Sometimes I wonder what's it's like to die. Whether it will show if there's a real point to living.

No, I'm not having an existential crisis. At least, I don't think so. Maybe I am. Maybe the Journey is better for causing existential crises than it is for helping us become mature adults. Maybe having an existential crisis is part of becoming a mature adult. I'll stop rambling now.

I stared at the darkness in front of me, the thing that had caused my current thoughts. After I had entered the room in the town centre, I'd been instructed to sit down on a comfy looking chair and stare at the wall. Then I'd blacked out.

Slightly alarmed, I tried to take a step forward but found myself sinking through the dark floor beneath me instead. What in the world is going on? Is being alone in a pit of darkness with a sinking floor part of becoming a mature adult? Does that imply I should keep having my existential crisis too?

"Kayla. Don't panic." A monotone voice echoed all around me, making my ears perk up.

"I have hacked the system in order to talk to you. I need to warn you of something." The voice got just slightly quieter, as if whoever was speaking was trying to hide it. Would they get in trouble for hacking the system?

Well, duh, Kayla, I doubt the scientist let the system get hacked for fun.

"As you know, the council of cities for our part of the world will be meeting halfway through the Journey's maximum time. Your goal is to stop them. Before it's too late." The voice remained monotone, but I got the sense that they cared. Otherwise, why would they be telling her?

"I know you can do it, Kayla. Now go."

I almost threw up my breakfast as the world was swept away from beneath me. I fell through empty space, all darkness, until I hit a layer of white, and my eyes snapped shut from the brightness. As soon as they had adjusted, I opened them only to find I couldn't with the air rushing around me. The only thing I saw was a flash of blue- Was I falling through the sky?

No shite, Sherlock. That's what Danielle would probably say.

Speaking of Danielle- What would she do if she was falling at who-knows-how-many- kilometres through the sky? Panicking like me?

She'd probably have some complicated plan on how to save herself from falling to her death. Oh well. I'll just go limp and hope this isn't fatal.

Apparently this was a decent plan as I heard a shout, and suddenly I was suspended between two trees. Beneath me I felt the rough fabric of some sort of net, which immediately sparked a barrage of questions in my head.

With a groan, I rolled to the side and blinked my eyes a few times as I saw things more clearly. My head still felt a bit woozy from the long fall. Speaking of which, how had I even ended up falling from the sky? And before that, the conversation with the voice. Why would I, Kayla Wilston, need to stop the council of cities from meeting? What even was the point?

"Are you okay?" My first thought when I heard the boy's voice from somewhere below was 'Is this a meeting-your-true-love-by-them-saving-you moment?'. My second was that I probably looked like a complete mess, which wasn't very good for a first impression.

I muttered something along the lines of "fine" as I sat up enough to roll over to one tree and grab a branch.

"I don't think you're quite ready to go getting off of here on your own-" The boy stammered, but I was already swinging myself off the net and onto the branch.

"S'okay." I muttered, though I didn't think he could hear me. I saw a girl standing next to him, and couldn't help but think what an adorable couple they'd make. Maybe I could befriend her. Maybe I could set them up. Maybe they could help me with that objective the weird voice had given me-

"Whoa!" I yelled as I nearly tipped over trying to get one branch lower. Where was Danielle or even Ann when you needed help? I caught the branch and stayed on it for a moment as I took a sleep breath and looked at my surroundings. It seemed to be just a normal forest, with chirping birds and a setting sun. Did time move differently in the simulation, or had I spent 10 hours in the darkness?

Why did I have to have so many questions and no answers?

"Um, are you coming down, or..." The girl from below spoke, snapping me out of my trance. I really needed some coffee. Or maybe some chocolate.

"Y-yeah. Where are we exactly?"

She shrugged. "Somewhere in the simulation."

"And, uh, where's the people I came in with?"

"Technically, you didn't come in with anyone." The boy piped up. "You fell from the sky."

"Yeah, but the people from my town? My friends?" I said with a slightly exasperated tone.

