Some things were timeless and universal.

  The cold, paralyzing jolt of pure primal error, for instance. That was a classic.

  But the feeling of your best friend telling you to run while a beautiful, star-spattered phantom from another dimension stared at you with sad, cosmic eyes? That was a new one. A special-edition terror, exclusively for the idiot members of Team Starshine Prisms.

  My leg got the memo before my brain did. They were already coiled, ready to spring, to propel me down the hallway, down the stairs, out of this beige-and-brown slice of hell and into the comforting, polluted New Jersey air. Right back into the armpits of America.

  It was a perfect plan. In theory.

  And I, being me, did exactly what I always do when faced with a high-stakes, high-adrenaline situation. Of course, I just had to be me.

  I tripped.

  It was a masterclass in clumsy. Totally on brand for me, unfortunately.

  My left foot, in its noble effort to comply with the 'run' command, decided to get intimately acquainted with my right ankle.

  The universe, in its infinite and cruel wisdom, chose that exact moment to reintroduce the laws of physics to my suddenly-horizontal body. The Star Heart, my one and only line of defense, went flying from my grasp, clattering away into the darkness with a sad, metallic tinkle.

  The world tilted. I heard Linda gasp behind me and Alfie yelp as the dusty floorboards rushed up to meet me.

  This is it. This is how I die.

  Flat on my face in an empty rental house, taken out by my own two left feet. The Sentinel Association would probably classify it as 'Death by Extreme Awkwardness.'

  Dad would be so proud.

  My hands shot out instinctively, flailing as I tried to break my fall. My fingers brushed against something smooth and cold, and for a second, a wave of stupid, naive relief washed over me. I had it. My precious pretty, glowy heart wand.

  My chin rushed towards the floor. I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the sickening crack of bone on wood and the ensuing, pathetic end of my very short magical girl career. I'd become a cautionary tale. The one they told new recruits about. "Don't get cocky, kids, or you'll end up like Morganite, who was defeated by a flight of stairs."

  Clack.

  Wait, that wasn't me.

  That was the Star Heart bouncing off something.

  I stopped.

  My descent was arrested, so sudden and so complete it felt like hitting a wall of solid Jell-O. The impact was soft yet firm, a strange, gentle pressure that cradled my cheek and my outstretched hands.

  I opened my eyes.

  I was hovering about an inch above the floor, suspended in a shimmering, swirling, tinted bubble of silver light. The dust motes in the air around me danced in its gentle glow, frozen in place like tiny, glittering stars.

  The world outside this bubble was muted, the sounds of my friends' panicked gasps echoed from really, really far away.

  Then, it all stopped.

  And through the translucent wall of my bubble, I saw her.

  The shadow was gone.

  In its place was a girl. A real girl. Definitely not an apparition, not an echo.

  She was there. She was standing right in front of me, her hand outstretched, her fingers splayed, palm facing me.

  The bubble, my bizarre, life-saving Jell-O cocoon, was her doing.

  She was... small. Petite. Dainty, even. She looked right around my age. Maybe fifteen or sixteen, with delicate features and a heart-shaped face that was framed by a cascade of silver hair that shimmered like liquid moonlight. It fell down to her waist, hanging loosely as she moved.

  Her eyes were the... coolest thing about her. And heck, she looked cool. Her eyes were a deep, liquid silver, wide and innocent and sad.

  Like, really really sad and doe-like innocent.

  She was wearing the same dress as the silhouette, but it was no longer all swirly and dark and see-throughy.

  It was the dress of a Magical Girl for sure, but it was... different. A layered dress made of some kind of shimmering, silk-like material. Silver and midnight blue, with swirls of deep, twilight purple, and soft, sunset orange. It was beautiful. Fiery gold danced through the bodice, like the first rays of a sunrise.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  And pinned to her dress, right over her heart, was a single, glowing sunflower. A magical construct?

  My brain did a little skip.

  It was all wrong.

  She was so gentle looking. So innocent. She didn't look like a monster. She didn't look like a threat.

  But she was the one who had thrown Val across the room like a rag doll. She was the one who had swallowed my Starlight Shine like it was nothing.

  And she was the one who had just saved my life.

  I looked at her, squinting.

  She looked at me, her expression unreadable, her head tilted in a gesture of gentle curiosity. There was no malice in her. No anger. Just surprise, and a hint of... recognition?

  The bubble around me shimmered, and I felt a gentle, but firm, pressure pushing me back, away from the floor. It lifted me up, setting me down on my feet.

  I stumbled a little, my legs still shaky from the adrenaline and the near-death experience. I looked down at my hands, then at the floor, then back at the girl who had just saved me from my own incompetence.

  "What...?" I stammered, my brain a complete and total train wreck. "Why...?"

  "Um... I don't know myself, actually," the girl said, her voice a soft and melodic. She looked down at her hands, clearly surprised by what she had just done. "It's... instinct, I guess? Sorry. You all looked like Aberrations to me until I penetrated the bubble around this world."

