*warning graphic first half of this chapter. Read at your own risk/discretion. All future graphic chapters will hold the same warning.*

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The flames danced with the breeze from a broken window. Rising like an endless sea of yellow, red, and white. I couldn't breathe, the weight on my back from the medicine cabinet had me trapped within that sea of bright, oppressive colors.

Shattered glass reflected that flickering in all its destructive glory. Broken bottles and rapidly burning bandages filled my eyes from within the room I was trapped. A room that now feels it was much too small for all the patients it once held.

I knew I was going to die. The moment I chose to push my charge out of the room so that her life was not ended far too soon, was the moment I knew I was choosing death.

From the floor where the smoke can't kill me first, I knew I was going to burn to death. As the flames reached the cabinet I was under, and rapidly kissed my body agonizingly slow, the only thought I had remaining was one without regret. If I had a choice, was placed in the same circumstances, I would still make this same choice.

In the final moments of my pain before my hearing left me I thought I heard a panicked scream.

"LYRA!!!!" My vision fading and facing the window, I could not see the one who shouted my name with such urgency. I had long lost the strength to respong.

As my body was consumed, I looked up at the blackness of the night sky and allowed the darkness to swallow me whole. I fell into the dark abyss as if I was falling away from my body and pain. My soul carried me to the one place where i would no longer have to suffer ... the truest essence of the night, an abyss.

The abyss is endless. Black, incorporeal, devoid of everything. Sight, sound, smell, feeling ... all striped away by the most complete darkness. That was the void to which I knew I should be afraid of, and yet felt oddly at peace in.

'Remember Lyra, remember who you are, remember what you've done, remember everything', a voice whispered to me from the blackness with soft urgency. I wonder who it is that was calling out to me.

I had to focus, the abyss was gradually striping away my everything, trying to leave me a blank empty canvas. Little more than a soul awaiting a destination. My memories began swirling in my head. My earliest memory, my key memories, the nightmares I've endured for others, and how my end came.

For all I knew an eternity may have passed just like that. My life reeling before my eyes, memories I felt I must hold dear. And yet regardless of my efforts I felt them slipping from my grasp. Perhaps I was simply going mad.

It was then that I heard the song.

A woman's voice drifting to me from deep within the void. Her song was so very sad, and yet I felt compelled towards the only difference in the abyss while I still had most of myself.

🎶Follow me, into the night

come my child of the light.

Hear my voice, sing my song.

I will assist your destiny.

Come my dear,

hear my child,

listen to me

my words resounding.🎶

After a while I saw her. The most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Her long flowing silver hair cascaded down her back nearly blending with her porcelain face, and almost hiding her white wolf like tail that was gently swaying behind her. She was the epitome of white, so when she opened her eyes I was expecting silver, but was met with a striking shade of violet. Her eyes seemed to hold all the secrets of the world, as her voice called out to it.

"Finally I have found one worthy to carry my legacy. One who will not abuse the power you will be granted. You have the mental power to withstand the fate that must be passed on", her voice was light as the wind and every word conjured one light after another around me. Her eyes looked upon me with sadness "forgive me for this. It is the fate I was unable to change. I wish you luck".

"WAIT! What do you mean!? Please explain to me whats going on!" I shouted with urgency.

Her smile seemed to hold the weight of countless words left unsaid, "I pray that one day you will forgive me for my selfishness. May you sing to your hearts content. Live a good life, for your sacrifice was not in vain".

The light enveloped me and the abyss seemed to melt away like one infinitely long dream.