When he opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was that he was not where he had been. Then he noticed the scorching heat. Blazing fire seared his bare skin, and he already felt himself begin to sweat from exposure to the oppressive heat. He moved to sit up and froze.

There was nothing underneath him.

He stared down into the endless expanse below, blinking as he realized he was floating in empty space--horridly hot space, yes, but devoid of anything but him. He closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, fully expecting vertigo to claim him at any moment. When the impending dizziness didn't come, he opened his eyes again and took a look around. Despite how hot it was, he could see nothing around him, with void at even the farthest expanse. He rubbed his eyes once more, but he still didn't see anything.
Deciding that there was only one thing he could do, he attempted to move forward. After a few futile attempts to step forward, he paused and reconsidered.

"What am I going to do?" he asked himself, a slight blush on his cheeks as he imagined how silly he had looked attempting to walk forward with no ground. But if he couldn't move... He didn't want to simply wait here; he wanted to explore, maybe even find a way out.

To do that, he had to move--move forward.

And, to his shock, he did.

His body, as if responding to his unvoiced desires, began to float forward at a steady pace. Quickly figuring that it was his own willpower which kept in motion, he mindlessly continued his path, until he felt something tickle his senses. Turning almost unconsciously toward the feeling, he began to float in that direction, going faster and faster when urgency struck at him. Ahead of him, he thought he could see something... A faint glimmer in the distance? He wasn't sure, but whatever it was, it broke the monotony of the empty space and thus became his goal.

He sped toward the light, which grew in both range and intensity as he drew nearer. The temperature shot to a blistering heat, but, through the light, he thought he could see a way out.

When he burst through the light, it was a sensory overload. After so long with the only sounds being the shifting of his boxers over his legs and his soft breaths, the only thing to see being himself and the light, and the only thing to feel being the heat. Now, he could taste sharper than ever the air which passed onto his tongue--dry and air with a bitter tang which was far sweeter than nothing. He could feel the heat which managed to scorch him, but he could also feel the chilling embrace of the passing night wind. He could hear the roaring of the sands as they churned in the winds' wake, and the song of sealed magma sang to him. Superheated air stung his nose, but with it he could smell the scents of life which the air would always carry unless the world itself was dead.

He felt--everything.

And then it went wrong.

His throat began to constrict in pain as a feeling indescribable swamped his entire body. A beauty akin to the trill of phoenix song shot through him, closely followed by a malicious flash, spreading cursed fire through his veins. The pungent smell of sulfur filled his nose, causing him to gasp desperately for breath, even as the taste of raw coals covered his tongue. Gagging, he closed his eyes against searing hot pinpricks of light as every one of his nerves fired in response to the inferno which burned his skin and ravaged his flesh, boiling even the sweat which attempted to cool him down.

He lost all control of his movements, and his body gravitated toward the semi-dormant volcano. With decreased distance, the pain exponentially increased until he thought he was going to die from the torture he currently experienced. He could barely breathe, and he would have clawed at his throat if not for the fact that he couldn't even move a finger unless it was to spasm uncontrollably.

The pain grew and grew until it seemed to hit a breaking point--and then a soft voice murmured over him, and the phoenix's voice sang once more to let the pain fade away. But he still couldn't move--his body shook from phantom tremors of pain which it still thought he was feeling, paralyzed by the remnants of the intense pain. He mustered the strength to open his eyes--and they remained open wide in response to what he saw once his vision cleared.

Hovering over the mouth of the volcano were thirteen figures, twelve arranged in a perfect circle around the last, who swung at the air alternatively quickly and slowly with a ceremonial knife. Each of the twelve figures acted as vertices to a complicated webbing of lines, all surrounded by two concentric circles with symbols glowing eerily in the space between. Faintly, with half-lidded eyes which shifted in and out of focus, he thought he could see something in the air shimmer, twisting and turning under the will of an expert maestro performing a world-class concert.

His eyes finally snapped into focus when the low murmuring of the figures ascended to a bursting crescendo, and figure in the middle sheathed his knife. For a moment, everything was still--and then he felt the phoenix song again, this time crying out in deep pain. Space warped around the glimmering lines as they bent and twisted around themselves, dragging something out of the hollowed innards of the volcano. Slowly, a sphere of pure red light was forced above the circle until it was trapped in a clear prison. The golden lines formed an icosahedron, a three-dimensional shape with twenty triangular sides, inside which the red light was caged. Despite how it fought, whether by smashing into the sides which released bursts of light when hit or by releasing flashes of light which caused all of the sides to shine violently, it could not escape--and, on a deep, visceral level, he felt that the imprisonment was wrong.

