I already hated today.

I hadn't even woken up yet, but I could just tell it was going to be one hell of a day. For one thing, I hurt. My whole body was aching and sore like I had just survived going through a wash cycle. My limbs were like lead and I didn't have the energy to even try to move them. The worst of it though was my head which throbbed dully at my temples. I hadn't felt this bad since I had woken up from the massive hangover I had at Burning Man. But that was three years ago, and I definitely hadn't done anything last night to warrant my body's current state of ache.

All I had done last night was gone to bed, How I Met Your Mother playing softly off my laptop as I cuddled a giant body pillow; which must have fallen off the bed last night, along with the mattress because it certainly didn't feel like I was sleeping on one any longer. In fact, I felt like I was sleeping on a bed of rocks.

But at least they were warm rocks.

I knew comfort was definitely out of my reach, however I still refused to open my eyes. If it was going to be a terrible day I at least had the choice of putting it off for as long as possible. I didn't have work until late today so there was no rush to get up.

But then came the wind.

It wasn't a nice breeze either as if I had just left the window open. It was a hot gust. The kind that kicked up dirt and gravel and angrily threw it into any opening your clothes provided. Or down your throat since I slept like a mouth breather. I woke up coughing, sputtering out dirt and reluctantly opening my eyes to a terrible day.

Except….

"The fuck?"

A bed of rocks was exactly what I was laying on. All blackened stone, mountainous, and terrifying. I was definitely no longer in my room or possibly even in my home country anymore..

It's a dream. Just a dream. A really real feeling dream, but a dream.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm myself. Dreams had felt real before, but lucid dreaming was always a possibility for me once I had realized that I was dreaming. I closed my eyes now willing for the pain to go away.

I had no luck.

Perhaps it was sleep paralysis then. I had never experienced it before so I wasn't sure, but I wasn't sure on how else to explain my situation either.

The dream or visions rather, looked real and I had no control over it. I couldn't seem to make myself wake up either. I was trapped like this for now. I couldn't remember too much of what I had read about sleep paralysis but I figured I would naturally wake up eventually.

The dull throb at my temples pulsed insistently. Maybe I could find hallucinate up some version of Advil.

I sat up and then instantly wondered how I managed to do that. I would have sworn part of sleep paralysis was that you couldn't move, thence the paralysis part, but I guess I was just remembering it incorrectly.

Now that I was sitting up I could get a better look at my surroundings. It seemed I was on a mountain for I could see the small tops of trees beneath me though they were mostly covered in a thick grey smoke. The red line of the horizon signaled the source and there was a heavy stillness in the air. As if doom had settled here and was calling in his apocalyptic riders.

Figures.

Levering myself up against the mountainside I looked at my options. I could either sit here and watch the world literally burn or since I had the privilege of movement I could try to find a safer spot. Maybe a happier vision.

The fire and brimstone feel was on par with my usual line of thinking, but just because I usually had morbid thoughts didn't mean I wanted to visually see them come true.

I was about to move down the path when I heard approaching voices. Panicked I crouched behind a rock before they could see me.

"I think that's all of them," said a man's voice.

"For the moment," followed a women's.

"Maker save me, we've lost it all. Everything your father and I built," wailed a second.

"We should have run sooner, why did we wait so long!" Came the first woman's voice again.

"Why are you looking at me? I've been running since Ostagar," the man argued.

"Shut it both of you. Save your breath for moving," the voice of a second man cut in as the party moved into sight.

My breath caught in my throat as I watched them pass by my hiding spot and then suddenly coming to, I tumbled out onto the path behind them. "HAWKE!"

They turned at my shout, the younger man drawing his blade and placing himself between me and his companions. "Who are you?" He challenged.

I took them all in. The all too familiar faces I had seen countless times in my computer screen. Except they were different now. More real and defined.

The man brandishing the sword looked a lot more like his twin, the younger female, than I had imagined. Their mother's hair was more brown than gray, only the roots showing signs of her age. In truth though, my focus was mainly on the tallest member amongst them. Even with the added realism to his features he was easily recognizable to me.

He had sharp angled bones and a stern mouth, half covered by an impeccably groomed moustache and short beard. His short black hair showed the same level of care, meticulously spiked to give his easy 6ft frame just a bit more height. An old scar ran diagonally across his left eye and cheek. But it was the eyes that gave it all away for me; bright blue and cold as death.

Of all the Hawke's I could have hallucinated, it had to be this one.

"Well answer," the younger man prompted forcibly.

