Oneiric Red
Gabriella A. Agathon
Telling the story of the end times is one of mankind's most classic, and in contemporary fiction at large — almost overused tropes. Zombies, massive meteors, aliens, natural disasters, all sorts of things. Almost everyone and their mother has their touched on the end of days, and everyone seems to have their own take on how things are going to end — and I would posit that Arknights is of no exception.
Howdy! My name's Gabriella, and welcome to this little project of mine; a diving into the lore of Arknights and touching on some personal head canons of mine as it relates to things like Integrated Strategies 3, the Seaborn, and the Abyssal Hunters. The story you're about to read is that of a style test as much as it is a telling in the style that's truest to how I want to write. I initially wrote the first draft of this as the first Chapter that follows this foreword. "Dreaming in Red" is one of my favorite pieces of prose that I've written, and best exemplifies the type of relationship that I think is best told between Skadi and Specter.
That first draft took me a single day, once I sat down with metaphorical pen to metaphorical paper — the words flowed beautifully and told the story as I had envisioned it. One of the many great things about writing fanfiction is that ability for your vision to come to fruition, completely uncensored compared to what a publisher or vendor might want you to write.
A story that's best told through the lens of the near-apocalypse. What it means to have such little things add up into major things. That the end times aren't just one action, aren't just one person. That actions have momentum, and that it all adds up eventually.
This is a story that isn't grand or encompassing as some of the other stories I've told in the past, such as that for or The Witch from Mercury. But I hope it keeps to the same caliber of writing that any repeat readers have come to expect from me.
Please enjoy this story, and thank you for reading.
Thank you to my beta readers; Eris, Kara, Snazz and Josh for letting me go absolutely insane over this fic as I've worked on it the last few months.
Thank you to my professional enemy, Matthew "FlyAwayNow" — challenging me to do more and do better with my writing, and being a constant reminder that I can do better in my writing, and that I should always strive to do better with it.