The wood splintered. The steel bent. It wasn't enough. She carried on. With each fresh swing, with each new blow, she felt the walls give that little bit more. Her fingers turned to mush, blackened and fell away. Her hands crumpled, wearing smaller and smaller until they too were gone. Undeterred, she rained hit after hit, shot after shot, with the stumps of her arms. The splat they made were simultaneously sickening and hilarious. Indeed, she began to laugh, the sound a thin, distraught counterpoint to the noise of her efforts.
The world shattered.
Spinning light, crystalline fragments, snippets of sound and vision. She could get no handle on anything, no traction, no sense. Her head pounded, her ears ached, her stomach clenched with the desire to vomit. Nothing came forth. She closed her eyes tightly, gritting her teeth against it all, willing it away with every fiber of her being...
All was silent. All was black. No, not everything. There, in the distance, was a single shining point of light. She had no form here, no shape. It was but a thought that caused her to drift onward, on and on until the light resolved itself into a small hut. She didn't stop to knock on the door. Weightless, ethereal, she drifted straight through.
"Took you long enough," a voice at once familiar and forgotten grunted. "Tea?"
She felt the small, hand-carved chair against her backside, the warmth of the fire against her skin. A small cup of steaming liquid was placed into her hands - when did she grow them back? - the scent heady and sweet.
A mountain of a man seated himself opposite. His thin features were kind and gentle, framed by light brown hair with silvered streaks.
"Antoth," she breathed. "Where have you been? What happened to you? I thought..."
"Thought what?" he enquired. "That I abandoned you? I did."
The words cut deep. Spoken simply and without a hint of regret, she felt again the sting of losing her friend and mentor.
"Why would I have stayed?" he continued, eyes boring into her own. "You were, you are, no use to anyone. Unlovable and unloved, isn't that how it goes for mistakes like you?"
"No" she spluttered, shaking her head in denial. "I can't believe that. I won't. You wouldn't..."
"But I did!" he growled, slamming his fist down atop the table in emphasis. "That's what you've always believed. That's what you've always known!"
She hung her head, eyes closing against tears that threatened to spill. He was right. She had always known it. He had left her behind years ago. Of course he had. There had been no reason for him to stay. She hadn't been worth the effort he had put into teaching her. She wasn't worth the hassle he had been through just to comfort her. She had no value to him or anyone else.
He had gone to all that trouble for her though, hadn't he? He had watched over her for years, soothing her pains and distracting her from the daily terrors. He had taught her, nurtured her, fed and watered her. He had helped her as best he could and had never asked anything of her beyond her undivided attention during lessons.
She thinned her lips, the heat of the cup increasing until it began to burn her palm. It boiled in her grip, but she held fast all the same.
"No," she denied more vehemently this time. "That's not how it was with you. You didn't abandon me, Antoth. You never would have walked away. So what really happened?"
"That's a mystery for the ages," he replied gently. His smile was like the morning sun, bright and enigmatic. "I can't tell you that, but perhaps you can find out one day."
"Because you're not really you," she observed with regret. "You are long gone. This is but a dream."
"Glad to see you've been paying attention," he agreed. "I'm most likely dead by now and you will be too if you don't find your way out."
She looked around. Everything was so familiar, from the hearth to the curtained bed area to the door. The door. It was clearly right there where it had always been.
"What do you mean?"
"This," he wafted a hand lazily, taking a sip of his tea before continuing. "Is a resting area. You just smashed through the barriers of your past. Well done, by the way. They've been holding you back for so long that I began to despair of you ever overcoming them, but better late than never. Now that you've done that, you need to gather your strength. The hardest fight is yet to come."
"Why must I go on?" she sighed, leaning back in the chair. "I was so happy here with you. If I stayed, I could be happy again."
"You could," he nodded slowly. "You could also be dead."
"Is that such a bad thing? It sounds rather peaceful."
"Goodness knows you need some of that," his chuckle rumbled deep within his chest, rich and comforting. "But what of the life you leave behind?"
"I don't... I don't remember..." she frowned. Try as she might, she could conjure no images of the time before her dream. There were no thoughts, no feelings, no voices, no faces. Her mind was completely blank save for what had occurred within the dream itself.
"Is that so?" Antoth's voice grew higher in pitch. Turning her gaze up to him, she watched in confusion as he changed, his hair becoming longer, darker, his skin paler and features far more girlish.
"Neyaa?"
"So, you do remember," Neyaa smiled, the brightness fading long after her face began to morph into another.
One after one, she saw them all. All of the faces and people who had ever meant anything to her. Eordion, Aiden, Dagramir, Toddir, Aevalyn, Talaa, Eroforth, Yarassi, Eithwyn, even Seaver. Each stayed for long enough for recognition to set in before shifting on to the next. The last one hit her the hardest.
"Rowan," she sighed, caught somewhere between horror that she had forgotten and relief that he was here.
"You asked for time," he stated sternly. "I did not agree to forever."
"Enough!" she turned her gaze away, repeating more gently. "Enough."
She had indeed asked for time and he had agreed. He was not a man to break his word, nor she a woman to break her own. A bargain had been made, after a fashion, and she could not renege on it now. She could not give up. She could not give into this comfortable illusion, not when so many that she cared for waited for her in the waking world. Even if they never learned what she had done, even if they never knew what she had faced to return to them, it wouldn't matter. She couldn't leave them behind. Not now. Not like this. Toddir, especially, would never forgive himself if she simply let herself slip away whilst he watched on, helpless to prevent the outcome he had most feared. She would not allow him to bear the guilt of her actions.
"Are you ready?" Antoth asked, rising from his chair.
"No," she responded sadly, pushing herself up as well, the mug disappearing from her hands. "But I can't let that stop me."
"Good girl," he smiled. Stepping across, he wrapped his strong arms around her, holding her tightly. She closed her eyes, leaning into his warm embrace.
Then it was gone. Although they had not moved, she heard the sound of the door click closed behind her. She was alone once more.
