Disclaimer: I don't own "Into the West".

Chapter X

Someone was crying. Crying like a lost soul. The saddest sound I've ever heard. I went towards it, following the dark, dank corridors that seemed to have no end. Finally I saw him: the most handsome young man I've ever seen. His longish hair was midnight-black, his skin pale tan. I couldn't see what colour his eyes were, as his face was hidden in his arms. He lay on his side in a fetal position, shaking like an aspen leaf, sobbing. Obviously he had suffered great abuse, both mental and physical from the evil-looking scars on his bare back. The very sight of them made me wince. Still, the soft moonlight was kind to him, outlining the cuts of his well-defined muscles.

Curious and compassionate, I approached him slowly, trying to make some slight noise so he'd know I was there. He must have heard me, for he tensed, drawing into himself.

"Please…just leave me alone," he whispered. Tears stung my eyes, but I didn't know why. I felt a tugging in my heart, a strange attraction to him like an old love long forgotten but never ended trying to make itself known. I drew nearer slowly, trying to make my footsteps light. My heavy black cloak swished around my bare ankles as I approached. When I was close enough, I took it off and gently laid it over him. He shuddered slightly, though the red silk lining was warm from the heat of my body, but slowly stilled. He didn't turn to face me, though.

"I'm not going to hurt you," I said as gently as possible. He didn't answer, but I don't think he believed me. I heard a humming sound, and realized it was me. Words came to my mind and slipped through my lips:

"Lay down

Your sweet and weary head.

Night is falling

You have come to journey's end.
Sleep now,
dream of the ones who came before.
They are calling
from across the distant shore.

Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
all of your fears will pass away.

Safe in my arms;
you're only sleeping.

What can you see on the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea a pale moon rises.
The ships have come to carry you home.
And all will turn
to silver glass.
A light on the water,
all souls pass. Hope fades
into the world of Night.
Through shadows falling
out of memory and Time.

Don't say
we have come now to the end.
White shores are calling.You and I will meet again

And you'll be here in my arms,
just sleeping.

What can you see on the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea a pale moon rises
The ships have come to carry you home.
And all will turn
to silver glass.
A light on the water,
grey ships pass

Into the West."

I thought I sounded like I had a bad cold, but either the man before me didn't think so or didn't care, because he stopped shaking and relaxed slowly, turning over to look at me. I smiled at him as gently as I could, trying to make him believe what I had said about not intending to harm him. He returned the smile after a moment, and my own widened a little. I straightened and offered him my hand, which he accepted, allowing me to help him to his feet. He offered me back my cloak, but as I reached to take it I heard dark, sinister laughter somewhere near. I spun towards it, automatically taking a defensive stance. My eyes darted around for the source of the laughter, a weapon, or both. I found a weapon first, an embellished pike on a wall nearby, seized it, and resumed looking for the source of that hateful laughter. It sounded again, this time from somewhere behind me, and I spun to face it again. Then a thought came to me, and I looked straight up. Just as I suspected, there was a dark shape standing on a rafter high above us – the pale man and myself. He – the figure – laughed yet again.

"All right for you, you pretentious coward!" I challenged. "Come down and face me like a real man!" Again that irksome laugh. "All right, so maybe you're not a coward, just stupid." That got the figure's attention. He jumped off the beam he balanced on, executed a series of complicated-looking flips and turns in the air that I could do in gymnastics when by the time I was six, and landed almost soundlessly in the shadows before me. I snorted. "Huh, that was almost impressive," I commented dryly.

"You need to learn some respect, child," the figure snarled.

"I give it to those who deserve or earn it," I replied coolly. The figure tensed, as though to attack, but I readied the pike in my hands. "Make one false move and I'll shove this pike so far up your ass it'll come out your mouth, I swear," I growled. The figure appeared startled, then thoughtful, regarding me slowly, appraisingly. I didn't like it. "Lose something?"

"Actually, yes," he replied. "Him." he pointed to the black-haired young man next to me, who stepped back nervously. I glanced at him, and was shocked to realize I knew who he was, but in a completely different form.

"Raziel!" I cried. "But-but how? You're…alive!"

"You noticed that, huh?" he replied dully. I suddenly realized that this meant that the silhouette in front of me could only be one person, and that I was wrong to have called him a man.

"Kain," I said, turning back to him. "I should've known. No other creature could possibly be so arrogant." Kain only laughed, as though I had complimented him.

"Actually, your being here makes things a lot simpler for me," he said conversationally.

"Yeah, 'cus that's my goal in life," I said derisively. "Screw you, I'm outta here."

The dream evaporated like a stain of breath on a mirror. After a series of extremely graphic and disturbing nightmares when I was little, I trained myself to wake up in the middle of a dream I didn't want to continue. I felt good. Better than good, great really. I couldn't remember the last time I had felt so well-rested, even after a strange dream like that. I wondered if it had anything to do with that strange "visitor" I had had last night…wait.

"Oh, ye gods," I whispered. "Could it have been…? Well, I know what I'd like to believe, but was it really? But why? How? What the Hell is going on?" The phone rang, startling me out of my conversation with myself. I reached out and picked it up.

"City Morgue, you kill 'em, we chill 'em!" I said brightly.

"That never gets old," came Caitlin's voice. I grinned. "So what's up?"

"I am, apparently, " I said. "I had the weirdest dream last night."