  The 'ghost' had an accent - a faint British mixed with Southeast Asian twang. Between Singaporean or Hong Kong British I'd say.

  She blinked at me, her silver eyes wide and earnest. "You know... you remind me of... a friend," she said, her voice trailing off.

  The girl giggled.

  "You're all so bright," she repeated, her voice filled with a distinct longing. "Like... like home."

  She looked at me, her gaze softening as she giggled again. "You're also very clumsy," she said, her voice a soft, matter-of-fact whisper.

  "Just like her..." she trailed off.

  My brain finally rebooted, the shock and terror being pushed aside by a wave of curiosity.

  "Who... who are you?" I asked, my voice a shaky, breathless whisper. "Sparkles. W-What are you?"

  The girl looked at me, her silver eyes glinting as she shrugged. "My name is Tara," she said. "Tara of the Evening Sky."

  Tara looked around the empty house, her expression a mixture of confusion and longing. "I... I don't know where I am. I've been... wandering. For a long, long time. In the... the space between. The void."

  She looked at me, her eyes pleading. "But I felt something. A familiar light. It led me here. But it's... faint. So faint. I thought... I thought I had found one of them. The walls are so thin between here and Imaginary Space too."

  Could it be? It couldn't be, right?

  "Are you... looking for a tall, angry-looking girl who glares a lot and has the social skills of a cornered badger?" The words tumbled out of my mouth before my brain could even give them a security pass. "Goes by 'Reimi' or zero-zero-four-two? Scowls all the time? Talks about how much she hates everything? Carries around ridiculously oversized guns for her size? Ringing any bells here?"

  A flicker of... something. Recognition. Hope. A tiny, fragile spark ignited in her silver eyes. And something else. Sadness and disbelief?

  "Reimi?" she whispered. "You know her?!"

  Okay. She knew Reimi. Called her by name.

  That was one more weird thing to add to the pile of weird things that was my life right now.

  "Know her? Honey, I've got her on speed-dial for 'imminent emotional trauma' and 'property damage'," I said, crossing my arms. My heart was still doing a frantic tango against my ribs, but this... this was new territory. "She's our... well, I'm not sure what she is. A mentor? An obstacle? A very angry, very deadly houseguest who keeps stealing our jobs and food?"

  But Tara's face was already falling, the fragile hope in her eyes extinguished like a candle in a hurricane. "She's... here? In this place? The light I was following doesn't feel like her but..."

  "No, no, she's not here," I said quickly, trying to backpedal. "She's in this world. Just... not in this creepy, dust-bunny-infested house. She's around. Somewhere. Probably scowling at a pigeon."

  Tara shook her head, a single, perfect tear tracing a path down her cheek. "No," she breathed, her voice barely audible. "No, she can't be. Can it?"

  Her eyes widened, the silver pools filling with a new kind of dread.

  A memory.

  "We were... there was a place a long time ago," she stammered, her gaze becoming distant, lost. "A world on the brink of a destruction. We journeyed together for weeks. Months, maybe. But at the end of it. We were falling, the world was breaking apart... I reached for her, but... but the light..."

  Her hands clenched into small fists at her sides.

  "She can't be here," she whispered.

  "Whoa, hold up there, spooky," I said, holding my hands up in a 'stop' gesture. "Back the ghost-train up a second. You're telling me you were with Reimi? Like, in the void? Or some other world?"

  Tara nodded, her head moving slowly, as if it were too heavy to lift. "We were... together. For a little while. We were both lost. In a world falling apart. She told me... she told me she had to find someone. To fix... everything. And so was I. I was looking for my dearest sister I had been separated from. Mayari of the Twilight. But I thought I could see my Dior's light here... I'm sorry for hurting you and your friends."

  My brain short-circuited. Reimi. Talking about fixing things. Voluntarily. This was getting weirder by the second.

  "But... Reimi. What happened?" I asked, my voice softer than I intended. "What happened to her?"

  Tara looked at me. The gentle twilight glow around her seemed to dim, the vibrant gold fading to a dull, mournful grey.

  "We were... falling," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Through Imaginary Space. Between worlds. The chaos energy... it was tearing us apart."

  She squeezed her eyes shut, as if trying to block out the memory.

  "I saw her," Tara choked out. "She was trying to hold on. She was reaching for me as I fell. Her hand... her Aura was so brilliant. A bright pink explosion pushed the darkness away. But the void... it's hungry. It doesn't let go."

  Tara opened her eyes.

  "She threw me up. I fell back. I saw her. She... she fell into the beast's maw. Into the dark. She can't be here. But it'd mean the world to me because. Because...." Tara couldn't finish the sentence.

  She just looked at me for a moment, her expression full of grief.

  "I... I saw her die. Reimi died saving me."