Chapter 4

Dawn was sitting on the couch, the sun couch as she called it, mostly because when the sun shined down on it; it was the warmest and most comfortable place in the house. She was sighing again; she couldn't tell though since she was too busy thinking, she did a lot of that these days.

Her thought was interrupted by a mask protruding out of a portal and into her face. She could have sworn she had seen it before; the mask had a slit for the eye and one for the mouth. A yellow eye and black lip greeted her from behind the mask of which could be seen a slight curl as if to suggest the man was smiling at her. She could hear an echo of a laugh, presumably directed at her.

"Hello Ms. Dawn. In case you are wondering, and you are, I am the anthropomorphic personification of your madness."

Dawn still shocked into place by the sudden appearance of the man was at a loss of words and movement. After a few moments the man began to speak.

"Aha, just kidding. I'm actually from the future. Now if you will just come with me, there are places and times to go and eventually save and doom. It's not like you have anything else to do so please hurry up."

The man in the mask reached out to her with a heavily robed arm and gloved hand. Dawn shied away, a feeling of dread at the blackness emanating from the man and the portal holding him.

"Ms. Dawn what is wrong?" The man stepped out of the portal fully now, she could see he was wearing a black robe and hat, with the twisted mask tilted questioningly at her. He approached her as she backed into the couch and held up her head with his hand. Looking at her intently, she could see the yellow eye lose its focus.

"Well that is not good Ms. Dawn. Are you sure you do not wish to come with me, there are adventures to be had and things to be done. Things of import too, not like anything you do here."

Dawn managed a faint reply, "no."

The man sighed, "Well if you are going to have it that way, then my name is Ythomit, but you can call me Ryink, and I will be staying with you until you change your mind." In a lighter tone he said, "After all, I have all the time in the world. Ahaha. Bit of a joke you hear."

"I hear."

"Then it's settled! I'll just be taking the guest room then." Ryink reached into the portal and fished around a bit before his hands came back with a few trunks, their contents jangling suspiciously. Trunks in hand, Ryink went through the hallway and hung a right into the corridor that separated the two smaller bedrooms, and he took the time to hang another right into the guest room. All out of rope he set down his trunks on the dresser. He observed the room, it was just like he remembered it, and it could fit a queen-sized bed, a dresser and not much more. The room had a closet full of junk that he would enjoy sifting through later, but for now Ryink jumped upon the bed to rest for a bit, manipulating the souls of the dead to create an intra-chrono gateway really takes it out of a person.

Dawn was sitting, sitting and thinking. She was thinking about how she was either insane, or that magic existed. She had narrowed it down to those two possibilities, the two of which could be easily confirmed by tilting her head up a bit to see the swirling vortex in front of her. She could always hear it though, it kept playing different songs. Yet that could just as easily be her I-Pod she had somehow managed to train her mind to think invisible and not feel in her ears. Yeah that could be it; it was almost certainly definitely a possibility. The only problem was that she had rearranged her position on the couch so that the portal was right in front of her, it was as tall as she was, and wider in width. Its coloration was a mix of purple and green; it was starting to make her nauseous the way it swirled around. She reached out her hand as if to kill the cat, but withdrew it just as suddenly. It would be better to ask Ryink about it first, it wasn't like the portal was going anywhere, heh, a portal moving.

Dawn got up, careful to avoid the portal, and headed towards the guest bedroom. She could only assume that was what Ryink meant. It had been a while since anyone had used the guest bedroom. Come to think of it, her grandparents were the last ones to use it. That brought back memories, Dawn thought as she crossed into the guest room to see Ryink sleeping like a baby, a somewhat unsettling baby, but a baby nonetheless. She wondered how old he was, or for that matter what he looked like, and on another related matter why the hell he time traveled through a portal to her house just to ask her to come with him to who knows where or when for that matter.

She decided to sit in the rocking chair situated in the corner of the room. There wasn't enough space to really rock the chair but it was still a nice chair. She looked at Ryink for a little while before closing her eyes, slowly rocking the chair back and forth as much as the room allowed without hitting the bed. Before she drifted off completely she noticed that the room wasn't fully dark as it was normally, since the shades were always closed; Dawn could see a yellow glow coming from Ryink's mask, or more specifically his eye.

His whisper was carried aloft by the house's silence. "Dawn, do you believe in gods?"

"No."

"Dawn, do you believe that gods assign ordeals, tasks, and punishments. Do you believe in Atlas, in Prometheus?"

"No."

"Do you believe in magic, in madness, in morality, in power, in anything, in nothing?"

"No, I don't believe."

"Just checking. After all, I'm only partly omniscient."