In the fraction of a moment before my world went black, my senses functioned just long enough that I could hear a sinister laugh, and some gibberish words - the Alliance language "Common", I believe. I felt him slide his dagger out of my back, but I don't remember hitting the ground. Everything disappeared. And although it seemed I'd left the world of the living behind, my mind seemed to continue functioning. Unable to move, I writhed inside my head, waiting for death.
Then I got bored.
I began to stew in my anger. That motherless human scumpile. I wondered if this was my soul preparing to part from my body, instead of "crossing over," or whatever it is that happens when things die properly, as I clearly wasn't doing. If that was true, I was going to spend the rest of eternity haunting him. I couldn't believe he got the jump on me. ME! I had spent years upon years becoming one with the shadows, getting the jump on everyone else. I was never supposed to be on the receiving end of it! This was all my mentor's fault, back in Silvermoon. I should give him a piece of my mind. Or perhaps a piece of deathweed crushed in his tea.
"What's taking so long!" I shouted into the darkness, immediately startled by my apparent ability to speak. I tried it some more. "Let me die already!"
Were it so simple.
The strange, sudden voice, speaking in Thalassian, no less, seemed to resonate all around me, having no definitive source. The words spoken carried a peculiar tone, soft like the flap of an owl's wing, and suave like serpentine locomotion. In some ways it was the most beautiful, enchanting voice I had ever heard, but at the same time it seemed to seep into my veins like a venom and corrode away my insides. I wanted to shudder, but although I could speak, I was still paralyzed.
You cannot speak. You only perceive that you can speak. Haven't you figured that out by now?
I recoiled mentally. The entity was reading my mind.
Wait... this is familiar...
And then it all came to me. I remembered. I knew what the voice was and where I was - at least, where my mind was. This was the Dream.
Every single night, for the past several months, I had been visiting another world in my dreams. Although some might simply think it was just a recurring dream, the dreams were never identical. The world I found myself in when I slept seemed to be continuous, as if it were another plane of existence. I didn't understand why or how I returned here night after night. It used to frighten me, but now it was only irritating. Although at first I dismissed it all as just dreams, this had been happening so long that I began to grow used to it, and I'd started seeing this dream-world as just as real as the "real-world". I never told the Magisters about this - I was worried they'd tell me I was going crazy. Or worse, becoming a Wretched, and be imprisoned or even executed.
There only seemed to be one living inhabitant in the dream-world - that would be the voice speaking to me. Whether it was true or not, I accepted that this being was not merely a voice in my head, but another separate person. He was not inside of me anyway, he was a part of the dream-world. Moreover, he appeared to have some kind of power over this world, creating phantoms and landscapes and, well ANYTHING he wanted to at his whim. And it had become very clear, with my frequent visits, that he very much disliked me coming here.
"I'm here again." Everything was still just black. Darkness all around me. "Why? Shouldn't I be dead?"
Don't ask me. Honestly, I don't care. I would prefer that you stop lying there like a useless pile of nothing and stand up.
"If you hadn't noticed," I growled, "that rogue stuck a damned dagger in me and now I'm lying here bleeding to death."
Are you really that dense? Stop pretending to be wounded and stand up. All of that nonsense is in your head. You're in MY world, remember?
I stumbled over my thoughts. That actually made sense. I concentrated for a moment, trying to imagine opening my eyes.
A world appeared in front of me. A purple-blue sky with swirling green clouds cradling a warm, gentle sun. The smell of spring blossoms wafted on the pleasant cool breeze, blowing strands of my short black hair into my vision. Barely even thinking about it, I lifted my hand and brushed them away. The paralysis that held be to the ground seemed to have dissipated completely. I sat up in the blue-green grass, taken aback by the scenery laid out before me. Serene, tranquil plains rolled on and on as far as I could see, marked by grazing herds of wondrous animals I'd never seen before, and odd clusters of blooming fruit trees. In the sky were strange, ray-like birds - looking like some kind of cross between a sporebat and a dragonhawk, glided peacefully through the air, singing sorrowful, soul-moving melodies.
"This is... breathtaking," I barely managed to say. It felt unnatural to be here. Moments ago I'd been in the Grizzly Hills.
The Sparrow King, the dream-world's herald and master, the resonating voice, stood before me. He wasn't there a moment ago, but only appeared once I blinked. It would have startled me, but this was how he usually chose to appear. The sunlight glittered off his metal headdress, an elegantly designed mask with a songbird's likeness, fettered with a gale of feathers and carved with Sin'dorei-like swirling patterns. I could just see the lower half of his face beneath the mask. It was a human face, but that didn't mean much. He could appear as any race, any gender. Usually he chose the form of Blood Elf, but this time I got the distinct impression he was trying to taunt me by taking the likeness of my human assailant.
