Ashur was having a nightmare again. The same nightmare that haunted his dreams and disturbed his sleep every few weeks. He was standing in one of the empty market squares of a city long dead. In the middle distance a giant smoke-like column, as wide as his home village, rose and stretched across the sky to cover almost the entire city. If one was utterly ignorant of the world, one might be excused for mistaking the boiling red and yellow mass for just that - a column of smoke. But Ashur knew, better than anyone he knew, that what he was looking at was the center of a giant Wraithstorm. Any Wraithstorm was bad enough, being filled with pain, fear, hate and all other negative emotions and physical sensations of hundreds or thousands of dead souls, murdered by the Soultakers. To touch, or be touched, was to go mad, or to die. The Wraithstorm looming overhead had a twin in the waking world. The village elders and the barony's priests had said it was the largest in the world. Ashur would have hoped it wasn't, as that would mean his ancestors were idiots to settle villages this close to it, if not for the implications of the idea of an even larger storm made from the suffering and death of even more people than must have died to feed so large a Wraithstorm.

Now and then, the surface would bulge and bubble, turning yellow or orange. Other times, yellow or red streaks of strange light, moving like snakes in the grass, could be seen darting across the surface. He did not know what those streaks were, but he knew all too well what they did. He tried not to run, to defy and try to take control of the dream, like he would with any other nightmare. It never seemed to work in this dream, though.

This is just a nightmare. This isn't the real thing. It can't hurt you. Telling himself that did not make him feel safer. Nor would it stop the nightmare. Although Ashur was no stranger to bad dreams, and had a talent for dreaming lucidly that helped turn any other nightmares around, it didn't work on this nightmare in particular. He had had this exact dream on and off for as long as he could remember, and it always went the same way. The gold streaks would appear. Next, long, thin, clawed arms would begin to stretch down towards Ashur. Soon after, Ashur would run through the empty city to try and flee the storm, which would chase him. He would pass by barren stalls, jump over abandoned belongings, and try to avoid tripping on scattered clothes, until eventually, the ghostly claws would catch up to him. He would be raked across the right half of his body - always his right half - and feel indescribable pain lance through the horizontal scars lining his body. Terror would drown his thoughts. Then he would wake. Once awake, he would be left in his bed, scars throbbing and sweat streaming. He would not be able to sleep again for the rest of the night. Instead, he would do what he had taken to doing the past three years after his parents left him behind to travel to the Last Border. He would get out of bed, get dressed, pack a small breakfast and, under the cover of going hunting, Ashur would go into the forest, and he would go see the only friend who could make him feel better. Then, and only then, would he be able to sleep.

Some of the tendrils met. They spun around one another and formed distinct shapes. It was beginning. He did not know how he knew, but he knew that it was because the Wraithstorm had sensed the presence of life. Ashur tried to keep calm and try new ways to stop, or at least improve, the nightmare. He had been trying to figure out a way to stop the nightmares all his life, and since he was twelve, he had gotten quite good at stopping the others, to the point where he would often have dreams where he could do anything. Fields of green or deep forests would appear at his whim. Castles would rise into the sky or deep caverns full of glittering gem would yawn before him. Those dreams, where he could do anything he'd like, were the best. This one dream however, where he is in the Lost City, being chased by the Wraithstorm again and again, had never given him much success. Ashur watched as arm-like tendrils probed downwards from the nightmarish cloud, waving back and forth as if sniffing the air, like a giant predator searching out a frightened hare. Slowly at first, but gaining speed with every heartbeat. Ashur held out as long as he could. Keeping calm had been the only thing that had ever helped. It at least delayed the pain at the end. His body shook, and his legs spasmed involuntarily. It was as if his body wanted to disobey his mind. After a little over seven seconds from the tendrils beginning their descent, he broke and ran. It was a new record.

Ashur jumped over an overturned cart as he ran away from the central column and toward the city limits. By his estimation, he had started at about the halfway point between the two. He glanced over his shoulder, and as always, the tendrils had reacted to him running. They sped after him, and overhead, more tendrils formed, faster than the first. He kept running, as fast as he could, ignoring open buildings. Hiding would not help him. The claws of the Wraithstorm always found him in the end.

As he passed a building decorated with murals depicting what he thought must be various foods, he thought he saw something, in the corner of his eyes. Something other than a tendril, moving behind the counter within.

What was that? Whatever it was, it was something new. He didn't remember anyone - or anything - else being alive before.

Distracted, he didn't notice a coil of rope adorned with colorful cloth triangles and flags along its length. His feet tangled in the rope and with a pained 'Oof!' he fell onto the cobbled street. He tried to push up from the ground and keep running, but he knew it was too late. He could hear screams of fear and people in pain. As red claws of light and ghostly vapor tore into his entire right side, filling his mind with an overwhelming burning sensation, one more voice joined the chorus of torment. He continued screaming for a few seconds after he awoke.