"Hurry up babies, the time has come! Wake up, everybody!"

The old lady walked down the room, yelling to the kids, still asleep in their tiny, messy beds.

She opened the curtains, at the top side of the huge dormitory room, then shouted again:

"C'mon youngsters, today is the day! Are you not curious to know more about your destiny? Are you not tired of staying here, with this old, wrinkled woman?".

When she opened the curtains, no sunlight came from the outside. A dim, artificial white light passed through the steel bars and the window's glass, enlightening half of the room.

"This grandma, walking up and down in the room, should trip on her own feet someday… is asking too much?"

A hand popped out from the low level of a bunk bed, grabbing some blankets on the top.

"What are you talking about Hiro? You say the same things every single day..."

"I'm talking about this woman! She yells every morning! She always scares me while I'm sleeping, Daggy! Yaawn…"

In a second, the Lady turned her head towards the two children that were speaking bed to bed: "You, boys! You know perfectly that I've always been kind to you, every single day. I allowed you to stay in your beds more than permitted so many times, but not today. Today is the day! It's your day!"

Right after a few minutes, every kid in the room was on his feet, ready.

Directed by the woman, and two other ladies that entered the room, the children lined up, forming a tidy queue and walked out of the dorm.

"Finally you finished your lessons, and today you must prove what you've learned. The rigor, the discipline.. be careful in front of the Xis. All the Great Court will be watching you" the oldest Lady said.

The kids started to murmur something.

"You all know what they did for us. We owe them our survival, our lives. The only thing that is required of us in return is to follow our path, our path: we are destined to live as well as humans lived before Dark Day. Only by leaving Earth can we finally fulfill this important task" the woman continued.

After these words, the group of children arrived in front of two huge metal gates, which opened to let them pass.

A huge circular hall, housed hundreds of people, seated neatly, watching the children intently.

In front of that crowd of people was a long stone table, to which three men and a woman were seated.

They wore dresses embellished with precious stones and embroidered with gold. They looked like noble clothes.

Accompanied by the three nannies, the children stood in a row in front of the stone table.

One of the men seated, he got up and walked slowly toward them, his hands crossed behind his back.

His long black and gold dress crawled behind him on the polished marble floor.

"Welcome, children to the Great Court of Xis" the man said, looking at them.

Dag and his friend Hiro, stood in line next to each other and looked closely at the man.

From the tales of the nannies, the Xis were just like humans: two legs, two arms and no kind of tail or some other strange alien bump.

"Look at his eyes" Hiro whispered in Dag's ear.

The man's eyes were of intense purple: the light coming from the large chandelier of crystals hanging from the center of the ceiling reflected on those eyes, which seemed to be made of glass.

"We took care of you and your planet since the year X1, which as you well know, begins immediately after the death of your fragile star, what you used to call 'Sun'" the man continued.

Soon after these words, Dag suddenly felt chills on his arms. The temperature in the room had dropped dramatically.

"You, human beings. You killed the Earth. Your gesture has caused a cosmic imbalance, which, although small, must be filled. Your planet, whose lands and seas were teeming with life in the past, no longer has an atmosphere. After our arrival, we helped you stay alive, allowing you to live under the first layers of the continental crust".

The children stood still and listened intently.

"All male individuals of your species have been exterminated, to allow us to implant our fertile, lab-created seeds into females, which act as incubators. In this way, new generations will proliferate and give birth to a new, more evolved human race".

Dag turned to look at Lady Ysabel, the oldest of the nannies. She too was still listening to the words of the Xis man, with a smile drawn on her face, as if she were trapped inside a dream.

"From now on, you will faithfully obey the rules that bind the balance of the Universe, facing the path of redemption that we have decided for you. The only moment of absolute truth and genuineness of your short history belongs to your past, to your ancestors. You will retrace their steps, living and dying like them. You will be the only architect of your lives, this is the gift that we Xis give you. Get ready, children, to immerse yourself in your Ancestral History".

Lady Ysabel lowered herself to the children and in a low voice, said: "children, you are ready. One by one, face your destiny. For eight long years, you have prepared for this glorious moment. May the Xis be merciful".

Another man rose from the table and said aloud: "turn on the Temporum!"

To those words, four Xis men wearing white coats carried a big machine towards the table, barely moving it on wheels. It looked very heavy.

