Disclaimer: I do not own Tale of the Abyss or any of its characters, setting, or storyline.

Yume is my own creation and so is the order of words in this document.

I apoligize in advance for any out-of-character-ness.

Prologue

The people of Akzeriuth depended on me. I am their healer. I am the town's fighter, protector against the bold monsters. I am to be there at all times, ready to heal and ready to fight.

I am Yume Kurayami. (Japanese pronunciation please)

The villagers are my friends and only family. Ever since I'd shown up here 10 years ago, an excited 15 year old acolyte on her first assignment, the townspeople had raised me and had been there for me. Likewise, I was there for them to dispel illness or heal broken bones. Everybody came to me, be it for injuries or just to say hello. Children would come to me and clamor for me to play with them.

Yes, I had my place in this world, and I'd vowed to keep it.

The miasma had come, slinking in through the mines to take my people's lives away. I was working harder than ever in my effort to keep them alive. From house to house I rushed, with each person I healed; there was still another ten to heal. This was a losing battle. I kept hearing their moans no matter how many of them I quieted.

Samson, one of the few miners still unaffected by the miasma, ran up to me as I headed to another stricken family.

"Yume! There are miners trapped in Tunnel 14! Please go and get them out!"

"Fine, I'll head down now. Do what you can for the sick ones!" I started for the tunnel.

Samson yelled after me, "I will! Hold on until the Kimlascan backup arrives!"

Backup. The first little bit of hope I've had all week. Hopefully, they can help up evacuate the town. But the people in the mine aren't going to wait for any backup. I've got to get to them. Now.

When the lift reached the bottom, I ran into the treacherous tunnel.

My footsteps echoed through the mine as I pounded across the tracks. Many monsters attacked me on my way down. There I quickly disposed of with Fifth fonon blasts from my dagger.

"I don't have time to play with you!" I shouted as the 6th wave of endless monsters disintegrated. "Get out of my way!"

After several more minutes of running and shooting, I arrived at the main excavation cave. The situation here was worse than the ones at the surface.

Here, many of the miners were terribly poisoned by the miasma. The victims were all on the floor, groaning and coughing horribly. Most were so sapped of their strength that they couldn't even sit up. None of them were in the condition to walk.

I got to work on the nearest person, purging his body of as much miasma as I could, not enough to be totally cured, but enough to for him to move sufficiently. I didn't have enough energy to heal everyone to perfect health. My goal here was to get all the miners healthy enough to evacuate from the mine.

The person I was healing, Thomas, stopped coughing as hard enough to get up.

"You… made it… Yume… Thank you." His voice was hoarse with coughing.

"Anytime. When backup arrives, help everyone that's able to start heading back up to the town. For now, just sit tight whilst I go help the others."

I finished him up and went to the next one, using the same procedure as before. When he was healed, I had him sit still like Thomas. I was perhaps done with nine others when I heard voices in the tunnels, getting louder with every second. Six people burst into the cave a moment later.

"Oh, this is horrible!" A teenage girl with blond hair, blue and white outfit, and a quiver on her back gasped.

I got up and approached the group.

"Are you the backup crew?"

"Yes, we are," This time, a bespectacled man with vivid red eyes, auburn hair, and a teal colored uniform spoke. "What can we do to help?"

"One of you can escort the healed miners back to town while the others of you can help me heal the people with gels or magic." I turned back to the miners. "Can those of you I've already worked on please get together and head back to Akzeriuth? I know it will be difficult, but please help each other get there."

The sitting miners all slowly and wearily got up to lurch over to me. The healthier ones grasped onto the arms of their weaker comrades to keep them standing.

As a brown-clad swordsman led the active group back out, the two girls, the aforementioned archer and a young girl in pink with black pigtails, ran off to help my friends. The uniformed man and two teenage boys, one with hair of red and the other of green, headed further into the mine, presumably to find the source of the miasma.

We healed all to the miners, the process going much faster with three people working and the fact that the archer could heal with magic as well, and the swordsman had returned from his last escort trip. Things were looking very much better than before.

"Well, that's the last of them," he said. "All those monsters were a pain…"

"Are you hurt, Guy?" The archer inquired. Guy, the swordsman, shook his head.

"Nah, they weren't difficult; there were just a lot of them."

"I'm tired!" pouted the youngest girl.

"As am I. Healing is exhausting!" The other girl agreed. "By the way, what is your name?" She asked me.

"Oh, I'm Yume," I beamed at them. "Thank you all for your help—"

Three more people ran into the room, two from the direction of Akzeriuth and the man who'd gone deeper into the cave. The newcomers consisted of a sandy-haired young woman and another redheaded, black and red uniformed young man of roughly the same age. The woman stopped in front of us while the young man pounded on into the tunnel the man with glasses had just run out of.

"Tear, what is it?" The crimson-eyed man spoke curtly.

"The Seventh Fonstone was a fake, a ruse to lure me away. I was almost captured by Oracle Knights that were waiting there. Apparently, Van wanted to keep me safe from the danger here." The woman, Tear, answered.

"How do you know this?"

"Asch told me. He also mentioned that Van was planning to use Luke for something here. Where's Luke?"

"Luke and Ion went in further than I did. Van will probably have been waiting deeper inside for them. If so, we must stop them now."

The danger here? What was that Van person going to do? I'm pretty sure that whatever he's planning to do in the mine will not be good for Akzeriuth…

I followed the others as they all ran down the tunnel, determined to stop whatever it was that was a danger near my town and people.

I had never known that the mine of Tunnel 14 extended this deep. It used to be that it ended in the cave past where the miners fell ill, at a strange, multicolored contraption the size of a door. Now, it seems that it was a door, leading into a brightly lit chamber just beyond. It was a cylindrically shaped room, supported by a ramp that circled down to the center. In the center was a shining sphere of light, whose rays cascaded down endlessly.

As we came into this chamber, the light flashed and the earth started shaking violently. The ramp was deteriorating, breaking off into pieces. We jumped off at the top of the ramp to land at the bottom. Guy ran to the platform extending to the light sphere to collect the non-uniformed red-haired boy while the girl in pink dragged the boy of green hair. Both boys were barely conscious.

"Everyone, get around me. Hurry!" Tear ordered and started singing in a foreign language. The people gathered around her as a fonic circle appeared on the ground around them.

Due to my lack of outstanding physical abilities, I'd landed father from her than anyone else, and in my clumsy haste, tripped on the quaking earth and fell as a dome of crystal appeared, shielding them from the outside, merely 10 feet from where I lay, struggling to get back up.

The earth above us broke apart as rocks fell from the ceiling. I cast a Guardian spell around myself, but it was too weak to really repel the rocks. It held for about five seconds and then I was buried under the piling rubble.

I will attempt to be a little more consistent in writing this one, unlike my previous fic. (I'd finished playing ToS at the time and had forgotten all of the details of the game. Don't worry, I'd only gotten to this part in ToA a week ago, so ideas will be fresher in my head. On the other hand, exams are coming up and I need to study for them. Gomennasai!) Please Read and Review!