It was a typical summer day in the valley by Kestral's house. Kes, a girl of just seven, was down in the valley playing, as was her usually activity when she wished to escape the torment of her younger sister, Kastalia. To her the valley was her secret sanctuary, the only place where she would let her imagination run wild. Kes's parents allowed her to go there whenever she felt like it, they had no reason to be worried about anything happening her. The valley itself was, in fact, just a short distance from their house, which was located in an extremely secluded area.
That particular day Kes had decided to act out a story where she was a beautiful princess in danger and only her true love could save her. As she was playing, she thought she heard a voice. At first, she passed it off as the simple imaginings of her over-active mind. After all, she had been known to get so caught up in her own stories that she believed them to be real, often begging her parents to take her places that were very far away, swearing that she was being called there or that someone needed her help. And always there was at least one voice accompanying these stories, so this was nothing new. As of late, her parents had been getting more and more worried when she told them of the voices, and they never did what or took her where she asked, so she decided to keep this voice to herself. Not too much later, however, she heard the voice again.
Kes was starting to get frustrated. The voice had nothing to do with her or the prince coming to rescue her. In fact, the longer the voice spoke it seemed more like a cry for help then anything else. Wondering if the voice could be coming from a real person, she quickly scanned the valley and, upon seeing no one, tried to get back to her story. This proved to be impossible. Not only did the voice grow stronger and louder, but also now she began to hear more then one. The longer she listened to these voices, the more she seemed to recognize them, yet they were unfamiliar to her all the same. Kes started to get frightened, nothing like this had ever happened to her before. Deciding there was no point to staying in the valley and trying to continue her story, she made up her mind to go home.
At first she started walking towards her house, but something in the voices tone made her start to run. As she ran, the voices seemed to echo inside her, deep within. Not just in her mind, but within her very soul. She began to run faster, something inside of her told her that she had to get home as fast as she could. She wasn't quite sure what caused her to run so fast or what kept her going. But somehow she knew, without being fully aware, that it was not the simple fact that the voices were urging her to go on, but that the longer she took, the weaker the voices became.