The "Temporum", as the man sitting at the table had called it, was an imposing cubic-shaped alien machine, about three meters high.

On the front, a metal hatch sealed the inside of the machine.

The men in coats looked like scientists. All four simultaneously began to press bright buttons and turn knobs placed on the side of the machine, until, after a few seconds, the metal hatch opened, revealing a narrow cylindrical room.

Then they turned to the stone table, waiting for the signal of their superiors.

"Let's begin!" the man in the black suit said, after noticing the machine was turned on.

A Xis guard, in blunt silver armor, approached the group of children and violently grabbed one of them by the arm, pulling him toward the Temporum and forcing him to get in.

The child did not resist, despite his eyes expressed a strong fear.

The men dressed in white made the child sit, tying his hands and feet to the walls of the Temporum, made of thick glass.

"Look, Hero! They got Rami! He's the first one!" said Dag to his friend, touching his shoulder to get his attention.

The two men got out of the machine, leaving the boy stationary in that position. One of them nodded with his hand and another pulled a lever, which once operated shut the hatch.

The children were silent, trying to hear what was happening to their companion locked up in there.

They heard a steady, metallic noise of gears.

On the metal hatch, a large porthole allowed seeing the interior, illuminated by an intense green light.

The noise of gears stopped suddenly and Rami began to scream in pain.

Dag tried to look better, shifting his head slightly: 3 thick metal tubes had come out of the machine's inner cavities, sticking the kid's flesh with their sharp, spine-like spikes.

The children began to whisper to each other, frightened by that scene.

Dag remained focused on Temporum. The tubes were tucked into three precise points of his friend's body: one behind his neck, and two behind his back.

It looked like they were sucking up to his bodily fluids.

In less than a minute, the process was completed and the three tubes retreated into the holes, emitting the same metallic sound.

As soon as they detached from little Rami's body, he lowered his head, as if he was about to faint.

From the top of the cubic machine, a monitor lit up, rising with a metal arm and turning toward the stone table, showing the analysis' results:

After Hiro, it was Dag's turn, which was dragged to the alien machine without struggling.

The hand of the guard, who grabbed him by the arm, seemed human only in appearance: indeed, his strength was superhuman.

The belt with which he was tied inside the Temporum's cylindrical room was so tight that he could not even move his wrists.

After the hatch closed, the three tubes hit him, penetrating inside his flesh, one on the back of his head and two on his arms.

Dag felt a pain he had never felt before: he was not only superficial but came from within his body.

When they began to aspire, he felt a horrible sensation, as if his lungs were emptying and the blood flowing through his veins was completely drained.

The level of pain was maximum in the center of the chest, at the sternum, which seemed to be imploding in the rib cage.

Dag managed to hold back the cries, but a few tears poured from his eyes. He could not take away from his mind the image of Hiro who, a few moments before, had suffered like him and who had been taken away, forever.

The tubes stopped to withdraw and detached from his body, returning to the inside of the machine.

Reading these numbers, most of the people between the crowd reacted with nervousness. They began to chat to each other, and soon the order of the room vanished.

"Order! Order!" said one of the Xis men sitting at the stone table.

"Brothers, this is the first time that the Temporum analysis returns such confusing results. Probably, despite the perfection of our advanced technology, it also needs maintenance".

The crowd was incredulous.

"Anyway, the Temporum has spoken: the human 'Dag' has been classified by as belonging to the Norse Pantheon. Despite the error code, the highest blood percentage is worth: 94%. He will be sent to Planet Skjold".

Dag looked at the old Lady. She reciprocated his gaze with sadness, standing still beside the other children. Two guards pulled the young kid outside of the glass cylinder, carrying him away from the hall.

In the mess of the moment, he looked back, noticing that the jury was perplexed, maybe worried.

After several minutes of walking, he reached a metal door. One of the guards, with a small blade, cut his wrist.

The man, wearing a light, glossy armor, collected some blood with the same blade and put it on a bright sensor, on the door side. It suddenly opened.

They escorted him through: the interior of the chamber was very small, no more than one person could fill that space. Dag entered, then the door was closed from the outside.

"Please, don't hurt me, I'm a good kid! I never disobeyed the Ladies, and I've always been kind to my friends! Please, let me out!"

The guard typed a code on the panel. In no time, Dag stopped sensing space and time and everything around him became dark as if his brain was shutting down. In a few seconds, he fainted.

