Fresh tosses and turns in her bed, her fists tightly clenching the blanket as she rolls over in a cold sweat, midnight dew wicking down her skin as restless dreams haunt her mind. Strange visions that she can’t remember seeing only moments after they pass. Bright, burning lights in the recesses of herself which scar her mind’s eye, the heat scorching her body as she kicks and throws the blankets around, feeling too warm and then too cold just seconds after. Heat surges through her body, as if she were being suspended in a pot of water that was only very slowly starting to come to a boil.

The fountain trickles behind her, around her, everywhere as her eyes rip open, as they shoot open beneath the deep recesses of the black-water ocean present in her dream. The sound of a rushing current surrounds her as she spirals and spins around and around, torn through the depths of the black-ocean, the core of her soul surrounded by a surging torrent that churns with a coursing fury. The grand whirlpool throws her this way and that in a wild, uncontrolled fashion as she sinks. Her hand reaches up towards the surface that is so far above her head, unreachably far above the tips of her fingers, as she grasps for the single sliver of light that marks the way up. The way out.

It is something that has never been there before. A light above the surface of the ocean.

Her soul burns as she reaches for that glowing strand, as she grasps for it as if it were a rope to pull herself up towards the surface with. The beam touches the entity that is her, but as it touches her skin, it stings with an unnatural fire that moves through her soul in a clear, sharp, crystal pulse that aches her very being. Fresh screams as the water around her boils in disgust at the sensation, as she boils in disgust at the sensation. She feels disgust at the light that is so bright, at having touched it. At having touched the ray of the sun, shining towards her.

A second later, she is spat out.

Landing and stumbling, she falls head over shoulder as the pressure of the crashing waves throw her onto the shore. A surge of water shoots out in all directions around her, coming down over her head and pressing her against the stones of the floor of the fountain basin, as if she were pinned beneath the torrent of a waterfall, as if she were pinned under a hand pressing her face down into the floor.

Fresh coughs and splutters and frantically drags her way forward, her core burning for air as the scream reverberates around her. Fresh can’t differentiate if the scream is her own, or if it’s that of the fountain. All there is, is a constant screaming. All there is, is a constant burning.

Something is wrong, something is very wrong.

Her fingers claw onto the outer stone rim of the fountain. Fresh pulls herself free from the water that almost seems to be trying to drag her back into itself. Not out of malice, but like a drowning man dragging another down into the depths.

It’s desperation.

She flops out of the fountain, retching and heaving as she crawls her way forward over the ground, like an animal pulling itself free from a trap.

Fresh looks around herself, panicked, hurt. “Where am I?!” she calls out, coughing and spluttering. “Jubilee?!” She jumps up, clutching at her own body that is no more. Her eyes scan the world that she finds herself in and they find nothing to focus on. It’s simply empty.

Empty.

Empty apart from one thing, from the sound of trickling water. The fountain. It’s just a dream. Just a dream. Calm down. It’s just a dream. Fresh does her best to ‘breathe’, whatever that implies here in this domain.

She turns around, to look at the black-fountain sitting behind her. It’s just like that night. It’s just like that night that it had saved her from her old life. She’s not in the water. She’s here again. She’s standing next to the black-fountain that she tossed the coin into on that fateful night and now it’s screaming, yet so is she. Their screams are one and the same. There is no clear separation between themselves, the lines between Fresh and the black-water have become muddy. It is her life-blood and she…

“I hate them!” screams the fountain, the water bubbling. “I hate them! I hate them! I HATE THEM!” cries the fountain over and over and Fresh clutches where her hair should be, she hates them just the same. Though she doesn’t really know who ‘they’ are. But she hates them, because the fountain hates them. “They found out! I just want to sleep!” snaps the fountain. “I hate them so much!”

Fresh clutches her head. It hurts. The sunlight is touching her and it hurts. She just wants to sleep. It’s the middle of the night, and she just wants to sleep. Why is it so bright?! WHY IS IT SO HOT?! The fountain bubbles like a pot of boiling water as the sunlight coming from above reaches it. The splashes rising up, flying several feet out of the surface towards the sun, as if it were trying to extinguish its heavenly glow. But it never manages to reach even close to far enough to do so.

“They’re going to come for you,” warns the fountain, the water sloshing around as the waves begin to churn, as if a violent storm were brewing just above it. Fresh’s eyes open wide in fear as she realizes what it’s saying to her. “They’re going to take it all away!” says the fountain. “Everything. Everything that you’ve built! They’re going to take it all away!” it promises. Her fingers claw into her scalp. “You need to stop them. You need to STOP THEM! YOU!” says the fountain in a tone that she has never heard it take before. It’s furious.

