Welcome to Gaia! ::

His head was still reeling, all that had happened, everything had changed. He no longer knew what to think or what to believe, or for that matter who to trust. Thinking back, he had begun to wonder if all of this had begun back at that island (how long ago it seemed now, though not even a year had passed), or if this went back further than any of them knew. Was this all just the beginning?

The dragon sighed, looking down that the same page of his book that he had been staring at for the last 30 minutes. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts before reaching out to turn the page.

Hmm?

He almost thought he had imagined it, the quiet knock, the soft voice. A moment passed, he recognized the voice. Setting his book aside, Sheridan stood and walked to the door, opening it to see his friend. He gave her a friendly smile, he was glad to see her, though she seemed...sad to him.

"Hey."

Sheridan blinked, somewhat surprised by the request. It wasn't that he minded her in his room, on the contrary she was more than welcome, it had simply been unexpected. He couldn't remember her ever asking to enter his room before.

"Of course, come in."

He quickly stepped aside, gesturing for her to step through. His room was a bit disorganized, but at least the scattered papers and books were limited to his desk and the immediate vicinity thereof. Most of his books were placed on the tall bookcases that lined the far wall, the shelves of which were nearly overflowing. By the window was a large electronic telescope which showed clearly it was used on a regular basis. There was no bed, but there was a very large pile of pillows where one would expect a bed to be, and a few chairs placed throughout the room.

As he turned, Sheridan sought out and immediately scooped up his cat (said cat did NOT seem pleased by the action) to make sure the fuzzy monster did not try to escape through the door or pounce on his guest.

Sheridan was still holding his cat, a large white cat with black markings, a short blond mane, small wings, and a what may have been a permanent snarl. At that moment the cat was glaring at the stranger who had dared enter his domain, tail twitching as if he were plotting the best method of escape. There had better be cookies involved here!

The dragon was either oblivious to or ignoring the sulking of the cat of evil, more occupied with the faint blush tinting his ears and wondering if he should close the door or leave it open.

"I hope it's not too cold for you."

Well that wasn't much of a conversation starter was it. Still, maybe it was a legitimate one since it was rather cold in his room, the kind of cold where one would expect to look up and see ice clinging to the tall ceiling, the air thin and crisp like standing on a mountain on a sunny day.

"You can sit anywhere you like."

He paused, his head tilted. Any other time he probably would have blushed furiously, but there was something in her tone. Was she okay?

"What's wrong?"

Sheridan shot a glance at the cat he was holding, giving it a poke on the top of its head.

"Be nice, or no cookies."

Wait, his cookies were threatened? Hmph! Fine, he'd be nice, even if he didn't want to. This time when he looked at Amphi, he stuck out his tongue before wriggling free and sulking off to curl up on one of the chairs. Okay, starting now he'd be nice, but only for the cookies!

"Don't worry about him, he's like that with everyone."

The dragon gave his friend an apologetic smile before settling to sit on the pile of pillows himself. The smile had quickly faded, replaced by a somber expression. Yes, he had died, an experience he would wish on no one, a memory he had wished he could forget. Though thinking back, he wasn't sure what was worse, dying himself, or watching the deaths of those around him, those he had fought with.

"Yes, I have."

If things kept going the way they were, he suspected it would not be the only time he would 'die'. The fear now was dying and not coming back.

The dragon shook his head, his tail still for a rare moment. He had mercifully been spared that fate, having been on the other side of the campus at the time.

"It happened on the island. We were told it was a field trip, it was anything but. I don't know how long we were there, it could have been months for all I know. I remember the fog, but it was more than fog, we heard voices and nitemares, we couldn't use our abilities, it felt like it was...draining our FEAR."

He paused, his gaze turning toward the ceiling as if he sought to see beyond the stone to the stars above. What he had seen there still haunted his dreams at times, the cold darkness the heaviness of the fog, as if it sought to crush them beneath its weight, the nitemares of a starless sky. It had robbed them of their senses, leaving them questioning what was real and what was not. How he wished the whole thing had only been a dream, but he knew all too well it was not.

"We were attacked, I don't know how many of us fell, but I saw several others before... When I died, I didn't come back, not at first, I don't know if the same thing happened to the others. But if what that man said was true, we were the lucky ones."

The words still echoed in his mind, the robed being who had said his weapon had once been a student, that he had turned a halloweener into a -weapon-. It had seemed it was the same fate he had in store for them. Sheridan shuddered at the thought, he could not imagine such an existence.

Sheridan may have bristled at the mention of the horsemen, his tail giving a twitch that resembled that of the cat currently sulking in the chair across the room. It was true the horsemen and Halloween seemed to share a common enemy in the hunters, and yet he could not forget that the horsemen had attacked them on that island, that he had watched friends one of them was supposed to be guiding to safety perish on the path. Nor had he forgotten that it had been a horseman that had broken his tail. Whose side the horsemen were on he did not know, perhaps they were only following their own agenda, either way, he did not trust them.

"We found notes, there were others there before us, others from Halloween. I don't think they made it back."

There was a deep sorrow in his voice, a sense of horror that came flodding back as his hand tightened in Amphi's grasp. He had never really spoken of the events on the island, maybe he should have done so sooner. Trying to forget certainly wasn't working.

"There was a man there in a hood, he fought with a blue scythe. He told us...told us that his weapon had once been a halloween student. The weapon was alive!"

It was almost unthinkable, how close had they all been to the same fate?

"I think...he was at the haunted house as well."

He could never forget that weapon.

For the moment, Sheridan had not caught the full weight of her words. Being that they'd been told reapers looked as humans did (and he remembered some of them had mistaken those they'd encountered on the island for reapers at first), it didn't seem unusual that a hunter could be mistaken for a reaper. But she hadn't said they'd appeared as reapers, did that mean...

"They looked like us?"

Like monsters? Or ghosts, demons, and undead? The hunters could appear as creatures of halloween? There was a look of horror in his eyes. If the hunters could take the form of halloweeners, what did that mean for them, how were they to know that the next creature they came across was not in fact a hunter in disguise? Who was there that they could trust?

He shook his head, what the jack were they supposed to do? It seemed they were woefully unprepared, outmatched by a foe they had no idea even existed until now.

"Why hasn't anyone been sent to stop them..."

Why? Why were they, -students-, the ones who were fighting the hunters? Sure the professors, boogeymen, and others far more skilled than they should have been the ones to take on the hunters. Let them face an ancient celestial dragon, the lot of them would have been fried or frozen many times over, they why wasn't this happening? What in jack's name were -they- supposed to do?