I'm back... The world around Kirk was black, pure black. Like he was standing in a cloud of ink at midnight. The word death echoed through his mind, not his death, that he was sure of, but one he had witnessed.   A knights helmet rose through the ground, it was ornately carved with Hive runes. A name cut through the thought of death in his mind, Entaur. That was the knight who delivered the killing blow.   He stood there alone with the helmet, hours passed, he kept the sadness at Bay. Then a skull rose through the floor, the Light still struggling to escape it.   Kirk stared at the skull, then he sat down feeling as if he had been punched in the stomach. After years, he felt the pull of sadness in his gut. He contemplated what to do next, he seemed stuck, he couldn't feel the Light. He knew he was not dead, yet the real world felt so distant.   The final straw was when the armor rose through the ground. Shiny plates with names engraved in it. The names of everyone Kirilen had saved. Those people Kirk had tried so hard to protect after she had died. Kirk felt his sidearm in his hand, he blew the knights helmet to bits.   Then he sat down, hoping to escape this nightmare, but knowing it would continue. A deep rumbling filled the area, where the horizon would have been was a green glow. He blinked, suddenly a city rose. The City, the last bastion of humanity. Then mountains of skulls began to pile up around him, each with a name he knew engraved upon it. The people he fought to protect. His last hold on sanity, were stacked dead in front of him.   Kirk began to cry. --------------------------------------------------------------- Kryn stood in an old hut, barely held up by rusted steel beams. There was no horizon outside, only red haze. It seeped through the walls creeping towards her, whispering things to her mind. Telling her to do unthinkable things, commit unspeakable horrors. The pressure built up on her mind, she pushed it back.   She cursed at the mist with every word in her vocabulary, then she sat down and waited for the madness to overtake her. She fell asleep.   When she woke up the red haze was gone, instead there were white padded walls all around her. A man stood there asking questions she couldn't hear. Then he got up and left.   A couple hours later he returned. "What's your name?"   "Kryn."   "Why'd you do it?"   "Do what?"   "You killed your friends, you slaughtered them." Suddenly he no longer looked like a man and looked like a bear. He was roaring, a knife appeared in her hand.   The bear leapt at her so she killed it. The moment the knife touched the bear it turned back into the man. He was dead, she had killed him.   Kryn began to cry. ---------------------------------------------------------------   Zach watched Silas die over and over again. The knight slashed his sword straight through him. He was helpless as Silas fell to the ground, the blade eating away his Light.   Zach began to reach out, his arm snapped back to his side. The scene shifted three hours later. This time it showed all of his friends lined up. A knight paced in front of them, he would randomly kill them. Their ghosts revived them, they were killed again. He watched this for hours, unable to do anything.   His one fear, the inability to stop death, to freeze the blade in time and shatter it. To turn the blade upon the wielder, or himself if no other options presented themselves. The inability to sacrifice himself for the lives of his friends made him hate himself.   Why couldn't he move! Why couldn't he kill that wretched knight and save his friends. He sat down with those thoughts swirling through his head.   Zach began to cry. --------------------------------------------------------------- Lynn watched as Silas died, Kirk killed the knight, and Zach and Kryn ran out of the stairwell after Kirk. Then they all fell to the ground, sleeping, it seemed.   She felt a pressure in the back of her mind. "Give up", it seemed to say, "sleep". She shook off the voice and dragged the others to safety, whatever was happening it wasn't good.   She suspected they had been put asleep by Akûn, manipulating them. Twisting their thoughts, bringing their weaknesses to the spotlight and exploiting them.   There was nothing she could do but wait, that killed her. Maybe I should sleep, she thought to herself. The lighting in the subway tunnel seemed to say "you are safe, you can rest here". She shook it off.   It was exactly these types of places guardians died, the ones that were too welcoming. Too "safe". She sat there for hours until the others woke up. One by one, they all sat up, and remained completely silent.   An hour later Kryn spoke up, "did anyone else have their number one fear exposed to them. And watch as it happened in a dream?   The others just nodded. "That's what I thought." Kryn went back to sleep.   The others sat there for hours longer completely silent. Kirk stared into the nothingness down the tunnel. Zach stared at Silas's body as it lay there motionless.   "You ever feel helpless Lynn? Watched your friends get cut down one by one?"   Lynn shook her head. "Well," Zach's voice cracked, "just hope you never do." With that Zach fell asleep. Kirk continued to stare into the tunnel, Lynn continued to wait for the others to recover. ---------------------------------------------------------------   Akûn was on his ship when Entaur was slain. He could tell by the amount of tribute that was suddenly cut. So he took revenge, he put the killers to sleep. He exposed their weaknesses. Showed them their fears, toyed with them in their dreams until each of them cried.   Then he sat down and laughed, it sounded so joyous that all the others near him began to laugh. Hours later he sat quietly contemplating the events. Therás was no longer under Entaur protection, he would have to make sure her defenses were up to par.   "Prepare a landing craft, I must test Therás' defenses. Tell her I am on my way."   Akûn walked to the hangar all the while pondering the ways they would try to defeat him. Either way, they would have to fight through a nest to get to him. It would be long, hard work. Especially if Therás had done her job.   Akûn boarded the shuttle and began the descent towards London.