• The figure said nothing. He merely loomed, staring me down with eyes made invisible by the wide brim of his oddly-shaped hat. It kind of looked like a cross between a witch's and wizard's hat, only there were no stars or buckles (yes, I know, I had watched far too many cartoons). The rest of his outfit only added to the perceived motif, some kind of long tunic or robe thing that stretched down to his feet, covered by fur boots not unlike my own. And maybe it was a little immature of me, but I couldn't help but think of him as looking like a wizard, like Gandalf from Lord of the Rings or something! Especially that hat….

    "I would suggest that you put any amusing thoughts about my hat out of your head, right now," he said in a low baritone.

    How did he do that?!

    "Hey," I said, my amusing thoughts fleeing, remembering just how uneasy the situation was. "Just who are you?"

    "That is not important, for now."

    "I'd beg to differ," I snapped, getting a little angry. The built-up feelings and frustration over the confusion of the past day's events were beginning to leak out, and I did not relent. "Listen, guy, those freakish birds of yours? Yeah, they have been giving me hell…."

    One of said freakish birds emphasized this with a caw and wing-spread hop in my direction, to which I responded with a short, threatening body-lunge of my own. Though the bird did not seem deterred by this, it was, however, quickly pacified with a wave of the man's hand.

    "My ravens," he stated, patiently. "My ravens were merely trying to guide you."

    Sure, right, 'guide me,' guide me right off a cliff if they had the chance. The look on my face must have been evidence enough of my skeptical confusion, but from what I could see of his face, the man's expression did not register any disappointment or frustration in this. His mouth, which was mostly hidden by a long beard, white as the snow around us (I'm telling you, he really looked like a wizard!), barely twitched as he raised one long arm from his side toward the west.

    "Tell me Theodore," he said (Uh huh, sure, of course freaky wizard guy knew my name). "What do you see?"

    Now I had just gone through nearly two weeks filled with homesickness, fighting classmates, Luke's pranks, and a great big nightmare fest so vivid that I could feel my near-frozen toes squishing the snow-slush in my fur boots. Needless to say, I wasn't in the mood to play I-Spy with a creepy old guy who kept dangerous animals as pets, and sent them forth to stalk teenage boys.

    "Why don't you tell me?" I demanded.

    "I already know."

    "Well then I guess you don't exactly need to be asking!"

    "But you do."

    "I do!" I threw my arms up in the air with exasperation. "And I gladly shall! First of all, guide me to or from what? Second, just what about all these messed up dreams I've been having?! I've seen people die in them! What-"

    He held up a hand, and by some deeply-buried reverence, I stopped talking. Somehow, despite not having any real reason to hold a respect for this man, something knotted in the pit of my guy, something instinctive that said, 'When this dude says to shut up, you better shut up.' I didn't like it, but I begrudgingly obeyed it.

    After a brief moment to collect his thoughts, the man spoke: "Do you still have the rune?"

    "The rune?"

    I patted around my pre-modern attire, seeing if it could possibly have any pockets or bags to keep my tiny piece of the bathroom ceiling that had been carved with thurs in. Slowly, I stopped, and in a dreamy Mesmer, pulled a balled-up hand away the spot on my heart where it had come to in the search. I uncurled my fingers, and there sat the rune rock in my palm, giving off a tingly glow.

    Looking up confusedly, I nearly jumped a foot back; the man had silently appeared up close in front of me.

    He was tall, very all, surpassing me by two feet at the least, and I could easily be described as above average height myself. No longer did I feel his expression burning into me, the intensity in his face had cooled, reduced to a heartbreaking mixture of melancholy, long-awaited relief, seriousness, a tinge of happiness… and a faint ghost of fear.

    A sigh escaped him, a sound akin to that of waves crashing against sea rocks. It was long and tired, rushing through his entire body, from the heave of his shoulders, and out to the arm that gently bended my fingers back over the rune and pushed it close to me.

    I was looking up at him with wide, lost eyes, cast in a spell of wonder and expectation. No words could form from my lips, I could only look on with sympathy and confusion, feeling like a young child watching their parent weep openly in front of them.

    But no tears ran down his cheeks, he seemed almost hardened to the ability. Again, he straightened his stature and looked to the west. "Child," he said. "What do you see?"

    "The sun," I answered quietly.

    "The sun," he nodded. His half-hidden features lifted up into an almost-smile, probably glimmering at some nostalgic memory. "Orb, Dvalin's Delight. Ever Bright, Fair Wheel, All Glowing."

    One eye peaked at from behind his hat, and I could have sworn he smirked, a silent question as if to ask if I had any clue what he was even talking about. I shook my head sadly in response, and his expression fell gently before giving a nod of understanding.

    "And do you know," he asked, "The direction in which the sun makes her journey?"

    "Sun rises in the east, and sets in the west," I answered more forwardly, beginning to slip out of our brief daze together and back to confusion. "Why?"

    "Here, in this dream, the sun sets," he said, looking on into the west. "Because it signals the end, the end of the old times we have gone through. It also means you shall be awaking soon."

    "What, 'old times'?"

    "Your dreams from the past few nights," he said. "I am sorry that they had to be so… disturbing. But we could not waste time lulling you into an understanding, for I can see the threads in our time are being spun fast."

    Thread, what about thread? His other words brought on another question, "Did you send me those dreams?"

