The Fade

All Angela knew was everything became dark all around her. Then she was here. But where was here? She shivered as she noticed she was both cold and naked. She wrapped her arms around herself as she went into the fetal position. Out of nowhere, a bright light suddenly appeared like a beacon of hope. She got up, still shivering, and headed toward the light.

Things started to take shape, and she realized she was in a deep, dark tunnel, or cave, heading for what ever it was that had lit her path way up ahead. On she stumbled until finally she reached the mouth of the hole she had found herself in.

The light she saw was no ordinary light. It was a sun that was slowly rising over what appeared to be a beautiful and lush place with green rolling hills, strange but beautiful trees, and a clear, babbling spring that meandered along an endless, set path. She decided to follow the path, just to see where it led to.

On she followed the trail and the spring, over the rising hills to a grove of strange looking trees. She felt something was strange about the trees. It was almost like they were living, breathing entities in themselves. They had an air of intelligence, sentience, and being.

She stood there at the end of the path, right on the edge of the grove, when the trees suddenly parted and an old man with long, flowing white hair and beard stepped out to greet her.

"Welcome Angela," he bowed. "I have been expecting you for a very long time."

"You know me?" She shifted uncomfortably because of her nudity.

"Yes my dear. I know you," his kindly voice soothed. "I am what you would call your great grandfather. I have watched you from here for quite some time, helplessly watching as you cried at the hands of your father because of his most despicable acts. I am here to help you, not hurt you."

"How can you help me if you say you helplessly watched me? I don't understand."

The old man took a few steps forward, and took the naked girl into his arms, and pulled her close. "Believe me when I say, I cried every tear you cried with you. You may have felt my presence as warm tingles in the aftermath of what befell you. But you are here now, and I can help you. You must soon go back, and you must fight the darkness that is closing in around you and others, or you will all be doomed to serve that darkness for eternity."

"But how do I fight it?" she asked. "I know it's real, because I sensed it when daddy took me through the front doors of the asylum."

"Dear, sweet Angela. You came from a long line of Druids. Certainly you've felt two opposing forces inside you, struggling for mastery over your very soul?"

"I guess I have."

The old man pulled a medallion from around his neck, and put it in Angela's hand. "This is yours. It will go back with you. Keep it secret. Keep it safe. It holds all the knowledge you need to defeat the darkness. but now it's time for you to go, for the entity which now possesses your body is weakening. Go now, and remember I have always loved you."

There was so much she didn't understand, so many things she wanted to ask this man who claimed to be her great grandfather. But she felt herself being pulled away to somewhere else, and she knew her time here was up as she slipped into the darkness again.