The war started at the behest of the elves when they were still one people. The First Children spoke of the great devourer, the herald of the end that would consume all things and leave this world a shriveled, cold husk of rock. They predicted that Mana, the god-gift which flowed through all things, the giver of life and the hope of the future, would be ended by this grave new threat.

  - On the Cataclysm by an unknown Quassian Schor circa 103 AC.

  Between dreams and reality exists a pce where the mind can wander freely, unencumbered by the constraints of this world. It is a pce of imagination. There I had flown over vast endless pins of grass filled with exotic creatures, walled cities protected by stout armored knights, and witnessed the majesty of desert-dwelling sandworms.

  A cold breeze pyed across from the open window, bringing with it the sounds of an awakening city. Inside, the radio bred out the morning news, the announcer’s sonorous voice filling the emptiness of my room to wake me.

  Lately the dreams had been growing more vivid, more real. I mused this as I forced myself to get out of bed, nearly tripping over a pile of books in my rush to the sink, filing my hands to keep bance like some demented cartoon character. Staring into the mirror, my mind turned once more to the dreams: How stimuting would it be to live in a world like that?

  After quickly brushing my teeth and dressing, I searched my mini fridge. The investigation revealed a half-eaten chocote bar and a loaf with mold merrily growing on it. I scarfed the bar down while pcing the moldy loaf in my bag alongside books I would need for the day.

  Moving to the door, a new letter from the building’s management caught my eye. I already knew it was going to be asking me to pay this month’s rent, which was two weeks te. My st job didn’t pay as well as it had promised, so I would have to beg or borrow money from friends this month—or, heaven forbid, from my parents. How could they charge so much for such a terrible room? The roof leaked, and the pce was damp all winter.

  Making sure to lock the door, I decided to take the long way to school through the park. A jogger passed by, who, judging by the music bring from her headphones, was determined to destroy her eardrums. For a moment I was sure I heard the sound of an army marching to the beat of war, until the harsh honk of a car repced a warhorse’s neigh as a stray cat crossed the road.

  Snapping out of it, I crossed into the park and was greeted by familiar birdsong. Few people used the park at this time in the morning, and for a few precious moments it felt like this section of the park was truly mine. Lately I had had the notion that my life was spiraling out of control, a feeling the birdsong eased.

  My phone buzzed, breaking the peace of the morning. More spam. The dispy picture was the same, a picture of her. My recent breakup had done more damage to my confidence than I cared to admit, and it had started to affect my studies and job. I repyed in my mind the phone conversation with her again, my curt “Okay,” before putting the phone down. Should I have begged instead? Bought a present with my non-existent money? Round and round the scenarios swirled.

  Torturing myself with these thoughts, I continued walking through the park until I reached a small pond. Ducks drifted zily across the brown surface, quacking and occasionally diving down to feed, tufted bottoms in the air. A few silhouettes of fish lurked in the murky depths. Reaching into my bag for the moldy loaf, I began to feed the ducks and fish.

  A frenzy of activity whirled wherever I threw the bread, and I smiled as two birds squabbled over a rger piece. I was just about to throw another piece when a rge shadow appeared beneath the birds, a shape growing so suddenly in size that I was forced to step back in surprise. Something flew towards me, and I instinctively closed my eyes. I could have sworn that water grazed my cheek, but when I opened my eyes there was nothing but the peaceful scene of ducks and fish. Shaken, I threw the rest of the loaf into the pond, then took off.

  Feeling disoriented, I hurried to my lecture, making it with a little time to spare. I had few friends and none of them had chosen this particur course, so I found my customary corner near the back and sat down to prepare. My mind began wandering again to the dreams and my encounter in the park. Overactive imagination, I thought. Too rich a diet of video games and fantasy books by far.

  The history lecturer’s loud voice, as it had done so many times in the past, brought me back to reality. I tried to focus on his words, but an errant thought drew me to picture fields of the most brilliant emerald grass, a viridian sea swaying in the wind.

  Grass...? I could hear the susurration of each bde dancing to the cool spring breeze. The taste of the crisp, clean air pervaded my imagination, a striking contrast to the acrid aftertaste of the city. I saw a small hill with what looked like a rge acacia tree overlooking it, a vision that would make for the most perfect of ndscape pictures. I yearned to go there. I stepped, only to find myself back in the hall as the lecturer listed the reasons for the fall of an empire.

  Occasionally casting a gnce at a girl a few seats away on my right, I listened with half an ear to the professor. Hair like burnt gold cascaded around her shoulders and framed a heart-shaped face with eyes of cornflower blue. A cute button nose, a little upturned, was perfectly positioned above blossom-soft pink lips. I knew her name, as I had heard her friends greet her once, but I had never had the courage to introduce myself. Sighing, I entered an almost zen-like autopilot for the rest of the lecture as my subconscious took in all the relevant data.

  After the lecture finished, I checked my timetable on my phone. The next css would be in the te afternoon, providing me time to carry out a few errands in town. Checking my calendar and smiling to myself, I was reminded that I had scheduled to py a game online with a friend ter in the evening, but first I needed to go to the post office to pick up a package.

  Whistling an off-key tune, I made my way to my next destination to find that a long lunchtime queue had already formed. Patiently, I waited in line, part of the tune on repeat in my mind until my turn came.

  The cashier was a bespectacled mousy woman of middle years, hair tied in a tight bun with small streaks of gray just beginning to appear. She pretended to carefully check over my details before handing me a small brown package and an invoice for import tax. I grudgingly counted out the necessary money. As an aside, I asked her the cost of sending a package back to its country of origin.