"Yeah, me too," said Caitlin.

"What about?"

"I saw us, you, me, Courtney, Brad, Joe, Nick, and Hana, all at those Pillars from your games. You were, like, dead or something, 'cus you were just lying on the ground and you weren't moving. And there were these two freaky dudes fighting over you or something."

"What did they look like?"

"Not sure how to describe them. One was really skinny and his sword looked like it was attached to his arm. The other looked like a Muppet reject."

"Wait, was the Muppet reject-looking guy scary beyond all reason?"

"Oh yeah."

"That's Kain and Raziel."

"Should'a guessed."

"Uh-huh."

Silence. I couldn't even hear the sound of my own breathing. I wondered what to tell Caitlin, what she would make of what happened last night. I was certain she'd believe me, there was no doubt about that, but what would she believe? 'Yeah Cait, and speaking of, I should probably tell you that I got salmonella last night and the only reason I don't have my head in the toilet right now is because Raziel showed up out of the blue, if you'll pardon the pun, and healed me'.

"Whoa, that's some weird shit."

Oh dear, did I say that out loud?

"Hey, are you OK?"

"Peachy."

"Bull."

"Well what do you want me to say? Physically, I actually am peachy. I feel great, if a little confused. Mentally, I don't know. I'm not sure what to believe anymore."

"Do you doubt your own senses?"

"Cait, I had my head in the toilet for over half an hour last night. I don't know."

"Then how did you end up in your own bed if you collapsed in the hallway?"

"Good point." I would have said more, but I heard something; a loud crash from my library.

"What was that?"

"I don't know. Hang on a sec, I'm switching to headset phone." I grabbed my phone headset, plugged it into the phone, slid it on my head, and clipped the phone to my belt, which I was still wearing from the day before. "Are you there? Can you hear me?"

"Roger, Cap'n."

"Very funny." My voice was a whisper now. "Don't talk for a little while; I'm going to check this out." I could almost see Caitlin nod as I made my way as silently as I could down the stairs and into my labyrinth of bookshelves below. I hoped that whatever had assumedly broken, it wasn't irreplaceable or particularly sentimental. Turning a corner slowly, I saw fragments of broken glass and crushed roses on the floor in a pool of water. I sighed and relaxed. All that had broken was a cheap glass vase that I had gotten on sale at Wal-Mart last week. Well, there was one less thing to worry about. But how had it broken? It couldn't just have fallen off my desk where it sat, I had it pushed far back specifically to avoid such an incident. So how had it fallen?

I approached cautiously, not wanting to get another shard of glass stuck in my foot. I picked up the biggest pieces and the roses, resolving to vacuum up the rest as soon as I had figured out what had happened. Having forgotten I still had the headset on, the sound of Caitlin's voice in my ear nearly gave me a heart attack:

"Soul? Hey Moony, are you there? What happened?"

I put my hand over my heart, trying to catch my breath. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I don't know what happened, my vase is broken. Y'know, the one on my desk with the roses."

"Yeah, I know. How'd it break?"

"Dunno. I'm just trying to get up as much of the glass as I can."

"Good idea. Hey, you OK? You sound kinda funny."

"Funny as in ha-ha, or funny as in strange?"

"Strange."

"I'm OK. I'm just kinda jumpy is all. I don't know why. Listen, you want to come over? I feel kinda uneasy, and I don't really want to be alone."

"Sure thing. Hang on, I'll ask Mom."

I heard her voice in the background as she called to her mom. Fenrir appeared out of nowhere, as was his habit and mine, and nosed at the pool. He looked up at me questioningly.

"I don't know what happened, boy," I said, shrugging. "It just broke." Fen seemed satisfied with this, but something was putting him on edge. I could feel it too: the crescent on my forehead was tingling like crazy, and that almost without exception meant that something was wrong. There was a strange disturbance in the aura of the room as well. Fenrir looked up at me, knowing what I felt, then suddenly took an attack stance, growling, hackles raised, at something behind me.

"Fen, what's the matter?" I asked, a little scared. I had never seen him like this before, and for the first time in a long time I felt truly alone and afraid. I knew what was the matter. I was in danger. I reached slowly for the birthday present Daman had given me – an Elvish-styled sword, fully functional and sharper than the broken glass on the floor – but someone grabbed my arm from behind. I made a strange sound, a sort of strangled half-cough, as another hand roughly yanked the headset off my head. I started to shout, but that hand clamped itself over my mouth as I was pulled back against someone's chest as his arm pinned me there.

"Moon? Moony? Soul, what's wrong? Soul, answer me. What the Hell is going on? Soul!"

Caitlin's voice was so far away, yet it was so close. If I could just make a sound, if I could just bend down two feet and grab the headset…as though sensing these thoughts, the owner of the hand gagging me tightened it. One-quarter angry and three-quarters terrified for my life, I bit the offending appendage as hard as I could. It was removed quickly.

"Fenrir, attack!" I shouted, hoping Caitlin would hear. She knew that if I was giving Fen an attack command that something was truly wrong and I was in serious danger. She did hear, because I heard her distant, "Oh my God, Mom, Soul's in trouble!" from the headset on the floor. I gagged as that hand again tightened around my throat.

" 'Scary beyond all reason', am I?" growled an unmistakable voice. The last sound Caitlin or I ever heard was my heart-shattering scream. Then the universe ripped apart.