• There was a light, small and indistinct like a candle's flame. It wavered, then began to rise. Like an amoeba, it split into two, identical lights, and soon there were two more. The lights continued to multiply until they surrounded him. He could feel their heat coaxing a smile from him. He felt strangely small in the midst of them, a minuscule detail they had chosen to focus on for reasons inexplicable.
    His eyes grew soft, and tears rained down from them like crystals fleeing their chandelier. He hunched his back, not wanting them to see him so helpless. He shook with the sobs he had held in for so long, and when he looked up, the lights were gone. The darkness had fled along with them, and in the light, he knew he was truly alone. He collapsed to the ground, shaking once again.



    Lynus leaped from his bed, propelled by a burst of adrenaline. In midair, he ripped his emerald sword from its sheath, and brought it hard to the flattened grass. He looked up, his chest heaving. All he saw was a girl, not far from his own age, standing there in the doorway of his tent. Her eyebrows were raised and a sly smile tugged at her lips. In her hands she held an ivory wand carved intricately with characters that weaved around its slender length. Garbed in an elegant crimson robe of silk with a black ribbon tied around her waist, she appeared to be entirely benign. Her hair was a ghostly white, and her eyes seemed to change color on a whim, a marvel Lynus had seen only once before.
    "Nightmares, am I right? Perhaps you should take one of the herbs that calm the soul," she suggested with a hint of a patronizing tone.
    With a tug, Lynus had pulled his blade from the ground, and, in a single swing, brought the point of it up to the girl's unguarded throat."State your name and your purpose for being here," Lynus demanded with an unusual calm. At all times, Lynus chose to distance himself from dealings with strangers, but now one had crept up to his doorstep, literally.
    The girl flashed him another a sly smile, sending a wave of uncertainty through Lynus. His eyes flickered over to the wand she held loosely in her dainty hand. Her grip around the wand tightened, and with a click of her tongue and a faint pop in the air around them, she was gone. Pallid wisps of sweet-smelling mist curled around the place where the girl had been standing only moments before.
    Lynus, with eyes wide in frantic panic, searched the tent desperately. He swung his head out the doorway, glancing out at the pitch-black night.