  With an irritated sigh, she replied, “Well, you will have to choose between—”

  “Choose!” a voice thundered somewhere behind me. Eyes wild, I searched for the source.

  “—will be more expensive but faster...” I half heard the post clerk continue.

  “Choose!” the voice thundered even louder, and this time there was a burning sensation in my heart and lungs. It felt as if chains were constricting them, squeezing ever tighter. I leaned against the counter for support as I fought for breath. I did take my medicine this morning, didn’t I...?

  I panicked, before remembering my rush to leave early. Screaming a silent “No,” my eyes gzed over, and I fell to my knees. Some people in the queue behind me rushed to help. The st thing I remember was the clerk’s change of expression from annoyance, to worry, then to perturbing awe. As the pain intensified, I felt something important give way inside.

  This is what death is, I thought, as I felt a sensation of falling. I was traveling through a pce filled with a bright incandescence before I was wrenched into a new reality. Suddenly next to me was… the girl from the lecture hall? Cornflower eyes once so warm and soft now seemed cold, and the lines of her mouth and lips had hardened.

  A wave of disorientation passed over me, and I could hear a ringing in my head before her features fully shifted. In front of me now was the perfect ideal of cssical female beauty, like the Ancient Greek statues of yore. It felt so strange, yet somehow absolutely right. As if this were fate, the final piece of a puzzle slotting into pce.

  A perfectly veiled symmetry of face and form stood before me. Piercing cobalt eyes, familiar yet utterly alien, were framed by delicate, now oval, features. Her loose gown, simir to a Roman sto, billowed slightly, as if floating in the water around a more luscious figure. Beneath a lovely, high nose, sensuous crimson-stained lips hinted at the beginning of a pyful smile. Panic rising, I began to question what this experience truly was. The encounter was so distant from anything I could have ever imagined in any vapid daydream.

  “You have been chosen.” Her voice held the lightness of an angel, yet carried an ominous echo of ages long past.

  Through some intangible power, I sank to my knees, overwhelmed by reverence. I could not bring myself to raise my head. I am not a religious man, but a corner of my heart knew I was in the presence of absolute divinity.

  “I am justice, and you shall be my herald. All that you do will be in my name. You will be the avatar of my will,” the goddess procimed, for there could be no doubt that she was a goddess.

  My heart missed a beat with every excmation, and I could do nothing but yield under that divine gaze. Still, where bravery failed, panic and fear rallied.

  “Why?” I croaked.

  “You have been judged and have not been found wanting. A life lived without sin and in service to your fellow man. A soul that is compatible with our needs, forged anew to be a tool of the righteous. This will be our covenant.”

  A soft warmth spread throughout my body. It was purpose, and every word she had spoken struck my soul with a hammer’s force. A sorrow-tinged smile grew across her face, and my soul rose with joy as tears tracked their way down my cheeks. I was not worthy of such regard.

  She lifted my face. “Let it not be said there is no justice without mercy. Though it will cost me greatly, you will be given a day to face the trials to come. Prepare yourself, my champion. I am Avaria.”

  The st utterance held such ment that I felt nothing but deep shame that I was unworthy of such benevolence. Slowly, the warmth faded from my soul as my dream began to dissipate. The peace was followed by the jarring sensation of falling.

  Tendrils of shadow ripped through me, stabbing into my soul. I filed my limbs in a desperate attempt to escape, but the tendrils only tightened their grip and pulled me ever closer to the source of their origin, a yawning abyssal void. I screamed and thrashed, my desperate cries echoing across the bckness.

  Despite my panic, a glimmer of understanding flickered to life. Avaria had chosen me as her own. Surely she would not abandon me now, in my darkest hour. Renewed strength fueled my struggle against the tendrils. But it was all for naught. With a sudden force, I was pulled into the maw.

  My being was stretched and compressed. The darkness was so absolute that it was more than just the absence of light. And there lurked a presence, breathing behind my neck, yet at the same time all around me. The embers of my recent divine revetion still burned low, allowing me to utter a word.

  “Who...?”

  A voice rumbled with ughter.

  “Are you a god?” My words were a pathetic squeak.

  Laughter sounded again. “I am no mere God,” the voice intoned, followed by a long pause that could hold the time of the rise and fall of empires. “I am a higher Truth. The final Truth of all things.” With these words, I felt my very sense of self shredded and rewritten.

  “That Avaria is a mere mortal and fwed concept. She has Chosen and Cimed you for her own, but in her mercy broke the Rules. She thought to bend the Concord. To gift you the time to ready yourself for the great trials. To give you an advantage. To give that world hope. What a foolish child, to think we would not notice. No respite can be given in the rules of the great game. I cim you now, child of Earth.”

  Sibint whispers skittered across my mind, shaping it so I might better understand the being and prevent my mind from shattering against the cliffs of insanity I stood upon.

  The whispers, echoes of the great being, spoke directly in my mind with voices like sharpened gss. Every word was a lesson in pain.

  “We will gift you nothing but our curse. We care nothing for your success or failure. We will simply try again as this moment will fold into itself once more. Know utterly the futility of your existence. However, we will gift you a curse. I give you pain. Take this and know a fleeting joy, mortal. The pain I give to you, you will give to others, as is the nature of your being. The pain will guide your growth in your new world, guide your understanding. An endless spiral of lost energy to chaos. As it once was, so shall it all be again.”

  Then an agony filled me across a moment of eternity and fyed the fibers of my soul. All thoughts of the goddess burned away, and the moment stretched forever. All I could do was hear the hollow ughter of a thousand uncaring gods.