It wasn?t the first night Jewell suffered from nightmares, far from it, and it certainly wouldn?t be the last. She probably should have warned Skyler that she was prone to them?had always been prone to them since she was a little girl?when they started sleeping together. It would have been a well-deserved warning; she was known to get violent at times, cry out at others, and cling to the one she was with as if they were the only thing keeping her head above water. It was just one of the many inconsequential details of her life she forgot to mention.

The worst part about her nightmares was that they could be incredibly vivid and realistic.

She started out walking the streets of RhyDin alone, although they were sparkling clean and shined like the sandstone buildings of her home world; it smelled like her home world too, tangy salt from the surrounding sea thick in the air. She used to love that smell and the way the moisture made her blue curls go wild. She wasn?t savoring either of those at the moment, however. Instead, she was very much aware of the feeling of being alone, so much so that she paused in the middle of a wide busy street and looked about for familiar faces.

People that she knew so well looked her straight in the eye and kept walking: Brian, Alex?Cher. She reached out for them, one after another, only to have them easily pull from her grasp as others in the crowd jostled her further away. She finally stopped trying as again and again they passed her by, joined with family members new and old?Gene, Wyheree, Thyme, Icer, Woody, Midara, Isuelt, even some of her children. They completely ignored her cries at times, sending her cold glares and uttering disdainful words at others.

She allowed the crowd to knock into her and push her around until she finally fell, no one reaching out to catch her before she hit the ground. She didn?t take anyone down with her, not this time.

Jewell wasn?t sure how long she remained on the ground; people continued to pass her by, stepping on her, kicking her, knocking into her. The world started to blur and grow darker, the bright sandstone fading into the dirty bricks of the West End and the crowd thinning out until finally she was well and truly alone.

The figure turned towards her as she stood there, gaping. Wrapped in a cloak, the body was androgynous and the face shadowed. Jewell, however, was not focused on the figure as much as whom the figure held aloft?Skyler. He was obviously dead to her experienced eyes, the coloring of his face as the figure choked him a good enough indication of that. He was bleeding from so many cuts on his body that one glance did not allow her to count them all; one, in particular, was easily notable, though?the inverted Scales of Justice carved into his chest.

Despite the shadowed face, she somehow knew the figure was grinning at her as it tossed Skyler?s body to the ground. It was only then, as she cried out upon watching him fall, that she noticed what else now littered the ground. They alley was thick with the bodies of her loved ones?mutilated, desecrated, torn apart. Some were beyond recognition. A scream asphyxiated her, stuck in her throat, as she stumbled backwards, looking for escape.

Her back pressed against a wall, the alley having closed up behind her. She continued to try and back up into it, through it, as the figure approached. Her hands curled back against the covered brick, nails digging through the blood dripping down. She shook her head ?no? as the figure stopped before her, towered above her. She stared up at it, tears obscuring her vision as it wrapped its hand around her neck and lifted her off the ground.

It slammed her back against the blood-covered wall and, despite the dizziness from such a blow and the tears falling rapidly from her eyes, she could now see its face. It didn?t have one face, but many: Laufeia, Eddie, Reeni, Serena, Umrae, even Jenai, Trixie, and Issy. The words of Kristia?offering up the possibility that the murderer was amongst them?came back to haunt her in the night, to strangle the life out of her.

As she felt the spark of life fade from her, the last face she saw the figure wear was Isuelt?s.

She awoke with a jolt, covered in a cold sweat and gasping for breath as if she had really been strangled. She reached up to touch her throat tentatively, and then her face, which was wet with still falling tears.