Chapter One

Alive

The word echoed tenderly, lovingly in the back of her mind. It curled itself around her brain caressing away the darkness that consumed her. In its wake came the gentle touch of awakening.

Alive

The word screamed in its primal instinct of survival. It wrenched her mind from the numbness of eternal sleep. It condemned her to fates far beyond mortal comprehension. It cursed her every waking moment.

Nnnnoooo, slurred a half-awake body as fear gripped her heart.

Alive.

"Yes. I will live," she croaked through a dried and cracked throat. Ever so slowly the body's eyes opened once more. The stinging touch of air almost too much to bear. Blinking rapidly in the darkness, she forced herself to see once more. A thousand times had she experienced this disorienting feeling of life once more. But this time it just could not be. There was no turning back after..

"I am alive again," she whispered almost inaudibly as she felt her body rise to a sitting position.

Alive.

This time it was her own voice. It was a voice of finality, a voice of hope, a voice of dread, a voice of condemnation.

At last, the blurs in her eyes began to take form. Ever so slowly the world around her swam into focus. The influx of physical and mental sensations coursed through her brain and body in a wave of reality that left her shivering with the thrill of life. But it want just life. The air held a dampness and chill of the night as it clung to her body. Her ears rang with the sensation of sounds so new and so powerful as to almost be felt. The steady hum of traffic and the countless other sounds blended together sharply to form a steady noise that was almost disorienting.

After all that had happened, a mortal body was almost an alien thing to the one that sat now upon the ground. Forcefully she closed her eyes and fought for control. Each sight, each sound, each sensation became an inescapable flood to her hypersensitive senses. Pulling deep within herself, the girl focused through the darkness on each of the sensations she could grasp. Struggling against her body and her mind, she fought with each until they were no more than normal stimuli. And, as each bowed to her total control, she once again began to feel..human?

Her eyes flew open in shock as she gasped at the force of her realization.

"Human?" she whispered with mixed awe and disbelief.

Closing her eyes once more, she pulled deep within the darkness of her own soul. Ignoring the images of blood and fear that coursed through her heart, she searched frantically. With mixed dread and hope she sought the one thing that had set her apart from all other humans for time eternal. It was the source of all her power. It was the one thing that gave her life. It was the one thing that had taken life from her time after time. It had become more a part of her than her own mind and.

It was gone.

Opening her eyes to the night sky, she smiled as tears of joy swelled to blur the beauty of her surroundings.

"Its over. Its finally over," she said in a voice thick with unchecked emotion.

I'm free.

"But its not the same," she whispered softly, sadly dropping her eyes once more to the cold hands that lay in her lap. "'Ill never be normal. Will I?" she asked no one in particular as memories flooded her mind once more.

Running was no way to begin a new life. If she was ever to know who or what she really was, she was going to have to face them. Taking a deep breath, she crossed her legs and rested her hands carefully upon her knees. Now comfortable, she relaxed into a lightly meditative state. With a fierce determination born of acceptance, she opened her mind to all she had shut out before. But, rather than live them once more in all their painful realities, she instead told herself firmly once more as if afraid she would still deny their existence in some small way. Never again would she forget what she had been. Never again would she be afraid to know what she was.

The Earth was in chaos. All but a handful of people had been destroyed. No, that's not true. The Guardians didn't do it. We destroyed ourselves. Just as we will do again and again. But the Guardians were there to protect us. We were the ones who turned our backs on them. Even as my eyes came to rest on the endless battlefields bathed in blood that consumed the whole of the Earth, I wanted to meet the Guardians. I wanted to face them. If I never did another thing in this wasted and useless life, I would defy them. I would gain revenge for what they had neglected to do. They were supposed to protect us. Why had they gone? Why had they started this war?

Then it happened.

In my yearning to meet one of the Guardians, it happened. I had called one to me. In his wisdom he had known me for what I was. He knew I was able to carry on as the others had. So few survived that had the strength. But, it seemed I did. Thus did I take within myself the Guardian Dragon: protector of the Earth.

Thus did I die.

Lifetime after lifetime we lived as one. Never once did I hear his voice. All I knew was the unfathomable power of the spirit I was. Never could I fully remember any life before. And so I and all the other Guardians existed in silence and peace. Our Guardians, forever dormant, left us only their power to wield.

Then came the most recent of my countless lifetimes. That was when it all began. The Dragon within awoke. With some training from my Teachers, I came to know the true power of the Guardian. Together he and I existed as two beings in one body. Together we fought against the evil of the Dark Guardians.