"It is, isn't it," he said, speaking normally. His headdress made a clinking sound as he turned to look at the fantastic world behind him. "I call this place Ra'Luranis, the Eternal Haven. It's my most recent work of art. A shame that you have to blemish it with your presence."
Taking a moment to feather my hair back into its appropriate shape, I slowly attempted to stand up. As I expected, a spasm of pain shot through my back and sent me back onto the ground, reeling in agony. I heard the Sparrow King turn to look at me. Suddenly feeling stupid, I tried again, this time telling myself that I was not truly wounded, and that the pain was just in my head. I found my way to my feet without any problem.
Though I was relieved the pain was gone, I knew that the other me was still there in the Grizzly Hills, bleeding a pool onto the mossy forest floor. Why was I here? Had I died? Had I left the real world and come here in death? Was I trapped here forever?
"I certainly hope not," the Sparrow King muttered. I shuddered, almost physically feeling him in my head. A twisted smile curled on the visible portion of his face. "You don't like that, do you? I don't either. There's nothing I can do about it. I can hear your thoughts loud as a chiming bell tower no matter where in the Dream I am. You have no idea what pain this causes me. What torment you visit on me."
"Look," I snapped, narrowing my eyes. "If I could stop coming here, I would. Hasn't that become clear to you?"
Through the headdress's eye holes he stared at me. Concealed by the mask's darkness, I couldn't see his eyes.
"I've become bored of this." The Sparrow King glanced up for a moment. The air around him seem to whorl and bulge, much like the swirling air above a fire. I watched the twisting light grow opaque, and take on a familiar shape. Large, reptilian, angry shapes. I stumbled backward at the sight of these newly created creatures - THESE ones I recognized.
The Sparrow King smiled. "Yes. These are what you call Devilsaurs, I believe."
Yep. He was right.
Eight of them stood there, their beady, savage eyes focused directly on me. Their opened their mouths into hungry, toothy smiles. Globs of thick drool oozed from their gaping maws, dripping in tendrils down to the soft, grassy earth. I reached for my daggers, surprised to find them properly sheathed on my hips, and held them in front of me. It was a pointless measure, but it was an instinctive reflex. There was no way I was about to take down eight Devilsaurs.
"I would be delighted to see you try." The Sparrow King added a cruel snicker. "Though it would be just as fun to watch you flee for your life."
I wouldn't have to. The shadow was my ally. Adjusting my dagger's hilt in my right hand, I reached for a smoke pellet, packed with vanishing dust that would allow me to easily escape this predicament.
My hand groped the air.
"The shadow won't save you here, Blood Elf," the Sparrow King said. His Devilsaur companions shook the ground as they began to step closer to me. "This is my world. Everything that happens here happens because I allow it to. I allowed you to block out your pain. I allowed you to stand up. I allowed you to experience this beautiful landscape. I will not allow you to escape."
Fear's wretched claws began to close around my heart.
No. No.
"Th...They can't hurt me," I stammered. "They aren't real. None of this is. You've tried to kill me before. I'll only wake up."
"Will you? Aren't you dead, this time? Are you sure you can wake up? Perhaps you will truly die here and I can be rid of you. Or not. Perhaps you'll never die, and you'll spend eternity here, forcing me to kill you over and over again. I think I would be equally happy with either outcome. It will be interesting to see how this turns out."
No. Was... was that true?
"Let us find out." The Sparrow King vanished. The Devilsaurs began to charge forward. Their long, enormous tails whipped in the air with all the glee of a happy dog.
Run, little Blood Elf.
I did.
The ground trembled under me as it bore the incredible weight of the Devilsaurs with their every thunderous footstep. Panic ravaged my every nerve, making my limbs feel electric. I gasped for breath, my lungs wracked with fearful desperation, my tiny elven legs moving as fast as I could manage, but my speed was nothing compared to the gargantuan creatures behind me. Every ounce of energy, every terrified thought in my head was being used to propel me forward. This was a new brand of fear. This was knowing that there was no way I could possibly escape what was behind me. There was no point in fleeing. I knew what was behind me was going to catch up and crush me in their jaws and tear me apart, all of them fighting for scraps. But my every primal instinct told me to RUN.
The ground plunged downward, leaving me hanging for just a moment above it. This was the result of a very large talon slamming into the ground behind me, the shock sending me up into the air. As the ground came rushing up again, I lost my vertical momentum. I was not going to land on my feet.
My elbows slammed into the dirt. Very real pain raced up to my shoulders. I rolled over just in time to see an open mouth, twice my size, coming down to devour me.
I closed my eyes and braced myself, waiting to feel each individual tooth pop into my skin.
Waited.
Nothing.
