“Yes,” he took my hand. “But you have nothing to be afraid of. I’ll be right here until you’re finished. I won’t move. You’ll be tired, but nothing you see will hurt you.”
I looked into his eyes, mirror reflections of my own, though that was where our resemblance stopped, and braced myself. “So… what do I do when I walk in?”
“You’ll know.”
I paused. We stood there for what felt like an eternity. Finally, I took a deep breath and reached for the doorknob.
Entering the hallway was almost anticlimactic, given my nerves. I looked at Syrion before shutting the door behind me and looked around. It was just as I remembered it from a few months ago, only this time I didn’t feel quite so overwhelmed. My first visit had resulted in complete intoxication from the power of the Source, the unknown force that provided my Kings and me with our magic.
At first glance, the Floor of Dreams appeared to be simply a long hallway with a few doors on both sides. It almost looked like a fog drifted around the floor, only it wasn’t fog. It resembled the magic that emanated from Daath, Syrion, and me, and it churned over the stone floor, billowing in my direction. There was no physical sensation to it, but somehow I still felt it hit me like waves on a beach, rushing toward me the moment I entered.
I took a few steps forward, so that I was in the center of the hall, stirring the energy in the room. It seemed to vibrate around me. The moonstone on the walls glinted, and I could see my reflection in it between two doors. I stared at the purple hair, silver eyes, and quizzical expression in front of me.
“I have questions,” I said to the reflection of myself, nearly flinching when she didn’t open her mouth to speak along with me. “Can you answer them?”
The reflection tilted its head. Her demeanor looked serene, much calmer than I felt, but it did help me to relax.
“What do you want to ask?” The voice seemed to come from nowhere. I couldn’t narrow down a direction, just that it echoed through the hall around me and rang out in tandem with the mouth on the reflection speaking the same words.
“I want to know who’s responsible for hurting my family, and who helped Minerva.”
The reflection paused. I watched as she turned to the side so that I was looking at my profile; she began to walk in the direction of the door to her left and continued until she disappeared through the door frame. Without even considering it, I followed her. I didn’t hesitate to twist the doorknob and pull open the door. The doors seemed to be a darker moonstone, one that didn’t reflect figures as well.
When I opened the door, it looked like a solid wall was directly behind it. The moonstone seemed solid and unmoving, yet in the reflection, I could see myself, turned away so I was looking at my back, and she was walking away. Instinctively, I followed her. I made it about fifteen steps before I realized that I’d never hit the wall I thought I’d seen. The wall seemed nowhere in sight, but the figure before me somehow still appeared to be a stony reflection. Light glinted off her the way it did against moonstone.
The surrounding area seemed to shift. What had seemed to be a mostly white light began to fade to a light gray. I couldn’t explain why, but I began to feel uneasy and stopped walking. She stopped at the exact same time, as though she could see me, even though she still faced away from me.
The space around me felt infinite, but at the same time, I had the feeling I was nearing a ledge. “Are you going to show me?”
“I can’t,” she said, still turned away from me.
I felt my face contort into an expression of anger. The purple flames flared around me. “Why not?”
“It’s not your destiny.” The figure slowly shifted to turn, and I felt my pulse quicken. “You came to me to ask about a triviality.” This was the slowest rotation I’d ever seen, but I was thankful for it. It gave me time to prepare myself. “You have more important things to worry about.”
When her face was finally in view, I flinched. My skin was no longer normal, but instead, it was a sickly gray that matched the surrounding space. My eyes weren’t silver; they were white all the way through. I watched as the purple seemed to drip from my hair and melt into the air, giving way to the silver color I never let my hair have, which seemed to dull even further. My face was not only a different color; it was hollow, like what I assumed a corpse would look like.
“You fear me,” she said, the voice echoing in the space around me. I turned around quickly, trying to place where it came from, but I was unsuccessful. When I wheeled back around, she was a foot away from me. I stumbled backward and fell. She slowly knelt before me, offering a hand. “It’s not me you should fear. I am nothing bad.” It was almost… comforting. I took her hand, and she helped me up.
“Then what am I here for?”
Quite suddenly, she stepped to the side and yanked my arm, pulling me past her. The edge that I’d sensed earlier was there; though I couldn’t see exactly where the floor ended, I began to fall through it. The gray gave way to a red, and when I landed on the ground a moment later, I looked up to see Seattle, my home… almost.
I was in the parking lot of my apartment complex, but the complex itself wasn’t there anymore. Not entirely, at least. It looked as though it had collapsed in sections and been hit with a wrecking ball in others. My eyes immediately
