001

--The Enclave--

She opened her eyes.

Darkness.

Her instinct told her she was there for a reason - but she could not remember what that reason was. The air was cold and clammy; the world empty. A slight breeze ran across the skin of her face like a breath, and with it, a question from a soft, airy voice:

“Who are you?”

She thought for a moment, alone in the dark. “I-I don’t know,” she answered. She looked at her hands as they trembled. “...I don’t think I belong here.”

“Who are you?”

“Do you know?” she asked.

“Why are you here?”

Looking around at the nothing, the only answer she had was, “I don’t know…”

“Why are you here?”

“What is this place? Can’t you tell me?”

“Why have you come to this place?” the voice on the breeze asked. “This place, where the world is made of dreams…”

“I-Whaa!”

In an instant, she fell.

Into the darkness.

Through it.

And then it came alive, and she watched the world shift and change from one dreamlike setting to the next. She fell through forests filled with trees as tall as skyscrapers. She fell through a sea filled with teams of sea creatures big and small. She fell through night time in a desert, filled with more stars than she had ever seen, ribbons of galaxies lighting up the night. She fell through cloudless skies and saw the patterns below her like a tapestry made of earth.

Then the earth enveloped her, and her world flipped upside down. Finding herself on a high, wooded cliff, she watched as giant eagles danced with dragons over a white citadel. A great green dragon with yellow eyes came up to her, one of its eyes leveling with her as it landed, and spoke into her mind: “Why have you come?” the vibrations in the air, and the majesty of the creature took her breath away.

“I-I don’t know…” she told it.

But then its yellow eye blinked, and as it opened into an icy blue, the world around flickering into a grotto where a waterfall came down from an opening at the top, sparkling in bright rays of sunlight. The dragon’s scales glimmered blue, as they stood together in the middle of a lake.

“I know why you have come,” the dragon told her in her mind.

“Do you?” She pleaded, “Please tell me!”

“You have come to ask me to save you,” said the dragon.

“Save me? From what?”

“I cannot save your life. I can only ease the pain.”

“W-What?”

“I am sorry, silly girl,” the dragon said, blinking it’s icy blue eye. When it opened, the eye had turned the color of molten gold, and the world flickered into a jungle. The dragon’s scales turned from blue to a beautiful pattern of white and purple. “The good may work hard to save the world for a day, but evil can destroy it in a moment, for all eternity.”

“W-Which are you?” she asked.

The dragon lifted it’s lips; sharp, pointed teeth, each as tall as she, barred to her. “I am, that which I am - and shall always be!” the teeth began to part, and the dragon’s head raised.

“What? Who are you? Wait—Why?” She cried, as the dragon’s pupils narrowed on her. It felt as if time had stopped, as if she should have had some kind of memories to reminisce on, but none came. Instead, there was just a wish, whispered in desperation: “I don’t want to die… Please, save me...”

But the dragon’s head came down to swallow her up.

****

And then, she woke up.

****

Her head hurt like hell, but she had managed to drag herself out of bed with the prospect of a hot shower and coffee.

Listening to the hum of the coffee maker next to her desk, Dassah reflected on the meaning of life—hers, in particular —as she did he best to piece together the nightmare that had woken her up.

She rubbed her eyes. What the hell is this...

The dreams. They had started shortly after she had finished the tutorial for TheirWorld—and they were always about TheirWorld.

And they always ended badly.

Every night for the past four days she had woken up just before her alarms went off. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world - but it sure made a good night's sleep worthless.

Dassah poured herself a hot cup of coffee, thanking God that the valkyrians had equipped the Enclave with enough coffee plantation hexes to supply a large continent of caffeine deprived zombies even if it only boasted a population of around 500,000 souls. It was, after all, a valuable resource.

As she drank her deep, dark, nut-flavored addiction, Dassah looked over at the TheirWorld equipment next to her bed. She knew the basic concept of the machine had something to do with brain waves or sleep waves or something, but she never cared enough to question the technology beyond user reviews; she was culture scholar; not a science scholar. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder.

Why was she there? Did I imagine it? It was possible, she supposed, that the dream had turned lucid, and the threat of the dragon’s presence had called up the image of the purple and white scaled garuli woman. The garuli might as well have been dragons. Snickering even as she scoffed at herself, she sipped at her coffee. You have no idea what you are talking about, Das. None. Gulping her coffee down as if it were water, she took an ibuprofen before settling down in her bed.

She picked up her TheirWorld equipment and started buckling herself in to all it’s little accessory-esque parts. Slipping on the bracers, she turned the machine on and opened the panel to the status monitor. She took the opportunity to set an alarm for work in a couple of hours, then laid down, put her mouth guard in, and pulled down the visor.

Looking at the comforting words in their big, green letters, she closed her eyes, and let the system active.

Guin could get plenty done in two hours.