Nyssa
The night of Nyssa's seventeenth birthday, she found herself dreaming.
She staggered to her feet and brushed platinum-blond strands of her hair away from her face. The first thing that struck her, besides the smell of ozone, was how loud it was. The unmistakable sound of machinery flooded the air. Under her feet, electrical circuits spidered through the floor. Everywhere she looked was blue metal, twisting pipelines, shining glass.
Nyssa's heart fluttered in her chest, a trapped bird.
She had never been to this place. Yet it stirred something deep in her memory she could not name.
How did she know of machinery? Of the gears and turbines that must keep this place running? The technology here must have been decades ahead of anything in the village Nyssa called home.
Where was she? Where could anybody hide something so massive, so advanced? From here, it was obvious Nyssa was in a building, and a large one at that. Wires snaked up the ceiling to crevices far above, and from hundreds of meters below her feet, she could swear she felt something churning, vibrating.
Emerging from the constant mechanical din in the background was a footstep. And another. Nyssa's muscles tensed–she knew she should escape. Lost in an unfamiliar building in an unfamiliar world, the last thing she needed was company.
She knew she should run, but she didn't.
Something locked her in place, the strangest sense of familiarity coming over her. She and this nameless, faceless, mysterious man were fundamentally connected, at some level far deeper than she could ever fathom. They were bound by their lives. Their fates. Their souls.
Just before she saw the person's face, Nyssa snapped awake.
Adrian
Those who climb Mount Ebott never return.
Adrian turned the sentence over and over in his head as he gazed at the great mountain.
Those who climb Mount Ebott never return.
As he thought about that, he also thought about Chara.
He had never known her. She had run away before he was born, never to come back. But Adrian remembered when the monster child came, of course. He had only been four then, but the event was still seared upon his memory, and he doubted it would ever fade.
He remembered the yells.
The plowshares and butcher knives–any object, really–villagers grabbed, animalistic fury contorting their faces.
His mother's scream when she recognized the dead girl in the monster child's arms.
Taller, curvier, a few years older, but still the girl's face wore the memory of her childhood. The mouth that had once eaten and spoken and cried frozen in an indifferent line. The cheeks that had once glowed with roses wan with the pallor of death. The eyes that had once flashed with her fire gently closed, as if she were asleep.
Chara, dignified even in death, something in her final expression resolute and determined. Gone. Yet in the most unusual way, a feeling settled over Adrian that he would see her again.
Xandre
There was legend, and there was truth. Xandre wondered which one the tale of the monsters was. Legend, truth, both? He had heard the story countless times, of course.
Two thousand years ago humans and monsters had lived without conflict. However, one day the monsters grew savage as their bestial instincts finally broke loose. They attacked suddenly in the middle of the night, killing dozens before the human warriors even realized what was happening.
After two horrific months of battle, the humans won a hard victory, finally avenging the deaths of those the monsters had heartlessly slaughtered. The seven most powerful human sorcerers locked monsterkind deep underground behind a magical barrier, ensuring that they would never escape to menace humanity again.
Xandre never had time to give it much thought. Fantasy wouldn't keep an entire village from starving. Xandre was seventeen, and that was more than old enough for him to understand that survival came first. Everything else, after all, was inconsequential in comparison.
So he feigned disinterest in the stories day after day, even though he quietly longed to find out the truth.