Stray: Touchstone (Part 1)

Cassandra Devlin walked out of exams and into a forest on her last day of high school. She was surrounded by unfamiliar trees and animals that didn't appear in any nature documentary, leaving her with only one certainty: she would need to be lucky to survive. As she explored the abandoned buildings, Cass encountered more puzzles than answers. The mist that drifted off the structures at night, the people who seemed to have vanished, and the feeling of being watched all contributed to her growing unease. However, when Setari arrived, Cass's life took a dramatic turn. Whisked away to a world with advanced technology, she found herself in a place where nanotech computers were grown inside people's skulls, and few ventured outside the whitestone cities. Cass soon discovered that she was processed as a 'stray', a refugee displaced by the gates torn between worlds. She struggled to adapt to this new language and culture, navigating virtual classrooms, teleporting friends, and an ingrained attitude that strays were backward and slow. As Cass navigated her new world, she had to confront the possibility of finding her way home and whether those who discovered her unexpected value would be willing to let her leave.