His twin put a gentle hand on his shoulder, eyeing me with some sympathy. "Maker's breath, lower your blade Carver. Can't you see she's scared?"

The eldest was eying me suspiciously, no doubt wondering how I knew the name of his family without being recognizable to him. He moved past his younger siblings fluidly and came to stand before me, his face an impassive mask. "I do not recall meeting before. How do you know us?"

"Um," I gulped, not confident on how to answer that.

The truth was, I knew them from a game. Dragon Age 2 to be exact. His brother Carver, sister Bethany, and mother Leandra I had met countless times in dozens of playthroughs, but the eldest Hawke changed each time for me. A new face and personality to roleplay until I used up all the possible combos of class and gender.

This Hawke had been a special sort of playthrough. One I had good cause to never repeat.

As such, I wanted to be very careful in what I said and did around him.

"I knew of you from Lothering. I had just moved there shortly before all this begun," I gestured towards the burning landscape, "so we never had a chance to be introduced, but the town knew your family well."

Luckily, lying came easy for me.

His eyes narrowed further in response. "I see. Then we both flee the darkspawn. You may come if you can keep up." He paused, looking at me expectantly and I could instantly tell he was anticipating an introduction from myself.

"Uh, I'm Marian. Marian Shepard."

It was the first name that had put itself together in my head. I had thought briefly of giving my real one, but decided against it. For one, what did it matter? This was a dream I would eventually wake up from and then two, it would be much easier to keep my lies straight if I knew I was telling Marian Shepard's story and not my own.

"Pleasure," Hawke responded flatly.

A few moments later I found myself on the run with the infamous Hawke family. Bethany keeping pace beside. We had not been moving long before she spoke, "Where did you come from before Lothering? You have a unique style of dress."

I glanced down suddenly realizing how out of my place my clothes did probably look. I was wearing brown suede boots, olive green leggings and a fringed black poncho over a white tank.

"Oh, Orlais. Je vais d'Orlais." Again, I spoke the first thing that came to mind. It did seem like a country that would be open to stranger tastes of fashion though.

"I would never have expected! You don't have an accent at all," Bethany smiled.

"I'm in Fereldan. One hardly wants to have an Orleasian accent here," I replied chuckling.

"Very true, what brought you to Lothering?"

An intriguing trailer for Dragon Age Origins and a Grey Warden destined for tragedy, I thought; but I said instead. "A good feeling. Though you can see how that panned out."

She smiled again.

For a dream or bout of sleep paralysis my mind was doing an incredible job of creating genuine reactions. I had thought to spot something out of place, some abnormality or disconnect that would prove I was still sleeping, but so far nothing had slipped. It all seemed incredibly… real.

Which was a horrifying thought. As much as I had daydreamed about being a modern girl in Thedas, meeting the characters, and fighting in battles, it was the actual impossibility of it that made the daydream enjoyable.

The thought that I might be here for real though? Absolutely terrifying.

I knew no one here and no skills to survive on my own which meant I was completely dependent on the Hawke's taking me under their wing (to put it one way). I didn't know how long I was going to be dreaming, or if it was even a dream at this point and not me stuck in a coma, but I didn't want to test any theories with my death. Especially on the chance that if my mind thought me dead then my body would follow suit back in my world. No, better to act as if this was all real for the time being, until I had a stronger impression on what was happening.

"Mother," Bethany's voice cut through my reverie. Her voice was full of concern. I turned to see the older woman was lagging behind, breathing haggardly. She would not be able to keep this pace up much longer.

She waved her daughter off, but it did nothing to deter the young mage from stopping the group. "Wait! Where are we going?"

"Away from the Darkspawn," Carver said, turning to face his twin. "Where else?"

"And then where? We can't just wander aimlessly," Bethany countered.

"You can go to Kirkwall," I interjected to everyone's surprise.

Carver looked like he was about to speak, before his mother suddenly agreed with me, mentioning that they had family and an estate there. I felt Hawke's gaze on me again and did my best to ignore it.

It did not take long before the group reached a decision to take a ship from Gwarn.

"If we survive that long, I'll just be happy to get out of here," Carver said. The final one to speak as we started moving again.

I looked at Bethany. If events synced up to the game, then Carver had little to worry about until we reached Kirkwall. His twin however, was in danger of never even reaching the city. Perhaps, I could change that.

Altering events with lucid dreaming was obviously not an option, but maybe I could use my foreknowledge to save Bethany's life. I would have to be careful though. The future is never set in stone so even if I acted to prevent her death the way it happened in the game, there was no certainty that it would not take her life in a different way or Carver's.

Even so, I might not hate today after all.