The figure in the center took the caged light into a clothed hand, and, though he could not see the face hidden by a hood, he could tell there was a smirk on those lips. He would have shivered if he could have.

"At last," came the quiet whisper which echoed in the near silence of the dim night, "I have it. The four lights," with the opening of a hand, the icosahedron was surrounded by three more cages, a tetrahedron with four triangles holding a blue light, a cube holding a green light, and an octahedron with eight triangles containing a yellow light, "are mine after all these years. I can finally complete my task. Let the Old Ones walk the Earth once more!"

The cages, now in close proximity, seemed to flash brighter and brighter as the prisoners redoubled their attempts to escape. The central figure began to laugh loudly at the futile attempts to flee, but, as he watched, he knew that it was not over yet--that nothing would stop the lights, and then he realized that it was just about to end. When the center moved to do something, an almighty flash erupted from his hands, and he looked into the distance as the four lights spiraled away.

A snarl came as the twelve figures began to chant again, falling through an empty disc in space with the thirteenth following. When the disc closed, he righted himself and looked around.

Taking a deep breath to calm his aching lungs, he asked himself, "What am I supposed to do now?"

Before he could contemplate what he should do with what he had seen--as well as how to leave--something, an unknown force, crashed into him, and he was pushed away from the sea of sands. As he spiraled away, he thought he could see the edges of the desert waver and fragment, leaving only black in its wake as shards of reality fell into black. Before the destruction could reach him, he was again inside the nothingness, this time without control of his own motion. Spinning around and around with no means to right himself, he was pushed toward another shining light, just like the one from before. Despite the spinning world around him, however, he could see that he was not alone. There were also three other people with him, two female and one male. He couldn't make out their features, but their vivid eyes were something he would always remember--one, a piercingly cold set of blue with warmth hidden deep, another, a soft pair of brown covering a core of steel, and, the final, a familiar olive shade shining from within with purity. As he began to muster an attempt to speak, or, quite frankly, shout, to them, the light engulfed them, and all went to white and then faded to black before he was even able to utter a scream.

One last word went through his head before he lost everything.

Tetheia.

This message was edited by DivineMagic on Mar 09 2008.

Part 1

The vivid light of sunrise glimmered behind tall buildings, casting a myriad oranges and reds across half of the darkened sky. The ending days of summer still held its sway over the city, despite the quickly cooling weather, so the air remained warm despite the occasional chilly wind. It was that warmth which led him to wear shorts on this day.

He raised a tanned hand to distinctly Asian features, stifling a yawn which threatened to escape from his strongly-defined jaw line. Holding onto the bar above him one-handed, he shifted his light backpack around, repositioning it so as to be more comfortable against his t-shirt-covered torso. He raised his hand again to rub at one dark, almost black eye to shake the residual sleepiness out of it, and he then brushed on his way back his only unusual feature--rich brown hair which fell in soft spikes, uncommon to his racial lineage.

Sighing to himself, he watched the passing scenery with unseeing eyes. He was still numb from sleep; his move from New York had been a somewhat chaotic affair, and he'd pulled many late nights to get things done, both there and here. He was only now settling into his new home, and many of his things were still inside boxes. With his new house, however, also came his new sleeping arrangement. Boston's nocturnal sounds were entirely different from those of his old home, and he was still adjusting to the unfamiliarity of the night. He could no longer trust the soothing songs of the cicada to help him drift off into sleep, and the utter silence of his new home left him hyperaware at night until finally his body collapsed from tiredness. This time, however, he managed to get a decent amount of rest the night before, but he still woke up tired, with his head pounding and his body covered with sweat, though he could not remember what he had dreamed about to evoke such a strong unconscious reaction.

He let the cool metal of the bars draw him out of his reverie as a sharp note reached his ears, and he looked up to see the bus approach a stop. He followed the other students out, assuming correctly that they attended the same school he would be. When his eyes found his new school, his breath caught in his throat and his jaw nearly dropped in complete and utter awe.

