Summary: Imagine you were able to change the past. By altering one tiny thing you could start a chain of catastrophic events… The order of Chaos begins it's final and devastating assault on the Guard in a desperate bid to annihilate them and gain absolute control of the realms. A select group of nine is prophesized to stop them… The leader of pure heart…An ageless warrior…A traitor…A jester…A doubter…A brave young warrior…The fearless one…a lost warrior…A warrior seeded of evil…and one from the midst of suspicion… These nine shall join in unity and defend the realms. But suspicion is making them weaker, as the prophecy predicted and they're in desperate need of a new hope.

Her hair is black and thick with bouncing curls that bob around her shoulders. Her eyes are blue, deeper than his, a much more attractive child, he knows. She is their parent's favorite child but he doesn't care, at the age of ten she is the driving force of his life.

"Hurry!" Sera turns back once, urging her little brother forward. "It's going to bloom for the first time ever I can't miss it!"

The boy hurries as fast as his short legs can move.

"What's going to bloom?"

"The flower you idiot the one I've been waiting for, the giant black iris!"

He stamps his left foot and stops still. "Don't call me an idiot."

She turns impatience making her eyes widen. "I didn't really mean it. Now come on."

He follows and asks in youthful innocence, "How do you know it's going to bloom?"

Sera pauses long enough to give her brother an exasperated look. "I've been watching it bud for the past three months. Today is the first of spring equinox. Don't you know anything?"

The boy takes off again, struggling to keep up. He wants to see the black iris bloom- an event that will occur for the first time this morning, apparently, but not as much as his sister does. It's Sera's excitement and it's the thrill of sharing it that propels him over the grassy hills and into shrub and bush land at the first stirring of a misty dawn.

Sera stops suddenly, collapses on her heels and moans in relief. "We didn't miss it, look there it is."

The boy finally catches up, and, sitting beside his sister he glances longingly at the pristine green stalk supporting a perfectly formed black bud. His head tilts sideways "Is that?"

"Of coarse it is!" Sera snorts without taking her eyes off the bulb. "Now shut up and watch it's going to be spectacular!"

For all his short life the boy has been aware of his sister's love for all things strange and extraordinary, like unusual flowers, orphaned woodland creatures, vivid sunsets and many times he would just sit in awe of her adventurous spirit, wishing that he too were old enough or large enough, to swing down those cliffs with only a single rope tied around his waist. He shrugs and sits on the moist grass beside her, content in the knowledge that he won't always be four years old.

A sudden snapping of twigs nearby to their right has both their heads swiveling sharply towards the sound.

"Whatwasthat?"

Sera swallows around a hard lump lodged in her throat, the hairs on her slender body standing on end. She turns to the boy with a brave face. "It was nothing don't be such a baby." another twig, this one closer, startles the boy again, "Is something coming?"

"Shh! How should I know? But if you're quiet whatever it is will surely go away."

But it doesn't go away. A moment later, a hideous creature of enormous size, in human form but with only half a face, appears through the mist and stands before them. The children scream and stumble backwards, grasping each other. Sera starts shaking. "Wh-who are you?"

The creature appears to grow before their frightened eyes "I am Marduke"

Sera gasps as if the name some how explains the creatures presence. Her frightened eyes grow as large as cannonballs and she flicks a look at her brother. He pulls on her arm "What did he say?"

Sera squares her shoulders. Brushing her brothers question aside, she turns and asks the monster, "What do you want?"

In a guttural voice the creature with half a face replies, "I want to take you to a place where it's midnight every day and black irises glisten under a bleeding moon"

Shaking her head, Sera take a tremulous step backwards. The creature stretches out one hand, the largest hand the boy has ever seen. He watches as the hand curves around his sister's face, and in that instance his heart is stricken with a certain knowledge that this creature is out to harm. But the boy finds himself unable to make the slightest motion, not even to lift a finger to his trembling lips.

The monsters hand shifts; the boy's eyes follow it to the top of sera's head. The monster catches his eye and smiles with a half mouth, then squeezes his fingers. Sera screams loud, long and in agonizing tones that reach far into the surrounding woodland. When her body goes limp, the creature lays her body down on the grass, where she moans and grasps her head with both hands; her eyes open wide and staring. The creature stretches one arm upwards and releases an almighty roar that has the surrounding tree's shaking to their roots. And within that roar the boy hears his father's name called for the entire world to hear. He feels the monsters eyes on him and looks up. Staring down with one golden colored eye, the creature slowly and horribly smiles. As suddenly as he came the monster disappears.

Suddenly Sera hisses, clutching her brothers ankle with a feeble hand. The boy gathers his much larger sister into his arms, cradling her black curls against his chest. "Who was that Sera? What's happening? What's wrong with you?"

She tries to speak but blood trickles from her mouth, this scares the boy half to death. "Sera!"

Sera screams again and blood begins to seep from her eyes and ears. The boy becomes frantic, his whole body shaking with tremor after tremor. Tears form a crooked path down his small face. He tries to rise in search of help but sera's grip on his ankle momentarily tightens. Her eyes begin to loose their vivid colour "Wait!" She said with enormous effort; and as he leans his ear down to her mouth she whispers her last ever spoken words, "Remember the name."

"The creature's name?" the boy glances up as if the strange sounding word still lingers in the mist-filled air before him. But all he sees is a scrawny green plan that has now collapsed and withered, black petals fluttering slowly to the ground.

With nothing but pain in his heart, the boy screams.

It's the scream of the young boy that finally wakes Eden. Sweat pours off his bare shoulders, quickly chilling him in the crisp night air. He wraps his quilt around his shivering limbs as his bedroom swims into focus and his heart rate slows. A strange sense of relief fills him as he slowly understands; the dream is over, and he has at last woken from another of his vivid recurring nightmares.