the beauty of destiny [open]

It was late, and it was dark, and he was so tired. A voice outside his window was just invasive enough to prevent him from sleeping, and Fayt buried himself further under the blankets to attempt to block out all of the sounds.

The voice continued, growing louder, until it was right next to his head.

"Fayt."

Sitting straight up in bed and throwing the covers off, Fayt looked around quickly to find that there was no one in there at all. The voice had been distinctly male and unfamiliar to him, and the thought of a stranger being in his room was cause for extreme alarm. But there was no one there. He couldn't have imagined it, could he? He had almost decided he had when a scream outside of his room had him on his feet and out in the hallway. He ran down the stairs and into the lobby to find that it had changed completely.

A dungeon, that was what it looked like. Lycoris, Wynter, Adell, and Xara were tied up with chains and they were all yelling different things at each other before the lights flickered oddly. When they steadied, the chains were empty and bloodied and Holly was standing in the center. She was bloodied as well, staring down at her hands with a wide-eyed expression. "...Holly...?" She didn't look up, so he tried again. "Holly!" Her gaze turned to him then, shaken and torn.

"I didn't mean to-" Her voice was cut off when the lights flickered again and the inn's lobby was back, no blood or anything else present. He heard the voice he had heard in his room again, outside and growing more distant.

Against his better judgement, he ran out the front door. It was bitterly cold outside but the sky was a raging, blood red color. The clouds sped by at impossible speeds and the movements of the plants in the harsh wind were jerking and unreal. He didn't know why, but he had to follow that voice. Something in it pulled at him and he had to know who it was that was calling him.

And so he ran. He ran twisting, unfamiliar, rocky paths that led through a town he didn't recognize and past people he had never met before. In all too short a time, Fairmist Mountain was looming ahead of him, the voice still calling him up further and further until he hit a ledge nearly halfway up and it just... stopped.

The loud rush of wind filled his ears as a huge shadow passed over him, the wind picking up fast and hot enough that he felt as though his skin was being seared. Reaching up, he shielded his face with his arms and yelled up at the dark figure, but his voice disappeared into the rushing air. He yelled louder, but the sound didn't even reach his own ears before the shadow was descending on him, closer and closer...

Everything went black.

Pain in his back. In his head. In his feet, most strongly. A dream? A vivid dream, but it had been a dream. Fayt slowly sat up and reached up to hold his head before the cold wind forced him to snap his eyes open. There was no red, swirling sky or descending shadow, and the sun was just barely rising, but he was still on a ledge on Fairmist Mountain with absolutely no idea how he had gotten there. Had he walked? In a single night? Was that... even possible? Wincing, he slowly got to his feet and let out a tentative call. "Hello...? Anyone up here...?"