Dreams.

Alex dreamed vividly. Full color, lots of action, spoken dialogue. Usually, dreams found themselves in a near sighted fuzziness, never quite the sharp hard lines of her waking vision. Occasionally though, she would have dreams so vivid and so real that she saw them in crystal clear 20/20 vision. These were the dreams she retained the most memory of, and usually were the most odd.

Nightmares though, were a thousand times worse when crystal clear.

Since her reflections on 'the Second Rift,' she'd had but one recurring nightmare. It was a dream in the barest sense of the word, for it was so real she swore the first few nights she was wide awake when it happened. It morphed over the nights, but always ended the same.

Floating in the never-ending darkness.

It was tainted by the fuzziness of her nearsightedness, and she only retained the sense of loss and helplessness of floating in the darkness. She'd wake up in a cold sweat, and fall almost instantly into a dreamless sleep thereafter. Sleep did little to rest her, and she'd resorted to more sleep aid help over the days in the hope she would find dreamless sleep the whole night. Yet the dreams persisted, her only saving grace that she retained very little of them.

This nightmare was drastically different the moment her eyes opened in it.

The frozen city painted in grays was crystal clear. The sky beyond the buildings seemed to move too slow, then too fast, and she spent too long staring trying to make sense of it. She got the sense of a camera angle sweeping over her in a circle, like it does in anime, and for a moment she saw herself in a skewed perspective. The camera moved slowly, arching from her feet to her head until it centered back behind her head.

It was then she saw them. The frozen bodies, faces contorted in terror. The camera angle widened and for a moment she saw the entire street filled with them. Women, children, dogs and cats, even birds frozen mid flight. The angle shifted again, looking down the road to where everything faded to black. Alex moved then and the camera angle snapped back to her own eyes.

She walked past the terror filled bodies slowly, head turning from side to side. She never touched them, only observed. What could have made them fear something so intensely? Why were they frozen?

What were they running from?

Alex walked until the next junction in the road and stopped. Across the road she saw her mother and father clutched together, hiding in the window of a store. Their faces were full of terror, but there was also a look of acceptance in their faces. She watched them for a time, wanting to move to them, to see if they were okay, but unable to move.

Their faces shifted suddenly, flickered in the store window and she could have sworn she saw and her mother say "It comes!"

The city block in front of her exploded. Tendrils of darkness and shade erupted from the ground and surged forward, tearing through everything in their path. She gritted her teeth and called for the power held deep within her starseed. She felt it consume her, change her, and morph. The feeling was different, heavier, more full of leather armor and billowing cloth. She shifted the googles on her head and pulled them over her eyes.

She could not save her parents. She knew that. She would not get there in time. But she could save those behind her.

The cloak snapped around her ankles as the wind kicked up. The darkness surged forward and Alex held her hands out in front of her. Her mace - no her staff - materialized and she held her chin up.

"You will go no further. I call on the power of Vithryn, spirit of the west winds. Create a barrier and stop this!" She slammed the butt of the staff down into the ground, sending out a shockwave of air. The weathervane spun, pulling in air and sending it out in front of her like a shield. Her perspective changed again and she stared at herself.

Except, it was not the Andronicus Alex knew. All black hair, olive tone, far more clothing than she was. There was a sense of extraordinary about her though. As though this was someone Alex would roleplay, or play in a video game. She was other worldly, yet grounded. Her hair snapped in the wind created by her staff and fierce green eyes, far greener than Alex's stared at the coming threat.

The angle shifted to the surging darkness. Eyes stared out and shadows scouted in the ground. Shades crawled and bounced, while larger shadows snapped and howled in their destruction. The block was eaten, devoured, turned to rubble in an instant. People vanished as through they never existed. Her perspective flickered between her standing self and the upper angle, until she was in both places at once. The high view was juxtaposed over the first person view and she could barely see both, let alone follow them.

There was a moment's pause. Everything turned still and quiet. The shadows loomed overhead, while she stood behind her barrier. Her duty was to protect, her duty was to be a shield. She was a defender, the last line of defense between those who could not fight and the threat. She would not - she could not fail here.

Too much was at stack. Too much had already been lost.

The camera snapped back into her eyes, and she stared up at the shadows above her.

Alex let out a scream of defiance and poured her soul into the shield.

Time snapped back into motion and the shadows crashed down upon her.

The effect was instaneous, and not what she was hoping for. There was an explosion of force and Alex flew backwards into a fair number of frozen people. The staff shattered as the energy rebounded back into it. The shadows surged forward, consuming everything. She watched, eyes wide with horror as the people she'd tried to protect were consumed, as the buildings collapsed in ruin. It ate and fed and grew more powerful with each passing moment.

There was nothing she could do. She couldn't save them. She couldn't save anyone. She couldn't save herself. She was utterly powerless to stop the darkness. It was too much.

It was on her then. The shadows curled around her, whispered sweet nothings in her ear and then she was falling.

She snapped her eyes open, staring at the black of her ceiling. She panted and every time she closed her lids, all she saw was the darkness creeping towards her. She lay still for a very long time before checking the clock. 4:30 am.

Alex flicked on the light and hoisted herself out of bed. Max whined at her through the door for food; the door had shut during the night apparently. Might as well feed him now. No way she was going back to sleep.

Not when she could recall everything that happened, in perfect detail. She spent the rest of the early morning with every light on in the apartment.

It wasn't until sunlight danced across the floor did she find sleep again.

WC: 1232