I opened my eyes - or rather, tried to. I couldn't. Everything was black again. What was happening to me? Was I dying again? Was this finally the end? Would I be stuck in this dream world when I woke up? Was I ever going to wake again?
What was happening to me?
What was happening to me?!
Then I got bored.
I began to stew in my anger. That motherless human scumpile. I wondered if this was my soul preparing to part from my body, instead of "crossing over," or whatever it is that happens when things die properly, as I clearly wasn't doing. If that was true, I was going to spend the rest of eternity haunting him. I couldn't believe he got the jump on me. ME! I had spent years upon years becoming one with the shadows, getting the jump on everyone else. I was never supposed to be on the receiving end of it! This was all my mentor's fault, back in Silvermoon. I should give him a piece of my mind. Or perhaps a piece of deathweed crushed in his tea.
"What's taking so long!" I shouted into the darkness, immediately startled by my apparent ability to speak. I tried it some more. "Let me die already!"
Were it so simple.
The strange, sudden voice, speaking in Thalassian, no less, seemed to resonate all around me, having no definitive source. The words spoken carried a peculiar tone, soft like the flap of an owl's wing, and suave like serpentine locomotion. In some ways it was the most beautiful, enchanting voice I had ever heard, but at the same time it seemed to seep into my veins like a venom and corrode away my insides. I wanted to shudder, but although I could speak, I was still paralyzed.
You cannot speak. You only perceive that you can speak. Haven't you figured that out by now?
I recoiled mentally. The entity was reading my mind.
Wait... this is familiar...
And then it all came to me. I remembered. I knew what the voice was and where I was - at least, where my mind was. This was the Dream.
Every single night, for the past several months, I had been visiting another world in my dreams. Although some might simply think it was just a recurring dream, the dreams were never identical. The world I found myself in when I slept seemed to be continuous, as if it were another plane of existence. I didn't understand why or how I returned here night after night. It used to frighten me, but now it was only irritating. Although at first I dismissed it all as just dreams, this had been happening so long that I began to grow used to it, and I'd started seeing this dream-world as just as real as the "real-world". I never told the Magisters about this - I was worried they'd tell me I was going crazy. Or worse, becoming a Wretched, and be imprisoned or even executed.
There only seemed to be one living inhabitant in the dream-world - that would be the voice speaking to me. Whether it was true or not, I accepted that this being was not merely a voice in my head, but another separate person. He was not inside of me anyway, he was a part of the dream-world. Moreover, he appeared to have some kind of power over this world, creating phantoms and landscapes and, well ANYTHING he wanted to at his whim. And it had become very clear, with my frequent visits, that he very much disliked me coming here.
"I'm here again." Everything was still just black. Darkness all around me. "Why? Shouldn't I be dead?"
Don't ask me. Honestly, I don't care. I would prefer that you stop lying there like a useless pile of nothing and stand up.
"If you hadn't noticed," I growled, "that rogue stuck a damned dagger in me and now I'm lying here bleeding to death."
Are you really that dense? Stop pretending to be wounded and stand up. All of that nonsense is in your head. You're in MY world, remember?
I stumbled over my thoughts. That actually made sense. I concentrated for a moment, trying to imagine opening my eyes.
A world appeared in front of me. A purple-blue sky with swirling green clouds cradling a warm, gentle sun. The smell of spring blossoms wafted on the pleasant cool breeze, blowing strands of my short black hair into my vision. Barely even thinking about it, I lifted my hand and brushed them away. The paralysis that held be to the ground seemed to have dissipated completely. I sat up in the blue-green grass, taken aback by the scenery laid out before me. Serene, tranquil plains rolled on and on as far as I could see, marked by grazing herds of wondrous animals I'd never seen before, and odd clusters of blooming fruit trees. In the sky were strange, ray-like birds - looking like some kind of cross between a sporebat and a dragonhawk, glided peacefully through the air, singing sorrowful, soul-moving melodies.
"This is... breathtaking," I barely managed to say. It felt unnatural to be here. Moments ago I'd been in the Grizzly Hills.
The Sparrow King, the dream-world's herald and master, the resonating voice, stood before me. He wasn't there a moment ago, but only appeared once I blinked. It would have startled me, but this was how he usually chose to appear. The sunlight glittered off his metal headdress, an elegantly designed mask with a songbird's likeness, fettered with a gale of feathers and carved with Sin'dorei-like swirling patterns. I could just see the lower half of his face beneath the mask. It was a human face, but that didn't mean much. He could appear as any race, any gender. Usually he chose the form of Blood Elf, but this time I got the distinct impression he was trying to taunt me by taking the likeness of my human assailant.
"It is, isn't it," he said, speaking normally. His headdress made a clinking sound as he turned to look at the fantastic world behind him. "I call this place Ra'Luranis, the Eternal Haven. It's my most recent work of art. A shame that you have to blemish it with your presence."
