Emily dreamed, as always, of darkness. It wasn't the darkness of a quiet night, or the even the blankness she saw when she closed her eyes. That sort of darkness had form and limit, because the sun eventually rose, and eyes eventually opened. This was the darkness of the void, of a place wholly without perceptible dimension. It was the darkness of a place filled with nothing - not just now, but ever, stretching back and forward for boundless aeons unchanged. She had visited this place every night for years, ever since the spirits first came to her. At first, the trips had only been brief glimpses, lasting a second or two, but over time they had grown longer, and now she spent what felt like an hour or two a night in the void. She had been afraid, and her terror had grown as the dreams became longer, but the more time she spent there, the less she feared it. What was there to fear, after all, in nothing? 

There were the whispers, though. Empty thought the void was (or perhaps because of how empty it was), Emily knew her presence there was a disturbance. It was hard to shake the feeling that there had to be something out there, however alien, that *something* had to occupy this desolate corner of the universe. The longer she remained, the more clearly Emily thought she could perceive that something, some form of consciousness lurking in the blankness. She had no way to know whether it was drawing her closer or pushing her away, or indeed whether it perceived her at all. Maybe it did, but didn't care. It was there, in any case, always just on the edge of what she thought she knew. Sometimes, she thought it spoke to her, whispered to her like the spirits did in her waking hours, when their quiet utterings would flit across her mind and vanish before she could interpret them. The whispers, and the idea of something larger, made her afraid. She worried that in this incomprehensible dreamscape, she was a tiny fish, pulled by the current towards the light of a large and dangerous predator. She knew that if this were so, and if this other creature swallowed her, it wouldn't be out of malice or even a desire to feed: She would simply have been in the path of some other, more succulent prey. 

Her phone's alarm went off, and Emily woke from her dream into her tiny, darkened dormitory. Her eyes snapped open without hesitation; she pulled herself into a sitting position and grasped the bedframe to steady herself. Her eyes swept around the room, then focused on phone. She leaned forward, and reached out to shut off the alarm. It was 7:00 AM. Just as she had on so many days before that one, she dressed in a gray tank top and sweatpants. She took her staff (collapsed, of course) from its resting place on her dresser, pulled her hair back, brushed her teeth, and left the room. In the deserted mess hall, she got a coffee from the sole employee working the breakfast counter. The woman gave her a look that was halfway between confusion and sympathy. Emily wasn't sure what to make of that - she was deadset on treating this like just another morning. She'd gone to dinner with her father after the ceremony yesterday, and then on to the students' party, but she hadn't stayed long. Everyone was dancing, everyone was drunk, and while she had tried to dance and drink neither made her feel much of anything. Instead, she'd returned to her room, happy to put an end to the day, and gone to sleep.

The gym was empty, and so were all the practice rooms. She got one to herself, not that that was particularly rare, but she always preferred it. Her morning exercises were always the same: warm-ups, running, calisthenics, forms. Usually, she listened to music while she ran - it was a mind-numbing activity - but today she found herself preoccupied. 

Yes, she'd graduated, but to what? Nobody had been assigned yet, and if she didn't get the post she wanted, it wouldn't matter what her accomplishments at the Academy had been. All the celebration was so... so empty. She'd come a long way, it was true. She'd learned a lot, she'd gotten a lot better at practically every aspect of life, but there was still so far to go. She still didn't really understand her spirits, the things that brought fear clawing at the back of her mind in every waking moment, even now. The things they let her do were still hard to understand, and harder to control, no matter how adept she'd become. This wasn't the end; she couldn't rest easy. She had so much more work to do. 

By the time her run was over, she felt tense. She raced through calisthenics, skipping most of the exercises, and moved quickly to practicing bo forms. Even the most advanced routines were second nature to her now, but she always started with the most rudimentary anyway. They helped her stay calm, and they never stopped being worth knowing. She rehearsed them perfectly, never missing a step, never mistiming a strike. Emily didn't enjoy exercise - the repetitive, useless movements made her feel like a caged animal - but the forms weren't just exercise. They were the basis of everything she knew how to do, and it took a certain frame of mind to do them well. Today, especially, she needed the comfort they brought her. 

Usually, she practiced for only an hour before getting ready for class, but it occurred to her that there were naturally no classes today - or ever again. When practice ended, she'd have to face the world again. She'd have to think about her assignment, whatever it ended up being. So, instead, she worked for hours, going over every technique she'd been taught, she fought invisible opponents, she tried running attacks and jumps and spins she usually didn't attempt outside of training with an instructor. When she was finally exhausted, she laid back against the wall of the training room, the bo resting across her lap. She wiped the sweat from her face with a towel, drained her water bottle, and closed her eyes. For a few moments, she thought she might pass out - maybe she had pushed too hard - but she didn't. Her breathing slowed, her heart rate went back down, and she waited there for some purpose or agenda for the rest of the day to enter her mind.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the P. A. announcement; she pulled herself to her feet when she heard her name. Emily knew what the announcement meant - they'd heard it broadcast for last year's graduates, and the year before, and so on - but it took her a moment to realize she really had been called. She left the training room, breaking into a run, but once she'd made it to her dorm she had barely enough time to rinse herself off and dress again. She arrived in the office out of breath, her hair still wet, wearing another workout outfit (there had been no time to pick anything else). 

She glanced around the room, and it crossed her mind that maybe this was about something else - all these people were her friends, or at least, the group she knew best. Maybe they were in trouble for something... why was she so unwilling to admit she might have made it into SWRG? Emily collapsed into a chair, tired again, waiting for whatever came next.