“Most of you mortals have refused this offer. 'Come to my realm and I will show the threads that you mortals call life. The threads that each of you follow every night and day. I'm one of the Masters who help you follow your thread.' That was the offer. All, but one, has refused me. Let him explain to you who I am. I am not just a master. I am the one who you feel near you daily. You fear me”. echoes a voice in your head. It fills you with dread and fright.

Am I dead? The thought recoiled from Lingorn as he pondered it. All he could recall was a vivid image and voices whispering. The image was dark. It was a scarlet stained dagger plunging to him. In the background there were waving pines and aspens. They were fluttering in the breeze freely. The sky told a story that differed from the trees’. A tempest was in the process of beginning. The clouds were dark but the rain was light. The rain pounded fiercer and fiercer. A girl’s voice trembled in his ears. “Don’t leave me, Lingorn!”

The other voice belonged to a boy Lingorn’s age, around seventeen, it was rich and deep, “He’s dead. He is dead. We must keep going. Leave him. We have to leave him.” Other than those two voices, Lingorn’s mind was blank like a empty canvas that had once bore multiple colors. No other memories were ensnared in his branches of contemplation. No breeze of earlier events called to him. Lingorn didn’t even know where he was. All he knew was his name was Lingorn. He was a boy of almost seventeen and that was the extent of his knowledge.

Lingorn slowly sat up. He was bathed in a bright light that swirled around him when he moved. The light followed him with ease. If he lifted his arm, the light would coil around it. When he inspected the brightness with a keener eye, he was astounded to see that the brightness’ source was his inspire robe that was draped around him like a flowing river.

Around him, Lingorn saw a blackening thread traveling it’s way through his robe to his heart. The surrounding was an eerie azure shade that had shadows that were ashen like dead embers. Sections of the thread were blue like his surroundings, and others were just as black. He jerked his chest to the left. The thread followed flawlessly. Where’s the other end? He pondered. It was odd enough having the thread following his heart, but now he wanted to the know the beginning of the thread. Lingorn swung his head around to survey the area in whole, it could serve as a hint to where the thread was coming from.

Lingorn appeared to be sitting on some form of blue sand. It had sediments of the rock above the surface. If he contributed pressure onto the sediments, the sand-like grains would give way to a pure blue stone. Lingorn sensed a resistance from the blue stone. It was a pure evening blue with black streaks that webbed it’s face. White streaks, green streaks and violet streaks of all shades fanned out from beneath the black.

At certain locations in the stone, it’s face grew lighter and in others, it darkened. The majority was an evening blue. In the spots that the stone shown brighter, some small, shimmering tufts of a grass looking plant sprouted. The blades of grass shone sky blue and gleaming with a slight glow. One throng of the plants resided directly under Lingorn’s shadow. He stretched a trembling hand out to greet the mysterious grass. When Lingorn breached it, the grass gleamed a blinding white. It glowed like the moon.

Lingorn drew his hand away. The glowing halted and the grass resumed it’s beautiful, blue, aloofness. Minute stones around the grasses surrounded them in a star-like formation. The stones were curious specimens. They reflected light, yet they were hardly visible. Almost like they were solid water droplets.

To his right, nine footsteps away, there grew monumental clusters of the plant that loomed high above him. The blades were thin like the smaller grasses’ blades.They thrived around the edge of the clearing, noted Lingorn. Except on one side. On that side, directly before him, twenty footsteps away, splashed a waterfall.
It flowed from a shadowed crevasse in the azure wall of the clearing, which, Lingorn realized, were stone as well. The water fell in minuscule, round, crystal-like bubbles of water. Each glistened. The pool they descended into was clear of any debris or filthiness. The waves were tinted with the moon-like light that glistened from every object. It’s shores were splashed with water as it’s spray pounded against the stone.

Lingorn gazed upward. The sky (or ceiling) was pure black. The walls seemed to measure from sky blue to the darkest blue, starting with the lightest wandering at the bottom. In the shadows, orbs of the white light floated overhead like bobbing stars in the sea. There were twelve of them to be exact. Every one of them seemed to be a new moon that glowed with the same blinding white gleam. They almost reminded Lingorn of a glowing path in the sky.

Sometimes the lights would circle each other, never ceasing, while others simply floated in the air like suspended flames. Two lights pursued each other around the others with dizzying speed and grace, leaping over some and nimbly dodging others.

The thread was connected to the vast blackness that enveloped the top of the clearing. It lingered there like a dark storm cloud.

Still in the process of comprehending what was happening, Lingorn swiped at the thread. His hand passed through it as if it were mist. Pain. He felt his chest be crushed under an unseen force. His breath faltered as Lingorn gasped for a wisp of air. His vision faded into a darkness. The blue area dissipated. In in one moment his panic went away. The blue was back. What just transpired? Wondered Lingorn.

“I wouldn’t do that, Lingorn.” Rumbled an unseen figure. Lingorn leapt into the air. He had become so accustomed to the soft thunder of the descending water that the voice had greatly startled him. His heart flipped and pulsed quicker than it ever had.

Lingorn stood, trembling, on his feet. The figure was no where. There was no doorway into the clearing other than the mouth of the waterfall.

“Up here, foolish boy.” The voice was deep and rich and it echoed around the cavern with astounding force.

Lingorn switched his gaze to the black ceiling. The orbs of light had stopped dancing. In the center of the darkness, there grew a minute blue light, it shifted shades like the stone and threads.

