Disclaimer: I do not own anything from World of Warcraft except the name and personality of my own characters.
The ticking of a watch sounds in my subconscious as I am running. Running from what? I am unsure. Maybe it's who I am running from that should frighten me. I feel like I have seen my surroundings before as they blur past me. I see creatures surround me, large owls with menacing red eyes. They pierce my soul and I want to flee from them but they haunt my every turn.
That ticking sound, where is it coming from?
I am running on a shattered stone road and I see ruins of what once could have been a great fortress. I want to hide behind its crumbling stonewalls to wait for my chaser. To plan an attack or to stay in the shadows and pray I am unseen. But as I run down the grassy slops from the road towards the rubble I feel my heart race. My legs start to feel weak and my body becomes light with a numbing tingle with every stride.
Syndicate.
Tattered banners with the Syndicate crest lay on the stone floors and walkways of the abandoned fortress. Abandoned by the Alliance, but why do I sense an enemy? My eyes dart swiftly to every dark corner, to every crack in the stone before my attention is forced upward to the icy blue glow of a floating giant. Teracula. A stone tyrant I have only seen in my darkest dreams.
I hold my breath and concentrate all my thoughts on becoming one with the shadows. My ability to blend in with my surrounds and camouflage myself from an enemy has been my saving grace many times. But why isn't it working. I have never felt to open in my entire existence. My eyes stay focused on Teracula, as if my stare is possessing it, keeping it from noticing my presence standing exposed just inside the crumbled pillars.
I hear my heart beating in my ears; I feel my blood rushing through my body. My hands go to my hips where I expected to find the leather wrapped handles of two battle axes. I find fear instead. With my hands empty of weapons my body begins to numb. I turn to face the only escape from this place. What is happening to me? The world around me is slowing down. In my mind I am ready to run from this place, to find a new place of refuge. I've forgotten what I was running from now as a new threat as manifested. As I face the world outside the ruins my eyes lay upon an owlbeast. It stands completely still in my wake. Out of the corners of my eyes I see the trees blowing in the wind at an unnaturally slow speed. The world around me has become slower, quiet, with the heavy feel of helplessness weighing down like a thick fog. The ticking of a clock catches my attention again. I focus in on the owlbeast's neck. There is a golden pocket watch amongst its large neck feathers.
The beast's glowing red eyes are piercing as it stares at me, not moving. I begin to turn back around, my eyes lingering on the owlbeast though my body is moving around. As my eyes catch up with my body I am face to face with the gigantic stone being of Teracula. In that moment I accepted my fate. I was going to die here, in this place I remember but have never been before. I am ready. My eyes hold its gaze as my body falls lifelessly to the ground. I am ready to die.
"Grayer." A voice sounds in the distance, a voice that is smooth like velvet.
My eyes never left Teracula, but in that instance it was gone. Gone before my eyes but I did not see it leave, I did not see it vanish, though it's presence lingers like a ghost surrounding me.
The ticking sound of the owlbeast's watch was louder, but the sound has changed. Unlike the tick of the watch, it's slower, heavier. It's sound was similar, like the sound of a grandfather clock in the silent den of an inn after all it's inhabitants have gone to rest. The sound is soothing to me now as my eyes close. The stone beneath me is becoming soft, and the heavy panic surrounding me becomes warmth around me. I sigh and sink into the darkness behind my closed eyes. I feel light as my limp body floats into the abyss. All I hear is the ticking of the clock as it draws me into its calm rhythm. I drift into this endless deep, my eyes moving under heavy eyelids daring to open and observe the nothingness of my surroundings. I lift my lids only slightly, expecting my eyes to fall on darkness, but it is not darkness before me. The red glows of the owlbeast's eyes are inches from my own, and in that moment I am falling. Falling away from the beast and down into this abyss. I scream, but my scream is distant. It's far away from me, down in the darkness of nothing. It sounds louder as I fall, piercing my ears until I feel my body jerk forward.
I am sitting upright, body shaking and soaking with a cold sweat. I look around at the darkened room, the faint markings of gold outlining red patterns on the walls stand out to me. I am surrounded in heavy blankets on a soft-feathered mattress at the back of a dark room, the only light coming in from the oval floor to ceiling openings on the far wall. The light is coming from the streets of Silvermoon City.
Swinging my legs over the edge of the bed I place my bare feet on the cooled stone floor. A summer night breeze is blowing the thin lavender curtain inward towards me, the current drying my skin. My eyes now adjusted to the lighting in the room I spot my battle axes standing in the corner of the room. The dream now fading from my memory I snap back into the reality of my being. I am at the Silvermoon Inn. I arrived late last night after venturing into the Ghostlands for what seemed like years. Years of sleeping with my eyes open for fear of being ambushed by the decaying animals that call that land home. Scourge roaming free from the army of the Banshee Queen, attaching anything that moves with mindless brutality. Night elf scout camps set up along side barbaric trolls.
Here. Here I am safe. At the moment…