.
Sam blinked.
"…What?"
The word barely formed.
Her thoughts stuttered, trying to catch up, trying to rearrange everything she thought she knew into something that made sense—
and failing.
Off-worlder.
Beings from beyond.
Other planets.
Other—
Her breath hitched.
Something inside her shifted.
It wasn't gradual.
It spiked.
A surge of mana burst outward from her body without warning, invisible but violently present. The air warped. The floor beneath the bed cracked in thin, spiderweb fractures. The walls trembled as hairline splits crawled along their surface.
The machines around her screamed in response.
Lights flickered.
Displays scrambled.
Sparks snapped from overloaded circuits.
Sam's eyes widened.
She hadn't done anything.
Or—
she had.
Her hand twitched.
She felt it then.
Her mana.
Not flowing.
Surging.
Unstable. Reactive. Tied directly to the chaos in her chest.
"Sam," Emanu said sharply, stepping closer. "You need to calm down."
But Sam couldn't hear her properly.
Not anymore.
Her breathing hitched—then stopped.
Her lungs refused to move.
Her chest tightened painfully as something rose up inside her, fast and suffocating.
Too much.
Too fast.
Her thoughts spiraled, fragments crashing into each other—
Not human.
Pleiadian.
Off-worlder.
Her grip snapped onto the bed rail.
Metal groaned under her fingers.
Then—
crushed.
The reinforced bar bent inward with a sharp, violent crunch, collapsing beneath the pressure of her grip like it was nothing more than soft alloy.
Sam stared at it.
At her own hand.
Her pulse thundered in her ears.
"I—"
Her voice broke.
The room blurred again, not from darkness—but from the overwhelming pressure building inside her.
"I can't—"
Her chest seized. The panic hit fully this time. Raw. Uncontrolled. And her power answered it. The pressure in the room spiked again—then snapped.
Adonis moved. No rush. No wasted motion. He stepped in close, raising a hand as Sam's breath stuttered and her mana surged toward another violent release.
A single tap. Two fingers against her forehead. It didn't look like anything. No light. No sound. No visible force. But the effect was immediate.
Sam's body went still. The tension drained from her limbs all at once, her grip loosening as the crushed rail slipped from her fingers. The unstable mana that had been thrashing through the room collapsed inward, fading like a storm cut short before it could break.
Her eyes fluttered, then closed. She fell back against the bed, unconscious, her breathing finally evening out into something soft and steady. The room settled. The machines stabilized, their frantic flickering returning to a controlled glow. The air, once heavy and warped, smoothed itself out as if nothing had happened—save for the cracks etched into the floor and the bent metal at her side.
"Father…"
Emanu's voice was tight, restrained. Adonis straightened, his gaze resting briefly on Sam before shifting to his daughter.
"She's fine," he said, calm as ever. "Her body simply reached its limit before her mind could catch up."
He adjusted his sleeve absently, as if what had just occurred required no further concern.
"That's enough for today," he continued. "Let her rest. Whatever comes next… can wait until she's ready to hear it."
Emanu exhaled quietly, the tension in her shoulders easing just slightly. She stepped closer to the bed, her hand finding Sam's arm—gentler this time, careful.
"You're going to be okay," she murmured.
Her fingers brushed lightly over Sam's hair, smoothing it back from her face, the gesture instinctive despite the storm that had just passed.
"I promise."
Beneath her touch, the last traces of unstable mana flickered—then faded completely. And for the first time since waking—
Sam was still.