As her body was lifted up and removed from the room, Caraain floated in the murky ether-like darkness of her subconscious. She was floating, weightlessly, above a mist-blanketed field.

Am I dead?, she asked of herself. Caraain stared at her hands, wondering how it was that she could see through them, as though she were made of glass. She did not know how or why, but she felt the distinct sensation of floating downwards gently. Ahead of her, the mist seemed to be clearing.

YOU ARE NOT DEAD. WATCH, came a voice in the back of her mind. Caraain recognized it as Ba'alzamon's tenor voice, and a cold shiver like a dagger ran up her spine. AND LEARN THE FATE THAT HAS BEFALLEN YOUR COMRADES, AND YOUR MENTOR.

Caraain, wide-eyed and pale white, stared at the spectacle that now filled her vision. Below her, the field of fog finally revealed the familiar tall-grass plains of Almasen, as she remembered it fifteen years ago.

Soldiers, in foreign armor and marching under an unfamiliar flag, were dragging numerous inert corpses through the fields, trampling through soil made muddy from spilled blood. Far in the distance, a small town, barely a village, was surrounded by a walled perimeter of kindling, like a giant wooden ring. Torches flickered and hissed from soldiers standing by. Her beloved one, four years her senior, lay upside down hanging from a wagon among other collected bodies, still gurgling up blood through a slit throat.

Tears welled up in her eyes. No.... I've already been through all this. Don't make me-- don't let me live it again! Caraain shut her eyes, but sobbed in desperation as she saw the images in the darkness of her eyelids. NO!

Events of that fateful day flashed before her eyes, calling forth the pale cold faces of dead friends and fellow students as if from a wellspring of forgotten--or perhaps scabbed-over memories. She cringed as she saw each one of them staring at her with open, milked-over eyes, and then the manner in which all seventy-six of them die, one after the other, in a succession that never seemed to end.

She looked up to the heavens, devoid of stars. Light, why do you do this to me? Then she noticed the head of Ba'alzamon, his grinning brilliant-white mask hanging bodilessly in the sky like a mad-looking moon. The fires in his eyes and mouth raged. This cannot be real!, she shouted at him voicelessly. How do I know all this is real? You are the Father of Lies!

Ba'alzamon's head stared at her with a knowing grin curling up the corners of hi bloodless mouth. He said nothing, instead looking down at the field far below.

Caraain, not sure she wanted to see, looked down also.

IS THIS NOT WHAT YOU HAVE SUSPECTED HAD HAPPENED? ARE THESE NOT THE IMAGES YOU HAVE BURIED IN YOUR DEEPEST OF SECRETS? Ba'alzamon finally responded. AND IS THAT NOT YOUR MASTER JYUN GODAY THERE NOW?

Involuntarily, Caraain looked. True enough, he was there, bound by rope and surrounded by half a dozen guards, each pointing their pikes at lethal areas on his body. Arrows, their feathered tails snapped off, jutted from his right thigh. A uniformed man stood in front of Master Godai, and next to him, a tall brown-haired man stripped to his waist, but his spotless gray and red-fringed cloak still hanging from his shoulder. Caraain bit her lower lip and winced as the head guard among them slapped Godai with a metal gauntlet across the face, over and over and over....

Finally, Godai collapsed to the ground. She wanted to tear her eyes away, but instead found herself staring down at his broken, bleeding face. The man in the Assassin's uniform pushed the older uniformed one aside, then knelt to the ground. Caraain held her breath, knowing what was coming next....

The man cupped Godai's chin and stared for a moment, before spitting into his eyes. The blade seemed to come from nowhere, but he drew it quickly and nonchalantly across Master Godai's exposed neck. His eyes rolled up into his head as he spasmed, blood flowing quickly from the fresh hand-wide gash. His head fell gracelessly onto the soaked soil, and lay there, silent and still.

The bare-chested man stood, and turned around. Caraain stared in horror down at the face of a younger-looking version of Lord Torrin Malakai, the current Master of Assassins. The gray was out of his temples, and his features were smoothed-ver, more vibrant, but it was the same man.

The world seemed to spin around Caraain Bedell, as she screamed noiselessly at the guards now dragging his corpse towards the wagon full of bodies. She pleaded for them, though they took no heed of her even being there, as they pushed the wagon into the inside of the ring of wood, which was now being set ablaze. Smoke spiralled into the air from the huge bonfire, and clouded over the scene once more as the fog had.

In the recess of her mind, Caraain could hear Ba'alzamon laughing sonorously; at her, at her pain, she did not know. She screamed and pulled at her white-blonde hair, tears blurring her vision. The world darkened and vanished from her sight. She pleaded that it not be taken away from her, all the while relieved that it was.....






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Caraain awoke and screamed with all her breath, sobbing madly. It took her awhile to realize she was no longer in the attic of Lord Torrin Malakai's home, but she could hardly care.

It was only when she realized that she was bound at her wrists and ankles that she started to panic. She was bound with triple cords-- she could feel them chaffing at her skin-- and also wrapped in some huge bolt of fabric, like a rug or some textile... and she was being carried somewhere. Around her, she could hear the muffled but noisy din of people milling about.

Caraain screamed as hard as she could, and kicked as much as her cramped container allowed, but moments later, she gave up, panting and exhausted.

Best to see how this winds up, she thought.