A dream… A dream… A dream that I control. Deidra rhythmically played these words carefully in her own mind. The incantations she was meddling in were far more dangerous than even she was willing to admit. So in order to remain solidified and calm, she mentally chanted. She could no longer feel herself as she drifted in the world between life and death, or what most called the void. Instead she held the sensation of free falling, almost as if it were in the pit of her stomach. Almost, because in this world matter, or substance, simply could not exist.

Deidra floated with her thoughts, not as a body, but as a consciousness.All around her, as far as anyone could possibly imagine, was a black abyss. It often made her wonder, if she could bring eyes to see out of and she opened them, would she see wonders or the same blackness that haunted her mind. A blackness, of her own making.

Now, however, she had a purpose, a mission, an objective. As she floated seemingly to somewhere, but really to nowhere, Deidra hummed a lucid, twinkling tune that her mother had taught her in the recesses of her mind. She despised being in this place even more than the beatings she received in the living realm, so she often played the tune to sooth her troubled mind. Alas, she pushed the pain, blood, and remembrance of her own voice screaming, away from her thoughts. Besides being disastrously distracting, this was her time to escape that reality.

Renewing her concentration, she chanted, patiently awaiting the brown, radiating light she had come to visit. In this realm, there could be no sense of time, so she could only speculate how long she had been floating in this accursed limbo. However, she guessed that at least two days had passed. The longer she remained in this world, the weaker her body would be upon return and the higher the chance she would not survive the trip. Yet she knew that returning without completing her mission would mean many moons of whips and blades. Plus, in a sort of sad and sick way, she longed for death. She dreamed of it. Lived for it.

Just as her thoughts were taking her into a dark depression, befitting her surrounding world, a small red light miles away, or perhaps inches, apperated into existence. Seeing, if you could call it that, the red instead of brown threw Deidra’s mind for a momentary loop. This made her accidentally send a small wave of unstable magic through the void between worlds. This mistake, if it had been any worse, could have easily ripped her mind apart. Instead it gave way the sensations of immense pressure from all sides. In spite of feeling as if she were being crushed, Deidra kept her mind toned and focused. It had been almost four years since the light had appeared red, so she had not been mentally prepared for such a thing. However, there could be no mistake; this is what she had been waiting for.

Not wanting to waste anymore time, out of fear of her master, she began to finish what she had been sent to do. She held the red form within her mind and after being satisfied she would not lose it to another thought, she simply willed the blackness into it.

At first, it seemed as if nothing were happening at all, no sensation of moving blackness, no sound of rushing wind, and no sign of movement.Alas, she held the red light strongly in her thoughts. After a few minutes, or perhaps hours, the blackness seemingly moved into the light, followed by a comforting, pure whiteness that filled the recesses that the blackness left behind. Just as Deidra allowed herself to be pulled back to the world of the living, she thought as loudly and strongly as she could muster. “My red light, that I do not know, yet know so well… I hope you are stronger than me.” In the world of the living, sleep was the first thing that found Deidra, followed promptly by a hot blade across her inner thigh.

Humidity spiked as moisture thickened and collected in the now forming, billowing clouds. Clouds that were so black that light had little to no hope of piercing its foreboding darkness. Unnatural clouds being made, even as Ranen watched from the cabin’s only window, out of dark magic. The overwhelming force of evil was so strong, it caused his chin to spasm like a nervous twitch. Although he barely felt the twitch, he was painfully aware of how it made his beard move to and fro. A tale-tale sign of his nerves, his beard moved left and right like a braided, woolen pendulum.

Thunder boomed as it followed another series of red lightning. Even though Ranen was able to feel the magic, unnaturally evil as it was, there was nothing he could do to stop it. The darkened clouds, red lightning, and acidic rain were obviously being done with intricate spells or blood formed incantations. This area of expertise would best suit the wizard, Timothy, who was still completely lost in the boy’s mind. Perhaps another wizard would have been able to pull Timothy out, but Ranen had learned long ago that once a wizard’s eyes went white, their mind was no longer in their body.

