The young guardian sat perched in the spaces between spaces, the gifted bow in hand feeling more kin than her own weapons. She leaped from decrepit pillar to ancient debris, darting past the shapes that danced in the curling tendrils of the ascendant plane. Swift as shadows, she loosed arrows into the darkness, decimating the unborn with cruel and precise grace. 

 

Don’t you feel foolish coming down here? I would, if I were you…

 

The guardian did not falter and did not alter her pace. She was accustomed to the voices in her head. It was only when a small light flickered on the horizon, did her feet lack their luster. Drawn by sickening magnetism, she altered her course. Her weapons lowered, and the steel in her muscles eased ever so slightly. But it was ill-met.

 

“Why do you come here?” The light’s voice reverberated in her head. “Is it duty to your slavish orthodoxy? Fealty to an absent queen? Sympathy for your awoken friends?”

 

She turned her gaze away from the light, hawk like vision fixed on the object tucked into the ever collapsing structure. She raised her aim for confirmation, and loosed the arrow to its final resting place. The light flickered at the impact.

 

“Do you ever pause, dear listener, to consider who benefits from all this heroism you commit?”

 

The guardian froze but her veins denied the ice with their rivers of fire. She turned sharply to the light, which had slipped out of space and reappeared across the gap in front of her.

 

Hush now, o murderer mine. We will erase your pain. We will strike it from your memory.

 

She tightened her grip on the bow, but relaxed her breath, peering out into the darkness to discern the stepping stones that would surely present her next path. With tincture flooding her veins, she found it, and again danced with the abyss around her.

 

Invisible claws graced her neck, piquing her attention to the expanse to her left. Rubble slowly spun in the space, but it wasn’t all stone. She cocked her head and again raised her bow, eyes fixed on the oblong object. Her fingers flirted with the thread of her weapon, stretching the moments into centuries.

 

We have filled the world with teeth, you and I. 

 

Her fingers loosed the arrow from its perch, sending the white line fleeing into the darkness.

 

See how they gleam…

 

It tore the egg into oblivion. She watched it with morbid curiosity. The veil caressed her form, mingling with the tatters of her cloak, but she did not acknowledge its presence. The light again called to her from across the darkness, and she answered by moving to meet it, but with more caution.

 

It observed her thoughtfully, and her it, before it broke the silence. “Some terrors you defeat. Some, you become”

 

The light faltered, and then sputtered out. The guardian turned her gaze downwards, a single toe toying with the abyss. The darkness called up to her.

 

“Follow the screams”

 

She stepped off the ledge.