"Who knows. Mark and I just met a few hours ago."

"Really, I thought you were dating." I said, finally making it to the lowest branch I could see and hopping to the ground.

The girl had a slight blush on her face, while the boy (Mark, she had said) looked indifferent. I almost rolled my eyes. Girls were right to think boys were clueless sometimes.

"I'm Sim, by the way." The girl said, brushing her black hair out of her face. Mark sent her a weird glance before turning back to me.

"So, do you who set up this net to catch you? Or why you fell out of the sky in the first place?"

"No idea. How did you get here?" I asked, studying his face to see if it was familiar. He looked like someone from my town, but I didn't recognize him.

"We just appeared in the woods near each other." He shrugged, while I smirked. Fate much? As much as I wanted to do casual things like ship two people I'd just met, I had more important things to think about. Like whether it would be safe to tell them about the system hacker and the ominous message.

"Well, I don't know what happened to me. Must've been a small flaw in the system, but luckily I'm not hurt." I said, deciding against the truth. Shipping was casual. Telling them about a system hack was less so.

"How did you survive that fall though? This net shouldn't have been enough to save you."

"Just let me survive in peace. Maybe it was my awesomeness that saved me." I joked, attempting to lighten the mood. Looking around, I remembered we were still in the middle of the woods. "Do you know where we stay for the night?"

"In the woods I suppose." Sim replied. "We've been walking for a bit and all we've seen other than woods is this net."

I shuddered. In the woods? I mean, I wasn't a total priss- I'd been camping before. And hated it. And here we didn't even have a tent or food or anything.

"It'll be fine. We just need, um..." Mark looked to Sim for help.

She shrugged. "What do you build fires and shelters with?"

One small problem with lives where you could do anything, and you had everything you needed- you ended up not knowing how to live without it. Usually I'd just press a few switches on a preset camping pack, and I'd get a set up tent and a warm fire. I'd never realized that something so good could become a problem in completely different circumstances like these.

Woah. Deep thoughts right there. I guess the Journey was already helping me learn.

"In books they just get some wood and rub some sticks together." I offered unhelpfully. I'd just started my Journey, and though I'd had thoughts about the problems we were having, the thoughts weren't exactly helpful with the current situation.

"Great. I doubt that's how it works in real life. Or a simulation, whatever." Mark groaned.

"So.... What now?" Sim asked. "If we can't even start a fire, we can't survive out here long."

I sighed and wandered below the net again. "We can just spend the night under here and figure out what to do in the morning." I plopped down, though Mark looked reluctant to follow. I could see his scrunched up nose in the limited light.

"But... I don't wanna sleep on the ground."

"We can't exactly be picky." Sim pointed out, sitting down. Even she wrinkled her nose at the long grass tickling her short-clad legs. For me, it was all I could do not to jump up and run at the thought of all the bugs crawling around.

Mark sighed and sat down next to Sim. I silently hoped they would fall asleep leaning on each other. As soon as their eyes had fallen closed (They were close enough to each other for me to have more hope), I got to my feet and brushed off my pants as I went back to the tree I had only recently climbed down. The sun had finally set, but there was enough light for me to climb up the tree and up to the net.

Swinging myself onto it, I rolled onto my back and stared up at the sky. Somewhere, my sister was under the same sky. And though the Journey was for meeting new people, I didn't want to spend months without her. Maybe, just maybe, I'd find her in time for her to help me complete the task I'd been assigned.

Yes, I know. I shouldn't be doing what some hacker said, I should probably be completing my Journey the normal way. But if someone was desperate enough to hack the system, stopping the city leader meeting for our region from meeting must be important. And, even if I didn't stop them, I had least had to know- What did that hacker want me to stop?

The way the hacker phrased it, saying I had to stop them "before it's too late" made my stomach churn.

What would happen if I didn't stop it?

A/N: Bleh, I completely lost the plot of this chapter somewhere around the middle.... Hope you enjoyed my half hearted attempt at piecing it back together!