But they weren't evil. Not really. They were just doing what they thought was right for our planet and our people here on Earth. I was doing the same when I took on the Spryte. But, how was I to know that the Dragon and the Spryte were two parts of a whole? Without my spirit, they could not exist as they once had been. When I discovered our home realm and those of our own kind, I found that we were never supposed to be parts of humans. The Dragon and they Spryte were supposed to be one being without the human. Unable to separate us, we were no longer welcome in our home realm.

Thus began the second war.

War between the mortal realm and our home realm that threatened all that the Guardians had worked and lived for across the eons of our existence. After joining all the other Guardians with their other halves and bonding them with their human harbingers, we set to protecting the Earth once more. Humans, in all their blessed ignorance would never have known. They probably still don't know.

As if one realm was not enough, so appeared another realm. Where the mortal realm was neutral and our home realm was almost Heaven itself, I can only describe this third realm as being Hell. Never had I seen so many agonizing visions of torture and pain. And all created by those who had once inhabited the mortal realm in a time before time.

Until then I had no idea of the implications of my actions. Three realms all co-existing in ways no one could have ever guessed. But it still didn't seem right. There should be more. Good, evil, and neutral weren't the division that had kept these three realms apart for so long. It was too easily breached as we Guardians had proved. Thus did I continue to search for the answer. I wanted to know why. As always, I wanted an answer to why all of this had been created. I wanted to know why, after countless eons of existence, that we had come to know all of this? Why now? What was the purpose of knowing this when there existed no threat to any of the three realms?

For all of my searching, I found no answer. In all my power, there came no answer for me. Yet, the answer was given to a simple mortal boy. My one and only friend in all of this possessed the faith and the understanding to find what I could not.

In a time before time there existed one realm in all the infinite universe. Alone there existed one kind of being. Gods. Infinite in power and wisdom they existed alone and dying. One by one they began to die out. There was nowhere to run and nothing they could do. But six remained who fought this self-destruction. Six would survive and defy all that had been set before them. But they could not exist as they were. Something had to be done.

Finally they decided to create other planes of existence. In dividing their realm into four other realms, thus would they divide themselves. It wasnt much of an existence, but at least they would continue where the others had been lost. Combining their powers, the six entities brought themselves together into one united force. In an explosion of creation, the four realms began to take form.

But something went horribly wrong.

Instead of four realms and six entities divided into four parts, they became three realms with five parts to each being. One had disappeared during the massive explosion. And so life began for the three realms. The five remaining entities continued their lives entirely ignorant of all that had existed before.

Until now.

Knowing what she had to do and now able to hear the endless cries of their once comrade, one Guardian had stepped forward. Long ago had she grown disgusted with all three realms. All had gone bad and none wanted to exist in harmony. It was time for a change. If she couldn't get them to co-exist peacefully, she would destroy them all. Her fellow Guardians agreed to come with her to rescue their once friend from his prison between realms. In doing so, they would have to destroy all that now existed.

In the nexus where all three realms joined they met up. Combining their powers, the five began to tear apart the three realms in a horrifying wave of destruction. But it never happened. From somewhere came a power beyond even their god-like states. In one swift motion all five of the Guardians were made whole. In one body did they view all that they had never known. Infinite realms, infinite entities, infinite time, infinite power. The sheer power of these revelations and sights was enough to destroy them all. In an invisible explosion of power all five ceased to exist, leaving their once companion alone and without hope once more.

Hachilah had been there. She had been the one who started it all those years ago as the Dragon. She had been there in the middle of the explosion she knew had destroyed all the others. How and why she now sat upon the cold, familiar pavement of someplace on Earth she neither knew nor cared. She was alive and human, that was all that mattered. The Guardian was gone and so were the others. At last she could live as she always wanted. Free of all the condemning knowledge and power of the Guardians, she could at last live her mortal life in peace.

With a smile born of pure, unbound joy Hachilah LaViolette took a deep breath and opened her eyes. Looking to the sky she saw only stars. No longer did she see the boundaries between realms and the eternal dangers of such knowledge and power. No longer would her life be filled with intrigue and danger. No longer did she have the responsibilities of protecting not one, but three realms.

With a carefree step and light heart Hachilah turned away from the alley that had seen the rebirth of one whose life had been beyond human and reentered the living world of mortals and merriment.