10 Awakening

She'll dream and soon see

What she's come to be

- prophecy of the duskbringer

Present day, 4993 A.D. An indiscernible time…

Guppy was adrift in a lucid dream, She realised she was dreaming after living through her first meeting with Friedrich. Yet once she realised it was a dream Guppy was ejected into a third person view of the affair.

She watched their encounter play over once more, but then her attention was taken by a shining door that appeared in the brickwork the alleyway. Guppy approached and tapped on it. Plain pine wood, or so it seemed. Taking a breath Guppy opened it and peeked her head through cautiously. she saw a long, long corridor, it seemed to stretch for miles yet Guppy could clearly make out the end, a huge door waited there, guarded by a figure cloaked in heavy black robes.

She waited awhile, but nothing seemed to change in the waiting, so with nothing else to do Guppy started walking down this long carpeted corridor.

She found that the corridor walls had many doors on either side, and each door was shaped differently, having a unique color, style, and pattern engraved upon it.

Guppy opened a few in curiosity, discovering that each seemed to have different scenes from her life inside, and if she stayed long enough inside a room the finite memory would begin to loop.

Guppy felt an impatience press upon her, urging her to progress, so she moved on, entering rooms as she was moved by her whims.

Each time Guppy exited a room she would be closer to the end, and the chilling presence that lay there.

A growing sense of dread struck her each time Guppy viewed the black figure standing so eerily still, yet she could tell that it was always watching her. Guppy could only escape its gaze by entering another room. So she did, again and again.

Some rooms contained happy memories of her as a young child, before bitter grief and loss first struck.

Guppy was playing with her father, his face blurry in her faded memories, she tugged on his hand to show him a flower, or point to people and animals she found interesting, silly things to an adult, but of vital importance to her childish self. The man humored her every whim, even the bad ones.

Guppy winced as she watched her younger form serve her father a mud pie and encourage him to eat it. He did so with a brown grin upon his face.

Guppy blushed as she watched how she had acted towards her first crush at twelve, sighed at how her first romantic relationship at 14 lasted but a month, and sourly realized why she had not courted or been courted since.

These last few years she had been so focused on surviving, not sparing time or thought for flirting and frivolity.

True also was the fact that the young men of Nolusberg liked to flirt with the giggling pretty girls from good homes, not the grim, plain faced lasses from broken ones.

Guppy firmly closed the door to one socially embarrassing memory and moved on to the next.

The weeks and months of her mother's sickness were difficult to relive, but Guppy forced herself to review them anyway, pushing through the grasping pain that clutched at her bosom.

But remembering the responsibility and constant pressure she was under to hold the family together seemed to help firm her resolve to see this trial to its end.

Guppy opened the next door, a cracked vine wreathed affair, and stood for a time at her parents graves. Two simple engraved stones marking the flower covered mounds where they rested. She had scrimped together a little coin to lay their mother in a gravesite next to their father so they could sleep together in death.

A kind old priest performed the last rights without charging them, merely patting their heads and offering a prayer of guidance for both the deceased and the living, his ritual sending her mother's soul off in peace to the afterlife.

Knowing this was but a dream Guppy silently looked on. But even knowing could not stop the fresh tears that slid down her cold cheeks. She determined to visit their graves again once she woke up and clean their headstones.

The urging came upon her again, more insistent in its prodding, so Guppy sadly and softly closed that door and trod once again upon the carpeted corridor.

Guppy was much closer now, and from the end of ways she felt a biting chill emanate, and heard a scraping of breath accompanied by a rattling of iron chains. She broke out into a cold sweat and froze in indecision and uncertainty.

The rasp and scritching of nails on slate broke her frozen state. Unable, or unwilling to proceed further down the corridor Guppy opened the nearest door and swiftly entered.

Upon entering Guppy let out a sigh of relief. As she turned Guppy surveyed a large circular room before her, it contained not a vista but a battered apartment building in the middle.

Guppy walked up some creaky wooden stairs to an elevated platform, on which sat a battered couch that overlooked the tiny apartment she had called home the last few years.

Guppy sat down and looked upon the image of her small apartment, the walls and roof turned transparent to her view as she looked, allowing her to see the going ons that transpired from the last three years of her life.

The joyous day when she had come home, thin, worn, and a little shell shocked at successfully getting hired by Friedrich. She watched as a small glimmer of hope lit within Stalia and Kyle's sunken eyes as she told them the news.

Time sped up as events passed by. The trio gradually ate more, and better food. Filling out their plain but sturdier clothes. Stalia then found a job waitressing, helping to supplement their income and savings.

Then the night Stalia came home, eyes alight as she sighed and spoke about a gorgeous young man who had started courting her. She went on and on about his smile, or how his eyes twinkled when he grinned, or about how his muscles moved under his tight shirt...