Fresh leans forward, her fingers locking onto the rim of the fountain as she bends over it and looks back down into its black depths. She looks down into her eyeless reflection that is staring back up at her from the surface of the water. It speaks to her.

“They’re going to rip it out of you, like an unborn child from the womb. They’re going to rip your gut open and claw it all out of you!” says the eyeless gestalt beneath her, clawing at its face. “Like animals, everything that you’ve fostered. They’re going to eat it!”

Her eyes go wide as she watches the bloodied reflections of Jubilee and Basil floating alongside her own mirror image, their mangled visages staring up at her, lost, confused, afraid. Dead.

“I don’t understand!” yells Fresh in fear at this depiction, at this prophecy, at this revelation.

The silhouettes beneath her reflection collect together. Not just Jubilee, not just Basil. Everyone. Everything. The red-wizard. The muscular dark-elf. The man from the sect. Wooden boards from her new home that she herself had placed, coins, potions, feathers, swords. Faces of customers who she recognizes and faces of those who she doesn’t. All of these things swirl together into a coagulation of black-water that is swallowed into depths, all of these things are being taken from her in this vision. Because she is too weak. Because she didn’t stop it.

“STOP WHAT?!” cries Fresh in agitated terror, in anguish, as the light of the sun touches her skin, as it burns her very essence, simply through its pure presence. The pulsation of the light of the sun synchronizes with a sound, with a simple, clean, divine sound that fills her with a fear that she has never felt before, with a dread that she had never before understood to be possible.

Fresh flips around and falls over backwards, her back against the fountain as she lifts her hands up to shield her eyes from the light that rises on the horizon. To block out the scorching rays of the rising sun which touch her skin and set her alight, the rays of the rising sun that boil the black-water and cause it to scream and so her in turn as well. It hurts. The sound, the tempo of which matches that of her own heart-beat, overpowers it in strength. The voice of an angelic choir. The ringing. The ringing that pulsates through her eyes. That pulsates through the light of the sun.

The ringing of a crystal-bell shines out brightly, just as radiant as the dawning star on the horizon, the jubilescent light threatening to swallow her whole. To reduce her to nothing but ash. To reduce everything she has made to dust and then all of these feelings and hopes and dreams that she has felt and still yet yearns to feel will return to a darkness so deep, that they will be lost for all time.

They will die, together with her if she doesn’t stop it. If she doesn’t stop them. If she doesn’t stop -

Her eyes are stretched open wide, the light of the sun is so bright that it simply shines through her hands covering her face. The crystal-bell strikes twelve and the sun breaks over the horizon, the light of a new day engulfing her entirely.

- If she doesn’t stop him.

Fresh screams, howling with terror and pain, both too heavy for her soul to contain.

She falls out of her bed, soaking wet from head to toe, splashing, as she flops gut-first onto the rug, clawing, pulling, wrenching herself free from the nightmare; from the horrible vision. A voice yells at her, but she doesn’t understand it, all she hears is the bell ringing in her ears. The bell, still ringing in her heart. It fills her with terror.

He’s coming. They’ve found him. They’ve chosen him. A true-hero. A destined, great man, who was going to cleanse the world of all evil, come his arrival, after the gods summoned him to this domain.

A pair of hands clutches her shoulders and she turns around in a panic, looking with wild, feral eyes at the small, shadowy figure standing over her.

Crying, flailing, screaming, Fresh grabs Jubilee who is shaking her, talking to her in clear words she isn’t able to process right now and wraps her arms around them in a fearful embrace, heaving as she kneels forward, pressing her head into their shoulder to howl. Holding them, so that they can’t be taken away. Not just yet. Not just yet. Jubilee doesn’t fight her, simply placing a single hand around her, the other hanging awkwardly at their side, as they speak comforting words that simply never reach her.

Through tearful, burning eyes, Fresh looks up at the door to her room. At the pillar of glass that has ripped the door entirely off of its hinges and holds it aloft inside of the space. She looks at the hollow, empty eyes of the reflection of the terrified girl in the glass, at the sockets that almost seem to be shadowed out and entirely empty. It moves its lips even though she says nothing, the reflection mouthing two words.

"Stop them."

The glass shatters into a thousand pieces and the broken door falls down to the ground. Fresh squeezes tighter, crying into Jubilee’s shoulder.