"Another one is here […] must be warned. […] I think he's about to wake up…"

Dag began to regain consciousness. He started feeling his breath on the ground, an earthy ground. His eyes started to blink. The smell of that ground was dry and barren.

"Here he is, he's coming in the land of the living! […] hahaha […]"

When he finally opened his eyes, the indistinct voices took shape.

Some faint figures were staring at him.

"Aaaah! What..what..?!" Dag screamed scared.

"Hahaha, hey there, lil' guy. Welcome!"

"Where am I? Did I travel between planets? I don't know, my head is spinning…"

He quickly stood up.

"Well, it seems that you were a good student. Maybe you can tell me where we are, don't you?"

Now Dag could see clearly. The man who's talking was a fat man, with a long black beard, and few, messy hair, however, his deep voice seemed friendly.

"We're on the planet where I should be, my ancestor's home. On the machine, it was written 94% Norse, so… am I on Skjold?"

"Hahahah, yes childling! You're only 8 years old, but you're clever! Haahahah" replied the man.

"Thank you… anyway, my name's Dag".

"Yes, yes, I know your name, you teleported yourself with the Vortex. Every time some kid comes here, his name appears written up here, see?" said the man, pointing at a small monitor at the top of the cabin Dag was teleported in.

"Anyway" continued the man.

"You're a Viking now! Follow me, come!"

Dag obeyed. In the meanwhile, he looked around: the walls of the room were made of wood. They were adorned by drawings and banners, mostly red, and axes were hanging on both sides, with boar and deer heads.

They walked along a corridor. The Viking man seemed to know exactly the direction, probably he did this introduction to newcomers as a routine.

"Anyway childling, my name's Hallr. If you need anything, just ask of me".

"Thank you" answered Dag.

The corridor led to the outside of the wood structure. Once outside, Dag was blinded by warm sunlight.

"How is it possible? Is this light coming from the Sun? Was it not dead?" he asked.

"Yes childling, the Sun is dead, you're right. This light is artificial, it has been made by the Xis. They created a synthetic atmosphere, able to recreate the optimal conditions for our lives, allowing us to populate this and other planets" Hallr answered.

Dag couldn't believe in his own eyes, that took seconds to open again. His skin was actually feeling the sun heat.

"On earth, they force us to live underground. They use this principle to get our lives under control".

After a few steps through the first building's courtyard, a second one appeared: it was larger and taller, with high stone walls, and a circular ground at the center. A lot of children, boys and girls were fighting against each other, holding wood weapons and shields.

A tall, blonde woman came out opening a door behind the arena.

"Is the little blonde guy a novice?"

"Yes Taya, he's all yours!" said Hallr.

"Good luck Dag, see you around, then" he replied.

"Yes, see you Hallr!"

The walked towards Dag: "well, well... here we are, kid. Hallr used to be a great warrior when he was young before he was nominated Guardian of the Vortex. I'm Taya and I'm a Skyaldmaer. With my help, you'll be able to forge your destiny".

"I've learned a lot about you Shieldmaidens by Lady Ysabel. You are great female warriors that protect the Viking King!" answered Dag.

"Haha! Yes, a kind of. Now go change these ridiculous clothes you're wearing. Hurry up! You look more like a woman than I do" the woman chuckled.

Taya pointed to the door from which she had come out seconds earlier. Without saying a word, Dag opened that door.

On a table were laying some Viking robes and a wooden sword. He quickly changed his clothes, then he came outside.

"Now it's better! C'mon, come closer to your first opponent!" Taya said, referring to a boy next to her.

"But…but… no one has ever taught me how to fight, and this boy is older than me!" exclaimed worried Dag.

"Hahahaha" laughed the woman, then in a moment, she came over Dag, grabbed the collar of his jacket and lifted him off the ground.

Her face instantly changed, she seemed angry

"You're a fucking Viking now. You belong to this land. During your life, if you will not fight, you'll be a loser, and you will die alone, eaten by crows, I'm sure of it. No matter if you lose or win… you must fight, that's what Vikings do. We fight!"

Taya threw Dag to the ground, at the other boy's feet. Dag tried to raise his head, but the boy punched him hard, so he stayed on his knees.

With a click and tears in his eyes, Dag grabbed the sword that was on the ground but again, the other boy hit him with his shield, squeezing his hand.

Dag shouted and cried when the boy released the shield.

