Fire, pain, and darkness consumed everything. It was alive, a writhing abyss that tore at him as he fell, deeper and deeper. Why he was falling he could no longer even recall, and even the simplest memory slipped through his grasp like drops of water. Flashes of hazy, muddled events floated before his eyes, but they were jumbled and chaotic.

One of the tendrils lashed out, trying to grab him, but he fell too fast, the shadowy length nicking him instead. Pain seared through his body, and for a split second he saw the image of an elven male that stirred a faint familiarity in the back of his mind, a sword cutting the male shallowly. He was fighting for his life, the tone of the image urgent, dire. And then it was gone, forgotten, leaving him to the darkness again.

“Arathen…”

He didn’t even notice the voice at first. It was soft, seeming to come from somewhere distant. The name seemed so familiar, like the last image had, and yet it, too, had slipped away from him.

“Arathen…wake up.”

The voice was louder this time, warm, and some of the haze in his mind seemed to part. He blinked, eyes clenching shut and then fluttering open again, clearing his vision. The voice was that of a woman, and it was calling to him, the name recognizable now as his own with the haze that weighed him down starting to grow thin.

Arathen turned, focusing his gaze on where the voice seemed to come from, but there was nothing there. With his newfound clarity, though, he quickly spotted something, a pinpoint of silver among the shadows.

His descent began to slow, and the pinpoint grew, light shining from it. The silvery radiance surrounded him, finally arresting his fall and beating back the writhing darkness. Turning, he pushed himself upright, squinting against the light cast by the shining beacon.

“Who are you?” Arathen called out, raising a hand to shield his eyes. For a time, no answer came, the silence of the abyss eerie. Slowly, though, a shape began to appear, as if woven from the light itself. It coalesced, the form of a slender elven woman appearing before him, floating in the light barely two feet away.

Her hair was of gleaming silver, like the glow that surrounded them both, flowing out behind her. She wore a pale gown, and as she drew even closer the shadows seemed to be pushed even further back.

“I’m a friend, you could say.” She said, smiling gently. “Someone to guide you from the gloom.”

Arathen’s brow furrowed, the answer not really enough, though the entire experience was surreal; like a nightmare turned into a strange dream.

“You’ll be alright, do not worry.” She was even closer, their eyes locked, the light coming from her as warm and comforting as her words. “I can’t let you go just yet.”

And then their lips met, the light blinding and still getting brighter, the warmth flowing through him to push away the last of the haze clinging to his mind. The darkness writhed and screamed, dissolving away completely as that moon-silver radiance burned it.

“Time to wake up…”

* * *