Forgotten Prologue

What is a Dream?

Dreams are a funny thing. Our minds can play tricks on us that no other person could comprehend. In our dreams; we can die, we can be rich and famous, we can even be tortured beyond our wildest imaginations. These tortures can not only be filled with physical pain but also with images that haunted our past and will forever haunt our futures.

What exactly is a dream anyway? Is it useless information that our minds fabricate to deal with everyday situations that are released while we sleep? Are they messages, trying to tell us about a future or past event? Or is it an ambition or goal that we work toward in our short lives. Who the hell knows? Many will tell us that they are whatever we make of them. However, we have no control over what our dreams mean to us. If they are meant to have a meaning, they will. If they are meant to be meaningless fabrications, then we will know.

While most of our dreams seem harmless and most don't really make any sense to us, others can be dangerous. They can be a memory that we subconsciously run away from. They can be our darkest secrets that our mind has hidden from us only to be brought to the surface by an unknown trigger. Once that trigger has been pulled, it can't be undone. Hell can be unleashed in our minds, in our souls, in our very existence and can even begin to effect the people around us.

Prologue

Cassidy sat in the dark room alone. The only source of light came from the small orange glow of the short flames that resided in the fireplace. The stone walls in the room retained the heat of the fire well, which is why numerous fires burned throughout the main building simultaneously throughout the winter months and during the cool nights.

The man contemplated his predicament, how complicated the whole thing was becoming in such a short amount of time. He was thinking about his young daughter, about what he was planning to put her through. The only resolution to the problems that presented themselves so fervently over the last months, seemed not only unfair to his daughter but was also challenging to the people that cared about her. What was Raven going to think?

None of that mattered in that moment of thought, only the safety of his daughter mattered. He didn't care about the throne, about what people would say to dissuade him of what he was doing, all that mattered was that Sky would be safe.

His brow furrowed at the thought of the distance that would be placed in front of him and his young daughter. Distance. A word that we figure can be measured in feet, yards or miles. To watch a loved one from afar, to see them grow and change without being able to push them in the right direction. It was a torture that nobody should have to endure.

This was going to be difficult, he could feel it but until he found another way there was nothing that could be done about it.

After a long wait, the woman finally came into the room. She entered quietly but confidently, her head high and shoulders back. She was tall with a slender neck which only seemed to add to the height, as if she had actually needed the added inches. Her black hair draped over her shoulders in long braids, pulled away from her face to avoid any annoyance if it got in the way. The dark brown eyes on either side of her slender nose were an odd thing in this small world. With the rest of the community holding a variety of fiercely colored eyes that shimmered brightly in the light, hers seemed empty.

Cassidy took note of her formal clothes; a long black robe, black boots that zipped to her knee with silver buckles placed sporadically on the outside. Even her hair and style of makeup suggested a formality that Cassidy thought he had missed out on.

He examined his own attire; a pair of faded denim jeans and a button up shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. Dismissing the irrelevant thoughts, he returned tot he woman's long strides into the room.

The man sat up, acknowledging the woman's entrance. He stood when she stopped in front of her, kissing her hand. Her long, sharp fingernails stood out against her already-long fingernails. He chuckled silently thinking that he would never get on her bad side as long as those razors were so prominently on her person.

“You said that it was urgent?” the question came from the woman. Cassidy could see that she was trying to sound polite but her voice held a slight edge. It was as if Cassidy had interrupted something important.

Cassidy nodded and took his seat again. “It's about my daughter.” He laced his fingers together and leaned forward in his seat.

“How is Sky? It's been quite some time since we last spoke to one another.” Cassidy knew how Alexandria had always made his daughter uncomfortable and decided not to force a friendly relationship on them.

“Physically, she is fine. Emotionally; I'm not exactly sure. I don't know how much of what's happening she has figured out. Or worse, what Raven has figured out and told her.” He rolled his eyes and suppressed a small grin at the thought of the nosy girl. “It's her safety that I'm actually worried about. Alexandria, you and I both know that something is going on here; something that neither of us completely understand.”

The woman known as Alexandria nodded slowly. Looking down to the floor but staring an nothing in particular. “Do you think it's actually getting worse?”

“I believe so. She's acting like she isn't worried but I know there's something there, something that has her thinking about her future here. If she even has a future here,” he spoke fluidly. The words rolled from his mouth with no hesitation, though he hadn't meant to go into so much detail on the matter.

“Has anything happened recently?” she asked, recalling events that surrounded the young girl in the months after her sixteenth birthday.

“You were there when the tower was blown to pieces. She swears that it wasn't her, and I believe her. It was something else, she knows it and so do I. She's just barely beginning to get used to everything. I don't want her panicking on top of finding her energy. The least amount of stress possible, the better off we'll all be.”

Alexandria let her thoughts wander back to the event that had shaken them all in the last weeks. The woman had been in the library when it happened; looking through old curriculum to add into her classes for the new semester.

She remembered the loud explosion ringing through the halls and corridors of the school. The loud booming noise shook her from her focus and drew her out into the hallway. Recalling the commotion and the fear that struck everybody in that moment, she shivered. People had been running by her, unsure of exactly where the blast had come from or where to go.

Thankfully, Sky hadn't been in her room when the explosion occurred. She had been in the bedroom of a friend. The two of them ran into Cassidy in the courtyard to find out exactly what had happened. Nobody would have any information for several hours afterward. After that, Sky had been sharing a room with a friend of hers in bottom floor of the dormitory building.

“What do you suggest we do about it?” Alexandria asked when she came out of the memory. Although she had suspected what he had called her for, she felt that he should say it aloud before she actually started on the project.

He thought for a long time, quiet and solid. His brows furrowed together and he opened his mouth several times before simply closing them again. When he finally did find the right words, he looked up at Alexandria with a trusting flash in his eyes. “She has to get out of here. But I fear that no matter how far in this world we send her, it won't be far enough. Whatever is going on isn't going to wait and it isn't going to stop.”

“Would you like me to start now?” she asked. Her voice was both anxious and excited to begin the compilation.