It was… Well Ranen wasn’t really sure where their minds went. “Let the damn spell users keep their precious secrets.” Muttered Ranen under his breath as he studied the pattern the crimson lightning took. While the wizard’s used spells and trinkets for their works, mages were directly in tune with nature. Allowing them to simply interact with the six elements; Wind, Water, Earth, Electricity, Metal, and Soul. A mage was no better than a wizard, nor the other way around, but being able to raise a mountain with a flick of a wrist was rather nice in Ranen’s aged opinion. He smiled at the obscure thought. True, he could raise a mountain just like that; however he would most likely be laid out in bed for at least a seven day cycle.

His smile quickly faded however, as the red lightning in the sky formed a perfect circle and maintained its shape. The once pounding rain had now given way to a slow drizzle, as the burning droplets turned green leaves into brown lifeless remnants of its former self. Ranen’s fingers still ached with his power’s fire as red and black lightning crashed into the earth fifteen feet in front of the cabin, sending earth and rock upwards in an explosive cloud.

This act must have been loud enough to wake the boy, because the next audible noise was a resounding, slobbery snort from his mouth. Thadius rubbed his eyes for a moment, and then with one eye opened he spotted Ranen and stopped. For whatever reason, Ranen scared him. Resulting in tears running down the child’s cheeks and causing him to jump and hide under the cot he was using as a bed. Timothy, on the other hand, must have felt the disturbance, because he was now booming with the wizard’s power and walking towards the window.

Both Timothy and Ranen looked out to find a man dressed in all black cloth, holding a blackened steel sword with red pulsating designs running to its blackened hilt. With no hood to cover his head and the dust now settling, the beast’s mangled, tortured face was plain to see. His eyes and mouth were sewn shut with blackened thread. His ears and nose gushed a red liquid across his charred, black face, that Ranen could only call blood. As it limped its way closer, Ranen spoke aloud. “What or who the hell is that, Timothy? Ranen had never seen any man, or beast for that matter, that looked anything like this.

“I am not sure, but we can find out later. For now, we protect the boy.” Ranen nodded and started for the door, only to be stopped by the wizard’s booming voice. “We will wait, my friend, let him come inside.”Timothy, seeing Ranen’s surprise, simply said. “Trust me.”

Ranen reluctantly nodded and backed up with Timothy, awaiting what was to come. Thick, thudding footsteps sounded on the stairs leading up to the cabin’s door, followed by thunder that blew the wooden door into tiny, wooden splinters. The beast limped inside and moaned a disgusting, otherworldly moan, followed by a frightened look from Timothy. Just before Ranen could ask what was wrong, Timothy said “I don’t understand, that should have killed him.”

That was all the warning Ranen needed as he gathered, or rather sucked, all of the heat from the room and threw crimson fire into the creature hideous face. Timothy had already began chanting, resulting in multicolored orbs of light that he too threw at the creature… to no avail. Their powers were as wind is to rock, the fire and orbs merely rolled off. Now within striking distance the beast raised its darkened blade, while Timothy screamed at Thadius to run. Spell after spell and blast after blast rolled of the beast, not even stopping it for a second. The beast’s now raised blade came crashing down and slammed into Timothy’s right shoulder, barely missing his neck. Timothy screamed in pain as fire, like he had never experienced before, shot into his skull forcing him to lose consciousness.

Ranen quickly looked back to see if the boy had ran, only to watch him scream “No!”, and witness his brown eyes and brown hair go stark black in an instant. This time however, not only did the boy’s pupils change colors, but the once white around them changed pitch black as well. Just as quickly something wondrous and amazing happened, Thadius’ eyes and hair went white as milk in a radiating, sparkling glow. The beast pulled his blade free of Timothy with an audible thunk from the wizard’s chopped bone and raised it to attack Ranen.

Before it could lift the bloodied blade chest high, Thadius screamed again with more force and intensity than Ranen could imagine the boy having. “I said, NO!!!” White, thin lines shot from the boy’s fingertips and pierced the beast’s midsection. A horrifying screech filled the cabin, followed by an explosion of black dust. Ranen coughed and gagged at the thought of the blood gushing beast in his mouth and when the dust settled he noticed the boy was passed out on the wooden floor, hardly breathing. His hair was now red.

Ranen stood alone with a wizard bleeding on the floor, an unexplainable boy passed out on the ground, and black suet covering him from head to toe. He could not help but to think out loud. “What in the hell just happened?”

Somewhere, very far away, Deidra screamed louder than she had ever heard herself scream before.