He didn’t know where he was. He was lost and confused. Panicked, even. All he knew was that none of this was normal. None of it made sense.

There was darkness everywhere around him.

He groped in the dark and felt a wall made of protruding rocks—as if he were in a cavern. Perhaps he was.

With slow motions, Halden stepped forward, following the surface, hoping he wouldn’t trip on something. He felt blind and helpless.

Something sharp pricked his fingers and he let out a small cry.

That was when he noticed it.

A tiny spot of light. Somewhere in front of him.

Could it be real? Or was his mind playing tricks on him?

Filled with renewed hope, he quickened his pace.

The whiteness grew, and with it came a sense of unease.

He’d been bathed in such whiteness before. It had not been pleasant, though he could not recall the details.

Again, something sharp bit him.

Could it be a bug?

He grimaced and pulled his hands away from the wall. Maybe he didn’t need that anymore, now that he could see a little.

The light from the opening—because it had to be an opening, he figured—was enough now that he could make out details around him. Though all he could see were stone surfaces and rocks and boulders and scurrying things on the floor that made his skin crawl.

He sped up, and soon shapes appeared within the whiteness. Trees, he thought.

Finally, he stepped out of the grotto into the day.

He had to blink several times to adjust his sight to the brightness.

There were flames in the distance.

He thought he heard screams, too, and other sounds—troubling sounds. As if people were fighting not too far away. There were other ones, too, that chilled his blood. Sounds he could not identify—piercing screeches that echoed against the mountain walls. There was something mechanical about them.

Without thinking, he headed toward the fire—he thought he saw the silhouette of buildings behind the flames.

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“Halden! Watch out!”

The shout startled him.

He froze in his steps and looked in the direction the voice had come from. It was a voice he did not recognize, and yet it sounded familiar.

A man and a woman he’d never seen before were running toward him. The man was tall, with short black hair, and a nasty wound on his right cheek. The woman wore a hood over her head, hiding her red strands. Both looked bruised, unkempt, and exhausted.

And both were making wide gestures with their hands, pointing above his head.

Halden looked up.

Something large was falling fast toward him. A sphere of flesh, covered with fangs, that bubbled and oozed a thick yellowish liquid that looked disturbingly like pus.

It was like something straight out of a nightmare.

He should have run out of the way, but he couldn’t focus, couldn’t get his legs to move. This was just too much for him.

A drop of the viscous substance splattered a few feet from him, some of it touching his leg. It felt like acid burning through his skin.

He screamed, and the world around him dissolved.

It turned white.

A peaceful, comforting white.

The pain was gone, too, as if it had never existed at all.

But soon, the pain returned, though in a different form.

A deeper pain, one that tore at his heart and his being.

It came as the whiteness parted and a face appeared.

An all-too-familiar face.

His daughter’s.

Smiling and laughing.

His dead daughter’s.

“Dad! Was about time you got here.”

She grabbed his arm and pulled him into the house.

The one she shared with her husband-to-be.

What was his name again?

Rees.

He remembered now.

Though he wished he hadn’t.

The memories only increased the pain.

“I hadn’t told you yet,” said Lucy, “because I wanted it to be a surprise. But we’re moving to Assalin.”

“What?”

“Rees got promoted. They want him to work in the capital.”

Except it never happened. He remembered this conversation, though. Painfully so. But they would never leave.

“Why?” he heard himself ask.

The question came from deep inside his soul. He needed so much to understand. Why had his daughter been taken from him? Why had she left him? And why was he reliving this nightmare? He so desperately needed answers...

She made a dismissive gesture.

“You know he can’t talk about his work. All I know is that he’ll be making more money... and we’ll live on Assalin!” She grinned, with stars in her eyes. “Maybe I’ll get to see the Emperor.”

Halden knew she would not.

He wanted to tell her, to warn her, but the words wouldn’t come out of him.

All he managed was to take her in his arms.

He held her tight and sobbed against her shoulder.

“What’s wrong, dad?” she asked, with concern in her voice as she patted his back.

But it was too late.

Her body dissolved under his arms and all he held now was empty air.

Colors swirled around him, turning to white.

It was blinding.

He closed his eyes.

It was too much.

He didn’t want to see it anymore.

How long had he been here—wherever ‘here’ was?

When would it end?

Would it ever?

It was too much.

He could feel himself falling again.

The feeling was different now.

As if something was pulling him.

Not down, he realized, but sideways.

There was a loud plopping sound and he fell to the ground.

Solid ground.

With rocks, grass, dirt...

He spat something out of his mouth and got to his knees, blinking.

What new nightmare awaited him?

Halden looked up and saw the blurry column of the Fault taunting him.

He felt a hand rest gently against his shoulder.

When he turned, he saw Gresh standing behind him, with a sad smile on his face.

“Now you understand,” he said softly.