Taking a moment to feather my hair back into its appropriate shape, I slowly attempted to stand up. As I expected, a spasm of pain shot through my back and sent me back onto the ground, reeling in agony. I heard the Sparrow King turn to look at me. Suddenly feeling stupid, I tried again, this time telling myself that I was not truly wounded, and that the pain was just in my head. I found my way to my feet without any problem.
Though I was relieved the pain was gone, I knew that the other me was still there in the Grizzly Hills, bleeding a pool onto the mossy forest floor. Why was I here? Had I died? Had I left the real world and come here in death? Was I trapped here forever?
"I certainly hope not," the Sparrow King muttered. I shuddered, almost physically feeling him in my head. A twisted smile curled on the visible portion of his face. "You don't like that, do you? I don't either. There's nothing I can do about it. I can hear your thoughts loud as a chiming bell tower no matter where in the Dream I am. You have no idea what pain this causes me. What torment you visit on me."
"Look," I snapped, narrowing my eyes. "If I could stop coming here, I would. Hasn't that become clear to you?"
Through the headdress's eye holes he stared at me. Concealed by the mask's darkness, I couldn't see his eyes.
"I've become bored of this." The Sparrow King glanced up for a moment. The air around him seem to whorl and bulge, much like the swirling air above a fire. I watched the twisting light grow opaque, and take on a familiar shape. Large, reptilian, angry shapes. I stumbled backward at the sight of these newly created creatures - THESE ones I recognized.
The Sparrow King smiled. "Yes. These are what you call Devilsaurs, I believe."
Yep. He was right.
Eight of them stood there, their beady, savage eyes focused directly on me. Their opened their mouths into hungry, toothy smiles. Globs of thick drool oozed from their gaping maws, dripping in tendrils down to the soft, grassy earth. I reached for my daggers, surprised to find them properly sheathed on my hips, and held them in front of me. It was a pointless measure, but it was an instinctive reflex. There was no way I was about to take down eight Devilsaurs.
"I would be delighted to see you try." The Sparrow King added a cruel snicker. "Though it would be just as fun to watch you flee for your life."
I wouldn't have to. The shadow was my ally. Adjusting my dagger's hilt in my right hand, I reached for a smoke pellet, packed with vanishing dust that would allow me to easily escape this predicament.
My hand groped the air.
"The shadow won't save you here, Blood Elf," the Sparrow King said. His Devilsaur companions shook the ground as they began to step closer to me. "This is my world. Everything that happens here happens because I allow it to. I allowed you to block out your pain. I allowed you to stand up. I allowed you to experience this beautiful landscape. I will not allow you to escape."
Fear's wretched claws began to close around my heart.
No. No.
"Th...They can't hurt me," I stammered. "They aren't real. None of this is. You've tried to kill me before. I'll only wake up."
"Will you? Aren't you dead, this time? Are you sure you can wake up? Perhaps you will truly die here and I can be rid of you. Or not. Perhaps you'll never die, and you'll spend eternity here, forcing me to kill you over and over again. I think I would be equally happy with either outcome. It will be interesting to see how this turns out."
No. Was... was that true?
"Let us find out." The Sparrow King vanished. The Devilsaurs began to charge forward. Their long, enormous tails whipped in the air with all the glee of a happy dog.
Run, little Blood Elf.
I did.
The ground trembled under me as it bore the incredible weight of the Devilsaurs with their every thunderous footstep. Panic ravaged my every nerve, making my limbs feel electric. I gasped for breath, my lungs wracked with fearful desperation, my tiny elven legs moving as fast as I could manage, but my speed was nothing compared to the gargantuan creatures behind me. Every ounce of energy, every terrified thought in my head was being used to propel me forward. This was a new brand of fear. This was knowing that there was no way I could possibly escape what was behind me. There was no point in fleeing. I knew what was behind me was going to catch up and crush me in their jaws and tear me apart, all of them fighting for scraps. But my every primal instinct told me to RUN.
The ground plunged downward, leaving me hanging for just a moment above it. This was the result of a very large talon slamming into the ground behind me, the shock sending me up into the air. As the ground came rushing up again, I lost my vertical momentum. I was not going to land on my feet.
My elbows slammed into the dirt. Very real pain raced up to my shoulders. I rolled over just in time to see an open mouth, twice my size, coming down to devour me.
I closed my eyes and braced myself, waiting to feel each individual tooth pop into my skin.
Waited.
Nothing.
I opened my eyes - or rather, tried to. I couldn't. Everything was black again. What was happening to me? Was I dying again? Was this finally the end? Would I be stuck in this dream world when I woke up? Was I ever going to wake again?
What was happening to me?
What was happening to me?!
