After an officer finds an unconscious boy dressed in medieval clothing and discovers he has no memories of where he came from, she decides to take him under her wing. She realizes quickly, however, that medieval clothing is not the only thing that m...
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I had another strange dream that night, but it wasn't the one that I had dreamt repeatedly in the future, the one with the attackers pursuing me. This one was different. It was a new memory from my past.
I was sitting hunched in a small wooden boat. I don't know where I was or my intended destination. My only surroundings were the large craggy rocks jutting from the water in the distance. The water itself was dark, still, and dismal. The boat parted through its surface the way a blade would through skin, smoothly and effortlessly. A thick layer of fog hung eerily over its still surface. The sky was a dark gray, almost black.
I sat in the very middle of the boat, curled into a ball and shivering. I didn't have a cloak. My face looked younger, around the same age as I was in the other dream. My eyes were a dark blue with dark circles underneath to match. They were trained, unblinking, on the rocks that were looming closer. I was tired and worried. My black hair was tousled and unkempt.
There were no paddles in the boat—it was moving on its own.
When the boat reached the rocks, I stared up at them in bewilderment. They towered over me and were spread across the murky water everywhere I looked. I sharpened my eyes to look for an opening large enough for me to pass through, but they almost seemed to have been intentionally pressed together to keep people out. I could see small crevices where water was sifting through to the other side, but none human size.
I forced myself not to grow discouraged and tried to think logically for a moment. For a body of water as large as this, there had to be an opening large enough for large amounts of water to seep through to the other side or else the rain would raise the water elevation and cause very large floods. Then I understood. There must be an opening through the rocks underneath the water. But there was no way I could swim down there and find it in water as dark as this.
I couldn't help but think my instincts had led me to the wrong place. Avalon couldn't be here. It was a dead end. But my senses had never led me astray before. I mentally willed the boat to move alongside one of the rocks. Once I was within reach of it my senses buzzed even more profoundly than they had before. I slowly reached out my hand touched the rock.
There was suddenly a large grating noise and the stone beneath my hand lurched and crumbled. Before my eyes was a new opening just large enough for me and my boat to pass through. I blinked in amazement and willed the boat to continue forward.
I was now in a pitch black cave. The opening behind me made the same noise as it had before and the fragments of rock that had tumbled into the water shot back up and resealed the opening. A chill settled over me when I realized I could not turn back.
I waved my hand blindly in front of me and a flame appeared upon it, illuminating the tunnel with a bright blue light. The walls of the small tunnel were damp and smelled strongly of mildew. Stalactites hung above me and reminded me of the fangs of some beast opened wide to devour its prey.