Guppy watched Kyle bringing home small injured animals to heal rather than eat.

Guppy felt a warmth within her chest, at Kyle smiling broadly when she had brought home a few tools and raw materials from her work for him to practice with. He had never been a boy of many words, but that night he gave her a big long hug and whispered "Thank you sis." in her ear.

This was the most emotion Guppy saw him show since their mother had died, he had been too young to really remember their father's passing.

Guppy touched her ear, and thought on how Kyle always kept his eyes cast downwards, focused on whatever he was working on. Only lifting them for more than a quick glance when he stared off into the distant sky gazing at a vista only visible to him.

Guppy knew he was different, but knew that despite struggling to show it, he loved his sisters fiercely.

She felt the warmth of that hug anew.

The last memories finished and the room faded to grey, this time not starting anew.

Guppy sat on that moth eaten couch, and thought upon her memories, her life.

There were times of tears and sorrow mixed right in with the shrieks of joy and exuberance. The good times highlighted by the bad she had suffered through.

Each day might be a trial in it's own right, yet still it was a precious gift to Guppy.

Guppy lay on the couch and curled up, smelling the musty dampness did not deter her as Guppy slowly summoned her courage.

The prodding became an urgent shaking and Guppy rose. The room was slowly disintegrating into motes of light, prompting Guppy to swiftly descend the crumbling stone steps and exit the room.

Guppy gazed back, and saw her past family. Saw herself, and shared a look with the young her. The moment stretched, but Guppy broke off the gaze, and felt warm hands propelling her forward.

It was time. Guppy made her way to the end of the long corridor.

And all too soon she arrived.

Before her the cloaked figure raised a hand, warning her to halt and turn around, to leave and not venture this way furthermore.

She ignored it and kept walking.

An oppressive weight seeped out of the figure, tension clawing at every step she made, trying to force her to stop.

Guppy continued her approach with slow with heavy steps.

The lights in the corridor flickered on and off, shifting the corridor into epilectic throes.

Passing the final doors on her left and right Guppy approached the big scary one.

It was large, made of wrought iron with locks, bars and black chains securing it, decorated with rows and rows of skulls that clattered and locked their hollow eyes on her as she drew near.

Dark mist seeped out from under the door, enshrouding her legs in a bone chilling cold.

Faint shrieks and cries could be heard from the other side, attesting to visited violence upon it's occupants.

Guppy stretched forth a trembling hand, reaching forwards.

The dark being stretched its arms out to either side, shrieking horrifically while it rose off the ground.

Guppy's vision blurred as the hallway seemed to spin and warp.

Intense heat and cold assaulted her. Winds drove her back. Sharp rocks obstructed her feet. Time slowed and sped up, disorienting her further. The door was near, then far then near again. Blindness of light and shadow fell upon her.

Pain visited her in many shapes and forms.

But it was not enough to deter her now.

Guppy grasped cloth with her hand, and tore the cloak from the figure. It fell to the ground, weakened and crying.

"Leave, leave, here lies naught but pain and anguish." It wailed

Guppy patted the shoulder of her younger self, before rising and walking onward. the figure of herself turning to ash behind Guppy's back.

She reached the door and opened it, bursting the morbid affair into paper and smoke that crumpled and shifted away.

Silence settled as she entered Friedrich's secret workshop.

Guppy saw but one brief scene.

She watched; over and over, as the explosion and successive implosion of Arkannisius occured.

Her master, mentor and friend Friedrich died, again and again in excruciating detail. Detail she had not registered in the moment, but detail that shredded her heart anew with each cycle.

She watched him disappear into the void again and again until the pain in her heart fell from torturous levels to a dull steady ache.

Guppy sat and leaned against the wall. Once again she had lost someone dear to her.

<Never again.> she swore, <Will I be found helpless, and without the power to protect those that I love.>

{A worthy sentiment little hatchling.} A deep voice reverberated.

<Where - have - you - been!?> Guppy asked.

{Busy.} replied Batty, {I had to keep both of us alive while waiting for your mind to heal enough to face the world once more.}

{It was a tattered mess in here let me tell you. I sunk your consciousness down a few levels to dilate your perceived flow of time and accelerate your healing. However there is currently a situation in the waking realm that urgently requires your attention. As I no longer have a body I will have to leave it to you to resolve. I have overdrawn my reserves far too much in this endeavor. I must. enter a period.. of rest and recovery.. soon... keep us. alive.. little hatchling...}

Guppy felt Batty's consciousness fading, it was still there, at the edge of her consciousness, but felt greyed out, dormant, no longer responsive to stimuli. So Guppy left him to recover, if what he said was true she would have to pry answers from him later.

With a thought Guppy opened her eyes, and quickly noticed a very sharp blade, a very short distance from her face.