"…he's a god, he's a man, he's a ghost, he's a guru, they're whispering his name through this disappearing land, but hidden in his coat is a red right hand…"

"That's quite enough of that." I muttered to myself, turning the radio off with a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold air blasting through the air-con. This road was unsettling enough without ominous background music. It only took a few seconds to realise that the silence was just as bad.

It's difficult to find a soundtrack that makes retracing your dead sister's last steps any easier.

I didn't have to drive for long before I saw it. Even with the afternoon sun still high in the sky and birds chirping, it still made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It looked like something that had been plucked straight from the set of a horror movie, and it was just as black and twisted as it had looked in the twilight…just before Emily was slammed into it. I stopped my car a good distance before it. I didn't expect the same thing to happen to me, but it just seemed like recklessness to risk it. For reasons that I'm still unsure of, I grabbed my handbag from the passenger seat before getting out of the car, and started walking slowly towards it. I almost turned back a few times, but then I thought of Emily and I kept walking, ignoring the alarm bells that were ringing in my head.

Still, I approached the tree with caution, half-expecting it to go all "Whomping Willow" on me. I stood in front of it, looking up at the bare, twisted branches. It was a sunny day, but the tree wasn't just black, I realised, it was dark, as though the sunlight couldn't reach it, somehow. Another shiver, another urge to turn around and run and never look back, but I knew that I couldn't. I knew that if the tables were turned around, she wouldn't leave me now. I couldn't abandon her. But now that I was here, I felt a little foolish. What did I expect to find? It was just a tree. A spooky, Burton-esque tree, but a tree all the same. There were no answers here, only more pain.

Hot tears of frustration coupled with grief pricked my eyes and I grunted in anger, turning away from it, but I couldn't leave just yet. I wanted to, God knows I wanted to get the Hell out of there, but something was making me stay. I lowered myself to the ground and sat, looking up at the snaking branches, waiting for an answer to fall out of the sky like Newton's apple. Of course, nothing happened. I sat there for a few minutes longer and sighed, standing up and brushing myself off. The sound of an approaching car caught my attention and I turned to see a green Fiesta driving slowly towards me. I recognised it as Seth Logan's car, my sister's ex-boyfriend. I frowned. They hated each other, but a quick scan of Facebook this morning told me that he had forgotten all about that and was playing the part of wounded lover. Idiot. As he got closer, I noticed that he wasn't alone in the car, four of his friends were with him, and every one of them was gaping at me in what I can only describe as pure horror. They looked like they'd just seen a ghost. I narrowed my eyes and stared him out and he sped up instantly and zoomed past me like a bat out of Hell. I heard their screams even after they disappeared around the bend.

"What…oh." I started giggling, and then full-on laughing. I laughed until my ribs ached and tears streamed out of my eyes. They hadn't seen me standing by a tree. They had seen the spitting image of my sister, dressed completely in black, haunting the site of her tragic death. It shouldn't have been so funny, but I think I was a little hysterical at the time. I laughed until it stopped being funny, and then I was afraid I was going to start crying again. I righted myself and took a few deep, steadying breaths, trying to pull myself together.

"Ooooh…okay…time to go." I stopped and, on an impulse, planted a light kiss on my fingertips and reached out to touch the tree. "Goodbye, Em." I whispered.

But as soon as my hand came into contact with the scaly bark, I was thrown backwards. I mean literally thrown through the air like a rag-doll. I landed on my front with a thump on hard, mossy ground, winded from the impact. "What the fuck?" I tried to say, but I couldn't get a breath.

I turned around to look at the tree, but it was…gone. Or I was gone, because the place where the tree should have stood was occupied by a small, primitive-looking hut. The road was gone, the fields were gone. I was in the middle of a forest. And then I realised. It had happened. I had lost my mind. I thought I had felt it slipping a few times over the last week, but this was on another level. I flipped myself onto my back and perched myself up unsteadily on my elbows. A shadow moved over me and blocked out the sunlight and I squinted up at the figure of a woman looming over me. A woman I recognised…quite impossibly.

"You…" It came out like an accusation, though I had meant it more incredulously than accusingly.

"Mother!" She called to the hut, folding her arms. "We have a guest."

And that was it. My mind had reached its limit, and I slumped back on the moss, letting go of consciousness…if that's what it was at all.

AN: See? We've landed in Fereldan, as promised. Please review if you can, I'd really appreciate some feedback.