“Wh-who are you?” inquired Lingorn. He wasn’t one to be frightened by the unknown, but that display of unusualness formed qualms in Lingorn that terrified him. He was routed to the spot.

“Fear is natural for those who set the eyes upon me or my power, but you haven't seen me yet.”

“Hello reader, this is where Lingorn meets me in all my power. I thought you ought to know that it is me so you’re not thinking your mortal life away. Also, most who encounter me in person do feel fear, for you mortals are always afraid of the unknown and unusual, no matter how hard you try and conceal it. As a master at the unusual and unknown, I’m familiar to that reaction from mortals.

You shall also read many interceptions from me, and I never waste my breathe.” whispers the voice in your head.

“I’m n-not frightened!” protested Lingorn. He felt frozen to the spot.

“Brave words for one so lost.” echoed the voice once again.

The blue light in the center of the dark mist drifted in circles. Tranquilly getting lower and lower with out making so much as a whisper. When Lingorn could see it gliding out of the cloud towards him, he instinctively whipped his right hand to his left hip. His hand attempted to snatch at something that wasn’t there. It was as if he was trying to grab a sword that’s hilt had once been there. A sword? I don’t remember a sword. I don’t remember anything except the image and the voices, but I still seem to still have my instincts. I wonder what my blade looked like. Did it gleam? Was it a mere dagger? Lingorn contemplated.

“Distracting yourself won’t work today Lingorn, you must face me.”

Distracting myself? I suppose thinking of my lost sword made me lose a little fear of this strange phenomenon. realized Lingorn.

“You’re correct.”

“You’re reading my thoughts?” exclaimed Lingorn.

“More or less, but we’ll get to that later. Just allow me to finish my descent.”

The circling blue light eventually climbed low enough so that it was going around Lingorn in a wide circle. It gradually began to slow. It was a lucky thing Lingorn didn’t get dizzy and faint because when the figure appeared out to the blue Lingorn almost did.

“Yes, reader, the figure is me.” booms the voice. It’s loud and terrifying. You feel yourself shake.

The figure was clad in a pure black tunic with white trousers and black sandals. The man had skin that was blinding white like the lights in the black mist and it glowed with the evening blue that entombed the clearing. He was a short twig of a man and he terrified Lingorn. Lingorn frowned as he attempted to fight his fear.

The man laughed eerily. It flooded the clearing with the fear that Lingorn fought in his heart.

“Most don’t have the courage to battle Fear. You have a good heart, and I don’t sense Courage here.”

“What? Who are you?” Lingorn stared into the man’s violet eyes. His pupils looked like separate moons. He had midnight black hair that was smooth but slightly spiked in the front.

“I never reveal my name, but you may call me Fear.”

The name Fear matched him perfectly. With Fear their came a cloud of fear.

“Why do you talk of fear and courage like there....like there....”

“Things that you don’t just feel?”

“Yes.”

“Because, the Fear I’m talking about is inspired by me and my siblings. I’m Fear and there’a also Courage, Bliss, Fury and more. My siblings and I play with mortals emotion to aid them-”

“Aid them? How do you know you’re aiding them correctly?”

Fear ambled over to a spot where the stone shown brightest.

“These threads that you are able to see in this stone are courses of mortal’s lives. The colors on the threads are where I’ve interfered. If their black, I haven't touched that section of their lives. The slim white streaks that almost no one can spot are where the mortal is at in their life.” Fear strode towards Lingorn. “Now, you can’t see the faults in the threads, but their there. Let’s take yours for example.” Fear dashed to Lingorn. “Right here,” Fear held the thread delicately so his hand didn’t pass through it. My hand passed through my life. Thought Lingorn with a jolt. “is where your thread losses width, the thread thins, which means that you went off course right here, your life was off course.” That section of the thread was pure black and the following was a minty green.

“Ah, Bliss interfered right here, she did a good job with her meddling.”

Lingorn grimaced, there was something haunting about the fact that the people like Fear were watching his life go by, and interfering with it. Yet he accepted it.

Fear’s eyes flared, “Now Courage is interfering.” Fear locked eyes with Lingorn, “It takes courage to accept.” Lingorn gazed at his thread as it burned gold for a moment.

“Beings like me encourage emotion to help you, I invited you here to introduce you to this concept because you have a difficult path ahead of you. Mainly because of your memory problem.”

“You know my past?’

“Yes,” Fear held up his hand, “don’t ask me to tell you, I won’t.”

In the background a large thundering sound interrupted Lingorn’s next inquiry. What could’ve created that type of a din? Panicked Lingorn. Fear hissed something under his breathe.

“We must hasten, time is not going to be here long. You have time to ask me one more question, but then I must deliver you to the real world for up here in my realm in the sky, you belong not. You’re also awakening.” Fear stated.

“I’m here in my mind?”

“Yes-”

“Why is my thread connected that large cloud of black mist?”

Fear grimaced as the sound grew deafening, “I said one question, you fool!” he roared, his eyes grew wild, “If you must know it’s because my power of Fear is stored up there! Now, Awake!” He snapped his fingers above him and drew a circle in the air. A blackness followed his hand until it became a whole circle. Fear then forced the blackness at Lingorn.

Lingorn felt himself fall backwards as the scene around him dissolved. The blueness flew up around him. He felt as if he had attempted to cut through his thread with a rock. He snapped his eyes shut as he sensed something nearing him.

“And now, reader, you shall fall into the footsteps of Lingorn. You will tread his path with him. You shall know all.” echoes Fear.