His old one had been somewhat on the small side, with only one building (however large it was) and little free land which the parking lot or the building itself did not take. It was also rather old, though not depilated, and, despite newer improvements, still showed its age. His new school was easily beat out his old one in terms of size and grandeur. Instead of one building with two floors, he was met with a sprawling complex of three buildings with much space in between them--easily more campus than his old one had. There was even a large courtyard full of benches, trees, and grass--like a small park--on the grounds which gave an aura of a miniature college. Students milled around the courtyard, with some entering each of the buildings, but he decided to wait outside for some signal. Finding a nice, somewhat secluded spot beneath a tree, he sat down, unmindful of the grass, and leaned against the cool bark. Lulled by the quiet murmurs of the surrounding students which were punctuated occasionally by loud exclamations, he drifted off when a light breeze blew across him, tickling his skin faintly.

He was abruptly returned to reality when a loud, piercing bell--one which overrode the general chatter and matched even the loudest of shouts in volume--rang throughout the courtyard. As the students began to file into the buildings at alternating speeds, he rose and snagged one of the students who looked to be about his age, hoping that he could be helped by this one.

"Excuse me," he asked in a voice deepened by puberty, slightly husky but colored by both confidence and kindness, "but do you know where Mr. Hyne's office is?"

A girl just a few inches shorter than his five foot eight stature turned and looked at him with hazel eyes highlighted by her glasses. Shoulder-length black hair wavered as she moved, and it was with a soft voice accented by traces of an Asian language that she said, "His office is in the Animus building." Taking note of the confusion which crossed his face, she elaborated, "It's the one with the blackish doors."

Having seen it on the way here, he nodded once and thanked her. She waved him off and gave him a soft smile before walking away, catching up with several friends as she did so. He made his way toward the aforementioned building, slipping into the open doors and taking in the subtle hues of brown within. After asking a passing faculty member which way it was to Mr. Hyne, he walked up several flights of stairs and down a couple halls until he found the appropriate room. He knocked on the aged wooden door, calling out, "Excuse me?"

"Please come in."

When he entered the small, somewhat cramped office, he noted with a flash of pity that there were papers piled high in several stacks on one of the two desks in the room. One was right next to a Caucasian man, whose hair was more white than brown, and it was obvious that he'd been interrupted in processing paperwork. This man looked at him expectantly. "Yes?"

It didn't take long for him to explain his situation, and soon he was on his way, class schedule in one hand and map in the other. The map, however, was proving to be extremely frustrating, simply because it was not at all helpful in its sole purpose. As he stood there, trying to make heads or tails of the complex map, one of the passing students took pity on him.

"Your homeroom's two flights down and three doors to the left," came the light voice, shy yet friendly. Akira glanced at the boy who looked over at him, short, black hair framing soft brown eyes which tickled at the edges of his memory and summoned a sense of déjà vu, but he couldn't quite grasp the reason why. Offering a smile, the boy added, "It's my best friend's homeroom and the second I memorized. Now get going." With a grin tossed his way, the boy turned and shouted, "Leon, wait up!" before dashing off, leaving him with a thanks stilled on his lips.

Shrugging, he followed the advice, and he eventually came upon a door with his homeroom emblazoned on a plate attached to the wood. Pausing briefly to gather his nerves, he entered and was instantly the focused attention of everyone inside. Clearing his throat, he said to the teacher, an elderly man who paradoxically excluded the auras of a paternal grandfather and a stern taskmaster, "I'm a new transfer student assigned to this homeroom." Instantly murmurs sprung up as the teacher double-checked and confirmed this with his roster, he continued, "I'm supposed to look for Adriana Vestum."

A voice from the back spoke up. "I'm Adriana." A girl at the back stood, only an inch or two shorter than him, with long blonde hair falling to her waist. She move a hand through her bangs, revealing cold blue eyes which, again, tickled at his memory, though there was nothing he could recall with clarity. She stepped away from her seat, and he caught sight of a green shirt beneath a short-sleeved, unbuttoned blouse as she moved. "What do you need?"

He gave her a soft smile, tinged with a bit of anxiety which he couldn't contain. "You're supposed to help me around the school; I share all of your classes."

A raven-haired boy with jade-colored eyes jabbed her in the back, and she smacked herself in the head. Offering a slight smile toward him, she answered, "I'm sorry, I forgot that I was assigned that duty. Your seat is next to mine." Then she paused and cocked her head to the side. "Um, what's your name? They only told me that I'd know."

He took a deep breath, gulping down his anxiety and compressing it inside his stomach. He met her gaze, brown matching with blue, and the two beheld each other as equals. He introduced himself strongly and clearly for the entire class to hear.

"My name is Akira, Akira Hitatsu."