"I don't know why Hallr has brought you here kid, he had to take you to the town Library, where you can study the archives. Probably is that your place, you're not a warrior…"

Taya turned and walked away. The enemy boy laughed at Dag, spitting in front of him.

Dag shouted, grabbed some sand in his hand, and threw it on the boy's face, that closed his eyes and started to cough.

Finally, Dag was able to pick up his wooden sword and with its hilt, he hit his opponent's head.

The guy fell to the floor, with his face dirty, moaning.

"Hahaha, okay, okay, kid. Enough! Maybe you're not that bad" said the Shieldmaiden, clapping her hands.

"Move to the training dummy, try to imitate your comrades".

Dag nodded, and with the sword clutched in his hand, moved. The boys and girls in the arena stared at him. The training continued.

After a few hours, every kid within the walls of the arena was exhausted and filthy.

Taya came back: "well kids, enough for today. Back home everybody".

The young warriors left their weapons on a rack and went out of the arena.

"Dag, you come with me. Let's meet your new family".

At these words, Dag felt a reassurance sensation, left his training sword among the other ones, and followed Taya.

"Come this way kid, we can't go on foot. Your house is quite far from the Arena".

Leaving the Arena, Taya helped Dag to get on a coach, adorned with wood-carved patterns of war scenes. The wheels had metal thorns at the center.

During the trip, neither Dag nor Taya spoke to each other. He focused on what was around him: some farmers rounding up flocks of goats, a blacksmith hitting hot metal with a hammer, kids chasing each other and a group of five men kneeling in front of a statue, representing an armored man wearing a horned helm with an eye-patch and holding a spear.

Everything was new to Dag's eyes. In less than an hour, they arrived on the top of a hill. A brick house shyly stood a few meters before the cliff. Forward, a fence with two caws and a pig.

"Get off, we have arrived".

Both Taya and Dag got off of the coach. She went closer to the door and knocked on.

Somebody opened: an average height woman, with white long hair and brown eyes.

"Yes?" asked the woman.

"I'm Taya of the Skjaldmaer. This is Dag, a novice from Earth. He came in today, in the morning and by order of King Einar, he belongs to you now".

"To me? Why? There are so many rich Jarls out there, they can take anyone, not me! I'm just a farmer".

The woman was closing the door when Taya rudely blocked it with the hand.

"You cannot refuse your duty. The king gave me the order and I traveled from Jernhest this far to deliver this child to you. If you have complaints, ask the King himself" continued the Shieldmaiden in a casual arrogance.

The woman behind the door looked at Dag. He was staring at the ground, moving the terrain with his foot.

"What's your name dear?" she asked.

"My name's Dag my Lady, nice to meet you" he answered.

"You see? He's a polite kid. Not a great warrior, one of the worst novice warriors I've ever seen, but… he seems clever, you can use him to care on your animals" said Taya.

"If he belongs to me, what will he do here is none of your business!" answered the woman, grabbing Dag by an arm and pulling him towards the house.

"Good! This is what I wanted to hear!" said Taya with a tone of satisfaction.

"My job here is done. If you want to keep on training, come to the Arena, kid. I'll be waiting for you" she continued.

Taya got back on the coach and whipping the horses with the reins, she moved away. Dag and the white-haired woman entered the house.

"I'm sorry if you've been treated as a good to deliver. I know Taya, she's a bully, and arrogance is not welcome in this farm. I used to be a Shieldmaiden too, I know what power means and responsibilities that come from it" the woman said, trying to reassure Dag.

"Anyway, I'm Asa, but you can call me 'mother' if it helps you feel better. You have a dad too, his name is Stein. He's not here at the moment, he works as a lumberjack. Right now, he's in the woods, in the Gronn Forest" she continued.

"Okay, it's fine" answered Dag.

"You're so dirty. If you want, I can warm some water for you, so you can get clean".

The humble house suggested a feeling of comfort: the wood was burning inside the chimney, and that smell filled the room. The entrance was also the main room, with a table next to the fireplace and a big bear-skin carpet below.

On the table, a basket with some bread and a clay pot. Chairs were under the table, perfectly ordered: one of them had fur on the back.

"Yes, it would be great, thank you!" said Dag.

The woman grabbed a metal bucket from the floor.

"I'll go outside, the well is next to the fence".

In the meanwhile, Dag continued to realize that he was not living a dream, everything around him was actually real.