Prologue: Dreams

The empty, grassy plains that stretched out as far as the eye could see felt expressionless and emotionless, as if they were the soul of a demon waiting for its prey to realize its existence before it gave the final blow. Barren skies loomed overhead, bringing with it feelings of solicitude and awakening. The air tasted thick, stale, and distant, as though warning that it did and didn’t exist on this plane of reality.

He didn’t know how he got there, or why he was even there. In fact, he couldn’t recall anything he had experienced during his entire lifetime, like all his memories had been erased from his mind. But at the same time, he didn’t really care about this. He didn’t have the ability to care at the moment.

Only to fear, to be afraid, to wonder…

Mists gathered around him like hundreds of tendrils from some unknown beast. They encircled around him, but apparently dared not touch him. He remained fixed in his position, his mind adrift for answers that his blank memories couldn’t provide.

After a brief eternity, one lone tentacle of haze sailed in his direction, waving over his left shoulder like a cloud of unknown tidings. It then began to gather itself into one entity, slowly gaining substance yet no dimensions. Finally, when the last trace of mist was gone, a physical being remained in its place.

A fairy.

His didn’t, however, question the sudden presence of this fairy. Instead, he watched the remainder of the mist begin to mimic the solitary tendril by slowly enveloping each other. The transformation was slower than the first metamorphosis…or was it? Time seemed to have no meaning in this world…

The final transformation yielded something remarkable yet strangely not unexpected. The countenance of a magnificent castle stood before him, residing with a silent majesty in a forsaken domain. It stretched for unfathomable distances left and right and towered in the bleak sky like a gentle behemoth.

The mouth to this giant was a raised drawbridge. But wait! The drawbridge was lowering. He braced himself, ready for anything that might emerge from within. He failed to notice that the groaning and creaking of the drawbridge was the first substantial sound he had heard since he had…"arrived."

But it wasn’t the last. The barren sky had sudden transformed into a gloomy display of thunderclouds, and bolts of lightning began illuminating the sky, bringing with it rumbling echoes. But these thunderclaps seemed small in comparison when the drawbridge finally landed with a thud upon the ground.

No sooner had it landed than something white began to emerge from within the castle. He remained motionless where he was, strangely unafraid of whatever it was. When it finally was in closer perspective, he realized what it was. It was a horse, and he didn’t have time – if Time did exist here – to examine it closer before it galloped past him and into a murky, dark horizon.

But he did manage to see something else before it disappeared. Upon the horse’s back were two riders, one smaller than the other was. He didn’t get a good look at the bigger rider, but he did manage to see a vague representation of the other. It was a young girl, whose face was frozen in dread and seemed to be trying to tell him something as she passed him.

Funny, he thought he knew her from somewhere.

As the white horse and its riders finally retreated to wherever they had gone, the scene entranced him for some reason. What had just happened? Why did it happen? Was it important? Did it mean something?

Just then, without a sound to coax him, he turned around and found himself staring at the most frightening thing he had seen so far. An enormous black horse stood before him, its size unusual, its power undeniable, its eyes radiating a deep and demonic red.

But it was on the back of this horse that sat the true factor of horror. He clearly saw the rider, but he couldn’t find the words to describe the rider at all. Even so, one word seemed to stand out immediately: evil.

The rider’s horse reared suddenly, but the rider didn’t falter in the least. Instead, the rider lifted a hand in the air, directly towards him.

It was there and then that he fully appreciated and experienced the pathos of fear…

********************

She tried in vain to stop it, but it was no use.

She stood in the middle of the land she loved dearly. How she knew that she couldn’t tell. The feeling may have been symbolic, but her mind didn’t wish to ponder this thought at the moment. Instead, it wanted to take in the beauty that the land possessed, to hold it, and experience it…

But her desire couldn’t be fulfilled. The land she loved was being devoured; being consumed spiritually by a force she couldn’t comprehend or believe. She couldn’t even witness the force behind the destruction, but instead was forced to observe it in the form of a powerful and terrifying storm cloud.

The storm cloud rolled across the land, swallowing everything in its enormous shadow. The more it consumed, the more powerful it seemed to grow. The multiple billows that created this beast seemed to rumble and twitch with laugher, as if chortling at the devastation it forged within and in its wake.

She tried with all her might to restrain or even hinder this monster’s progression, but nothing in her power could bring a halt to the behemoth’s path. The more she tried, the more it seemed to snicker back at her with its inhuman and cruel language.

Hopelessness and despair seemed inevitable, but she wasn’t prepared for what followed next. The storm drifted across to the forests, the boundaries of her land filled with magic and mystery that only they could hold. The shadow prowled closer and closer towards it, threatening to engulf it within its noxious touch.

Suddenly, to her surprise, something emerged from within the forest. That something was a magnificent beam of light. Whether it was sunlight or magic she couldn’t tell, but the ray’s presence was nevertheless breathtaking.

The ray soared several feet beyond the forest’s edge before amazingly curving in the direction of the storm cloud. The beam headed straight for a section of the tempest that pounded rhythmically, as if it were the ghost-like heart of the entity. The beam seemed to gather strength as it shot straight at this "heart," in such a way that suggested the ray had a life of its own.

With a loud crash, the beam burst upon the "heart," creating a radiating sound that she could hear clearly. The cloud began to shiver violently, as if it didn’t appreciate this intrusion. She didn’t know how, but all focus of the cloud seemed to be diverted towards the beam.

What happened next became what could only be described as a colossal battle between two gods representing the other one’s antithesis.

The two entities struggled with each other for what seemed like eternity. The beam pushed harder and grew brighter as the cloud tried desperately to push it away with its gathering haze. But in the end, the ray managed one final burst that shot directly through the storm cloud’s "heart." A final rumble that felt like a cry of defeat echoed across the land as the cloud began to break up, releasing all that it had held within its terrifying grasp.

The beam of light, however, didn’t stop radiating after it had won its glorious battle. Instead, it curved back towards the land and struck the ground with a deafening yet somehow gentle crash. The light then seemed to gather into one form, creating an entirely new entity. She watched silently, wondering what was going to result.

When the light had completed its radiant transformation, what stood in its stead was a person. The person – most likely a young man – wasn’t recognizable, yet she felt she had seen him somewhere before. The person stood motionless for a moment before looking up towards her. Although she couldn’t see his face, she felt that he was smiling.

Then he lifted his hands, and a bright green orb of light radiated from his right one. Moments later, a 

second, dimmer light orb illuminated from his left, this time being a faint pink. But on closer inspection, she discovered the pink orb to in fact be a fairy.

She wanted to say something, but couldn’t find the words. She looked up at the sky again and then back at the man with the two lights. Who was he? What did he just do? And what does this all mean?

She didn’t have the chance to answer before everything before her started to twist and grow hazy…