...{The Void}...

    You stand alone in the dark with a chill mist writhing fantastically horrible shapes about you. Time seems both at once to stand still and race on at a breakneck pace. Or perhaps its moving so fast that you cannot possibly comprehend its movement. You take a deep breath in the empty void and shudder as the air caresses your lungs with icy fingers. Somewhere in the distance thunder growls and lightening manages to break across the nonexistent horizon without lighting up your surroundings at all. Deep within your mind you begin to believe the world has ended. You wonder if you have, perhaps, gone insane instead.
     Insane or not the place you've found yourself is curious a terrible sort of way. You feel neither the ground beneath you nor hear anything but the strange staccato rhythm of thunder in the distance. The mist is the only true thing you can comprehend and even then you'd rather you didn't feel it at all. There's something strangely unsettling about the way it twists about you, running itself to down your skin in a sickening seductive way.
      You bite your lip to keep from crying out and it is at the moment you think you will lose your mind that your ears pick up something above the crashing of distant thunder. It is the sound of a warm rich voice cutting its way through the chill of the mist. You strain towards it, every part of you willing it to come nearer for with the song comes a soft and welcome alleviation of the cold. The voice grows stronger and you begin to discern words.

"Where reality and phantoms clash
Where dreams can come undone
Breaking thunder and lighting flash
Shine through the burning sun

A thought voiced but never heard
An image deep within set free
All that you used to call absurd
Breaks through your false reality

Footsteps in the darkness growing
Take you to time's brink
Where never once you thought of going
Now by yourself you sink, sink, sink

    As the haunting  melody fades a slight figure steps away from the shadowing mists to confront you.  Her face is so pale that appears almost luminous in the darkness and you recoil slightly. About her face her hair hangs darkly like a death veil. Despite her pallid appearance she is terrifyingly beautiful in an ethereal sort of way. Long shadowy eyes meet and hold yours for you find you are enchanted and cannot look away. Those eyes hold powerful emotions: joy, sorrow, intelligence, love, hate, memories, even amusement. 
     "Are you in need of directions?" Her voice is soft and low. "For you will receive them if you believe. Do you?" 
     You stare at her in voiceless stupidity, mind absolutely blank. She tilts her head in a naive sort of way and you are struck by the fact that she is fairly young; only in her late teens or early twenties. A lock of her hair falls forward into her face, partly obscuring one of her deep brown eyes. She tilts her head a bit and it returns to its proper place.
      "Do I believe?" You ask, mind spinning in confusion. "What do you mean?"
       Her fathomless black eyes seem to smile at you though her face appears unchanged. The mist curls about her seeming to leer at her. One rather forward tendril reaches to caress her pale cheek. Her eyes flash dangerously and the tendril is repelled by something you are unable to see. It dissipates and somewhere in your mind you imagine it cries out in a shrill shriek of rage.
    "I am simply asking if you do. Do you?" 
      When you don't reply she suddenly reaches out to place a hand, deliciously warm, upon your clammy forehead. You do not have time to react because she moves with a strange speed nearly invisible to the eye. Instead you gape as the void is replaced by vivid images that flash painfully bright across your mind.
     Dragons rear, wings spread out wide, fire exploding from their mouths. Griffons soar above you, screeching piercing war cries and diving, sun reflecting in a blaze of color from their plumage.  A unicorn dashes as if on winged feet across a moonlit plain, mane and tail streaming like star-fire behind it. The woman appears in your mind last standing alone at the brink of the ages straddling the edge of this chaotic void and the strange yet wonderful world of fantastic beasts. Her name, no many names each belonging to her, flash through your mind so quickly that you have time to only catch one. Syra.
      The vision ends abruptly and the warmth that came with it begins to fade. You shiver and look up to, vaguely surprised to find that you are kneeling on the ground. She stoops to you and holds out a dainty hand the pale color of ivory. You take it and suddenly heat surges through your body driving the mist back with a shriek of distress. With surprising strength she pulls you to your feet and then leads you like a child, entranced, for what could have been eternity or a few moments.
        When you finally break from your dream state you about you and to your disbelief for various doors have appeared in the swirling mists. Above each, glowing silver letters trace themselves in front of your eyes. A large stone door is labeled caverns you could go there. There is also one that says meadows or you could go to the one that says forest. You also hear waves crashing, you could follow the sound. There are other doors as well. One wooden one whose plaque says contact and the one next to it is engraved with adopt. A swirling purple curtain hangs in front of a door with the name 'gifts' above it and to it's right is a door that says Syra. 
       "Chose well, if you dare, my friend." Syra tells you softly. "Chose and behold wonders or leave behind the unknown for the comfort of your previous life. You are welcome but be warned,"
         Something in the tone of her voice forces you to turn to her. What you behold  is so horrifying that you cannot turn away. Nothing about her has changed physically, your eyes tell you that, but you seem to be seeing her with some other sense as well. About her looms a fiery shadow that burns with an unperceived light. Black flames lick about her seemingly frail body with a great roar that is not a sound. You shrink back in terror.
          "If you do not believe, if you cannot accept what is, you will be lost. You will be lost to this void forever and I will not come back to you cry as you might. So chose wisely. Believe, turn back, or face eternal confinement to the mist and shadow."
           The darkness churns with sickening fury and the mist cackles madly, tendrils dancing and twisting about in glee. You close your eyes and make a decision. Where do you go?

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This site has been reconstructed as of March 2003.
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