Magitech Awakenings 10 Awakening

What she's come to be

- prophecy of the duskbringer

Present day, 4993 A.D. An indiscernible time…

Guppy was adrift in a lucid dream, She had awoken on a stone bed in a plain grey room with no decorations or windows, only a single plain door.

When she arose and exited the room she entered a long, long corridor, it seemed to stretch for miles yet she could clearly make out the end, a huge door lay there with a heavily cloaked figure in black standing before it.
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With nothing else to do Guppy started walking down this long carpeted corridor.

She found that the walls had many doors on either side, and each door was different, with a unique color, style and pattern engraved upon it.

She opened a few in curiosity, discovering that each seemed to have different scenes from her memories inside, and if she stayed long enough they would begin to loop.

She moved on, entering rooms as she was moved by her whims.

Each time she would exit she would be closer to the end, and that chilling presence that lay there.

A growing sense of dread would strike her each time she viewed that figure standing so eerily still, yet always watching her. She could only dissipate its gaze by entering another room, so she did, again and again.

Some contained happy memories of her as a young child, before grief first struck.

Playing with her father, his face blurry in her faded memories, tugging on his hand to show him a flower, or people and animals she found interesting, silly little things to an adult, but of vital importance to her childish self.

Guppy winced as she watched her younger form serve her father a mud pie and force him to eat it. He did so with a grin

She blushed at how she had acted towards her first crush at twelve, sighed at how her first romantic relations.h.i.+p at 14 lasted but a month, and came to realize why she had not courted or been courted since.

These last few years she had been so focused on surviving to spare time or thought for frivolity.

And the young men of Nolusberg liked to flirt with the giggling pretty girls from good homes, not the grim, plain faced la.s.ses from broken ones. She firmly closed that door and moved on.

The years of her mother's waning were difficult to relive but Guppy forced herself to review them anyway, forcing through the grasping pain.

Remembering the responsibility and constant pressure she was under to hold the family together helped to firm her resolve to see this to its end..

She stood for a time at her parents grave, two simple engraved stones marking the flower covered mounds where they rested. She had scrimped together a little coin to lay their mother in a gravesite next to their father.

A kind old priest performed the last rights without charging them, merely patting their heads and offering a prayer of guidance both for the deceased and the living, sending her mother's soul off in peace to the afterlife.

Knowing this was but a dream Guppy silently looked on even as tears slid down her cold cheeks, determining to visit their graves after she woke up.

After basking in these memories awhile she sadly and softly closed those doors and trod again upon the carpeted corridor.

From the end she could feel a biting chill and heard a sc.r.a.ping, rattling sound that made her break out in a cold sweat. She froze into indecision and uncertainty.

Unable, or unwilling to proceed further Guppy opened the nearest door and entered.

A large circular room lay before her, it contained not a vista but a battered apartment building.

Guppy walked to a battered couch that overlooked the tiny apartment she had called home the last few years, the walls and roof turned transparent to her view wherever she looked.

So she sat on the creaking couch, watching the comings and goings from the past 3 years pa.s.s in speedy succession.

The joyous day when she had come home, thin, worn, and a little sh.e.l.l shocked at successfully getting hired by Friedrich. She watched as a small glimmer of hope lit within Stalia and Kyle's eyes as she told them the news.

Time sped up. They gradually ate more and better food, and filled out their plain but soon st.u.r.dier clothes. Stalia found a job waitressing, supplementing their income and savings.

The night Stalia came home, eyes alight as she sighed about a gorgeous young man who had started courting her. Going on and on about his smile or how his eyes twinkled when he grinned, or how his muscles moved under his tight s.h.i.+rt...

Kyle bringing home small injured animals to heal rather than eat.

Kyle smiling so broadly when she brought home a few tools and raw materials for him to practice with. He had never been a person of many words but he gave her a big long hug and whispered "thank you sis" in her ear.

This was the most emotion she had seen him show since their mother died, he had been too young to really remember their father when he pa.s.sed.

He always kept his eyes down, focused on whatever he was working on. Only lifting them when he stared off into the distant sky, gazing at a vista only he could see.

Guppy felt the warmth of that hug anew.

As the memories finished and the room faded to grey before starting anew Guppy sat on that moth eaten couch, and pondered over her memories.

There were times of tears and sorrow mixed right in with the shrieks of joy and exuberance. The good times highlighted by the bad they had suffered through. Each day they had lived together had been a precious gift to Guppy.

Having gained some strength she raised herself and exited the room, making her way to the end of the long corridor.

All too soon she arrived.

Before her the cloaked figure raised a hand, warning her to halt and turn around, to leave and not venture this way furthermore.

She ignored it and kept walking.

An oppressive weight seeped out of the figure, trying to force her away, or even just to stop.

Guppy continued her approach with slow with heavily measured steps.

The lights in the corridor started flickering on and off.

Pa.s.sing the final doors on her left and right she approached the big one.

It was large, made of wrought iron with locks, bars and black iron chains on it, decorated with rows and rows of skulls that gazed upon her with hollow eyes as she drew near.

Darkness seeped out from under the door, enshrouding her legs in a bone chilling cold.

Faint shrieks and cries could be heard from the other side.

She reached out with a hand that trembled, seeming to weigh a metric ton.

The dark being stretched its arms out to either side, shrieking while it rose off the ground.

Guppy's vision blurred as the hallway seemed to spin and warp.

Intense heat and cold a.s.saulted her. Winds drove her back. Rocks obstructed her feet. Time slowed and sped up, the door was near, then far then near again. Blindness of light and shadow fell upon her.

Pain visited her in many shapes and forms.

But it was not enough to deter her now.

She stretched forth her hand and tore the cloak off the figure. It fell to the ground, weakened and crying.

"Leave, here lies naught but pain" It wailed

Guppy patted the shoulder of her younger self before rising and walking onward. the figure turning to ash behind her back

She reached the door and opened it, bursting the chains, locks and bars as though they were made of paper and smoke.

Silence settled as she entered Friedrich's secret workshop.

Once inside she saw but one brief scene.

She watched, over and over as the explosion and successive implosion happened.

Her master, mentor and friend Friedrich died, again and again in excruciating detail, detail she had not registered in the moment, detail that shredded her heart anew with each cycle.

She watched him disappear again and again until the pain in her heart fell from torturous levels to a dull steady ache.

Guppy sat and leaned against the wall. Once again she had lost someone dear to her.

she swore

{A worthy sentiment hatchling} A deep voice reverberated.

Guppy asked.

{Busy} said Batty.

{I had to keep both of us alive while waiting for your mind to heal enough to face the world once more}

{It was a tattered mess in here let me tell you. I sunk your consciousness down a few levels to dilate your perceived time and accelerate your healing. However there is currently a situation in the waking realm that urgently requires your attention. As I no longer have a body I will have to leave it to you.}

{I have overdrawn my reserves far too much in this endeavor, I must. enter a period.. of rest and recovery.. soon... keep us. alive.. little hatchling...}

Guppy felt Batty's consciousness fading, it was still there, at the edge of her consciousness, but she could tell it was dormant, no longer responsive to stimuli, so she left him to recover.

With a thought she opened her eyes, and quickly noticed a very sharp blade, a very short distance from her face.