Ankyra Sound There are times that walk from you like some passing afternoon

Mom, he croaked. Raleska started, not really understanding. Her gaze drew back to Ephraim, clouded with confusion - what did she have to do with any of this?

And then it hit her - if she had just paid attention a little better - if she had just stepped out of her own convoluted mind a second, and really connected all the dots..

Her blood ran cold in a second.

A chill wrapped its icy talons around her heart, pulling it down past her sinking stomach, down deep and dark and cold..

A species of speculate horror mounted her yellow gaze, which drew abstractly from her brother down the throat of the grotto -- down where dark and deep, she knew...

She walked in slow motion, pushing past the hunched form of her displaced brother. Pushing past the narrow walls, down the corridor's tall shelf that once, neither Ephraim nor Rhakios had been able to clear (or she, for that matter ..). A flood of memories, of familiarity, accosted her senses -- but with them trickled something malodorous and stark against the soft scents of dampness, brine, and moss.

That scent cut through the air like noxious smoke: destructive and thickening, in a way that caused the hair along the back of her neck to prickle and her heartbeat to race. As she neared the chamber, her gaze fell to the small, reflective pool -- with its darting blue surface which hauntingly projected phosphorous blue along the cave walls.

And there, unmoving save for the flicker of blue light racing along its black form, was a shape  ---

She turned away instantly, quelling the cry that rose to her lips. Her eyes were clenched tight, a wracking sob of disbelief working from her taut jaws in a choke of terrible realization. That was no shape, no lurking wolf -- that was a body -- her mother's body.

Alarms in her head, ringing

the sound of waves crashing

screaming

the roar of the wind in the forest

Eurycrates --

the drum of her heart, should it be so slow? She was aware it sounded like a distant gong, a wardrum traveling thousands of miles. A lightheadedness spread out along her mind, and she was reeling. Her face flushed, burning, that ringing screaming roaring yelling --

Raleska whirled around, remembering Ephraim and his connection to here, to now. What did you do?! Her eyes accused, but at that moment the light inside those yellow irises became flat, and Raleska, shocked into a sudden disconnect with consciousness, slipped wordlessly to the ground besides Caiaphas.