The black void of oblivion rests on your eyes. You feel as if you have been swimming in it for a small eternity, like a baby in its womb. All of a sudden, the void rips open. Blinding angelic shine swarms your vision, like a light from the heavens. Figures present themselves towards you, perhaps the gods themselves, hailing you like the newborn child of Eden. Then, as if a great weight had been thrusted upon you, you suddenly start descending. Quite quickly, you realize.
As the clouds with their perfectly snow white sheen part to give way, there comes into view a great and majestic mountain. Its jagged and perfectly vertical peak seemingly touch the realm of the divine from whence thou camest. Crashing with a thunderous thud, your unharmed body shows no evidence of your crime of causing the massive crater where the once grand pillar of the world stood, reduced to mere rubble.
A whirlwind of emotions fluxes through your mind: a twinge of melancholy for what you did, a sense of nostalgia seeping as the structure felt familiar, but most of all a feeling of dread on what all had occurred in just the past half minute. From utter darkness to radiant brilliance to shattering what looked like a wonder of the world by crashing into it headfirst. As an eerie silence threatens to settle in, a voice calls out. An awfully familiar one.
"So you are heading to Solarspike, are you? When did my little brother get so big?", the voice seemed to say with a giggle at the end.
"It will not be an easy feat Johann. You will have to trek for days to reach the tower of the gods. You may feel like giving up on ever reaching it. Just remember what I always told you, won't you?", the voice asked.
"Yes Edith!", another voice cries out. You gasp inaudibly in horror as you realize they are coming from you.
"I shall sing the song you taught me to keep me company and relish the delicious food you made for me. A happy stomach and a happy mind will make any griff smile.", you continue to speak. A salty taste—the first thing you tasted since coming 'here'—enters your mouth. You realize you have been crying.
"Very good Johann! Always remember, no matter what, a griff's best friend in times of need is a smile. If you can keep smiling, you will get through any thing life throws at you. Because if you can remain happy, then the problems were never problems to begin with. Just mere stepping stones to your destination."
The voices stop. You try to cry out, but no voices escape from you this time. Your mouth quivers, on the verge of a breakdown, as you realize you know this place. The voice—Edith— said so.
"Solarspike."
You startle at the sound, your mouth seeming to work again for a brief moment. Yes, what you crashed into—as you descended from above—was indeed Solarspike. The beacon of the gods. The home of the Griffons. Your destination.
You were meant to come here. To pray for your family. For your village.
For your sister.
As the ramifications of your garbled memories set in, you suddenly get the urge to return.
Return...where?
Home.
As you try to wrack your brain due to this sudden bi-polarity, your legs move on your own. As if you were not quite in your own body, but in a younger, nimbler one.
You sprint down a path, the crater of your design disappearing behind you beyond the horizon, the scenery starting to shift. Lone stretches of arid planes and empty fields give way to houses and sheds, the beginnings of a village. You recognize this as your home.
As you slow to a halt, you feel—for the first time—a cool splat on your beak. It was raining, yet the rain was anything but ordinary. The drop on your beak was a dark maroon, and it oozed the smell of rotten eggs. Really rotten eggs.
You look up. The rain picks up speed. The winds howl in your face. They howl in your ears. But nothing howls more than the silent thumps of your heart against your chest. Even as the rain pours down on you, forming intricate patterns upon the curves of your face and beak as it washes down your face, you do not blink. The sky has turned a crimson red, the blood soaked rain is heavy with the smell of sulphur; threatening to choke anyone that chooses to remain under this artillery from Tartarus itself.
And yet, you do no budge. You do not need to, and you tense up melancholically at that. This has already happened, you think. I survived this, you realize.
As you refocus your gaze on your home, your legs pick up again. This time, you are not surprised. Rather, you are terrified. You remember where this is going to lead. You know you will see her again, if only wrapped in the arms of Boreas.
At peace, with a smile on her face.
Just an arms length away as you fall to your knees.
So far away.
Up ahead in the distance, the lone grizzled visage of the statue of Grover I marks the city of Griffonstone, his proudly admonishing gaze like a challenge to your suffering. As if the bombardment of nature was on his orders; such was his power felt.
Fresh tears start to descend from your eyes, but they jerk to a hold when your irises inadvertently blink hard. Another blinding light seems to rip right through this godforsaken memory. Another voice speaks up, this time a grown male griff speaking in a calm rustle of a voice, as if trying to wake up a chicken. Everything seems to be happening backwards than it did at the start: you lift towards the heavens again as you feel a sense of drowsiness seep through your body; as if this state of gestation from earlier and now is like a gate between the world within and the world outside.
As you begin to return to the land of the living, you take a final gander at the crumbled houses below, the full destruction of your village and Griffonstone visible. You realize with a convulsive shudder that this will not be the last time you will relive this nightmare again.