    "No," he answered. "Not so much sense, as I waved them into you. Really, they were there all along."

    "But what does that mean?!"

    The gossamer snow turned from a pearly white to a blush-rose pink, and bending my neck around, I saw the dream sun was slowly sinking below the horizon. Towards the west, the sky glowed a bold orange, whereas the east bled upward into a faint black-purple, the two fading into one another at the top of the dome-like sky.

    "… We do not have much time," he said somewhat urgently. "We wasted enough time searching for you and digging you out of the avalanche as it is."

    I smiled sheepishly, despite the serious atmosphere.

    "Listen," he drilled, turning to me. "The rune is yours, and only yours. There will be some who try to tell you otherwise, but make no mistake, they are lying, and they are your enemies."

    Enemies? This was getting a bit scary.

    "It is imperative that you find the other runes as well," he continued. "But more importantly, to find the others; and do not have fear of travel, as you shall discover all you need in your current residence."

    I absorbed all he was saying, but strangely, there was something bugging my eyes… it was like I was whiting out, my vision becoming more, and more blurred with light from the inside-out. "But where are these other runes?! What do they look like?! What do you mean 'others,' who are you?!"

    "Find flere runer. Find dine venner, din gamle familie. Du har alle ventet alt for længe på denne tid fremover."

    "What?!"

    It was too late though, the blinding light overtook the snowy land, and the real world materialized all around me. Chilly air faded and thickened into warm sheets and blankets, my heavy bundles into pajamas, and the irritating light behind my eyes into morning sunlight streaming through the window on my face.

    I groaned outwardly, shielded my eyes, and sat up, surveying. Interestingly, Luke was already gone, whatever for I didn't really care at the moment; probably something against the rules.

    Quickly, I got up and opened one of my drawers, searching around a bit hurriedly until I found the rune, relieved it was still there. Now that I was more awake, my inner sense of logic began to rear its head, wondering why I was in such a panic over a dream. But, in danger of sounding cliché, it felt so real… the knot of worry in my stomach over the old man's warnings had not dissipated with the end of the dream like most of my anxiety-filled night-visions.

    Turning the rune around between my fingers, I grimaced at the realization that it was far too small and easy to misplace. One slip of the hand, and the tiny stone could go rolling into some floor crevice or a dusty vent, never to see the light of day again. There was no way I could allow that to happen, so I was going to have to find a way to carry it around besides my uniform jacket's pockets.

    Wondering, I turned my head toward the usual scattered mess of macabre arts-n-crafts object that forever littered Luke's desk. Most of it had been cleared to make way for some latest project that he probably had been working on during the night; one of his tissue-ghosts had been carefully staked atop a pencil that was stabbed into an eraser to keep it standing, the head of the ghost being drenched in liquid glue, and had had an entire container of purple glitter dumped carelessly all over its head. It had covered the glue well enough and had been left to dry, but most of it was littered evenly across the desk.

    Ugh. Why, why? What was the purpose of that? Why was this kid so freaking weird?

    I reminded myself that it wasn't really fair to be complaining about my roommate at the moment, but I was in a rather impatient mood… I glared at the mess while getting dressed for the day, wondering if I could possibly borrow a vacuum from one of the cleaning ladies to get the glitter that had landed on the carpet….

    The glitter.

    A metaphorical light bulb 'ping!'ed above my head, and I quickly began to carefully dig around on Luke's desk of horrors. Being slightly familiar with his projects, I knew that the individual colors of the glitter he used seemed to come in there little bottles, good for packing away… a useless bit of information before, suddenly quite valuable now, if what I thought I could use it for was true.

    I quickly found it, the empty purple glitter container, and looked to see if it would meet my needs. It was simple, a two-inch high, half-inch wide cylinder of hard, see-through plastic, and the screw-on cap nearby also made it thick, white plastic. The very top of the cap, however, was thinner than the rest of the bottle, enough to slightly see the discoloration appear when I put my finger on the other side.

    It wasn't hard to find one of those heavy, sturdy, type of pens that professional companies and what-not had among Luke's things, and carefully, very carefully, I pressed the tip of it against the plastic… pop. A neat little hole popped through the plastic, and satisfied, I pricked another one, so that there were two holes on either side of the cap. I looped a string through them (string not being too difficult to find on the desk either), so that each end stuck out of one of the holes. Then, I took the container itself, and making sure to blow and rub out any excess glitter, carefully dropped the tiny rune into it, a perfect fit. I screwed the stringed-cap back on with the rune inside and double-knotted the ends of the strings together around my neck, pulling the container up with it.

    I now had a perfect rune-carrying necklace.

    Admittedly, I was actually pretty proud of it! It was an excellent way to make sure the rock was always in plain and easy sight for me, while still being secure from tumbling away someplace. And if anyone questioned it, I could just say it was a mere fashion accessory, I had seen plenty elaborate necklaces like it in places like Hot Topic; tiny bird cages, little magnifying glasses, other bottles filled with things like beads or rainbow-colored sand… it wouldn't be hard to believe that this one was no different.

    My alarm went off, playing my favorite song, "Walk" by Foo Fighters. It was one of those alarms you could hook up to your personal music player, and Luke didn't offer any complaints when I had asked if he was okay with me setting it up, mostly because I think he liked Foo Fighters too, and usually needed help getting up in the morning anyway. Today we had both evidently gotten up early, a pleasant surprise from the norm, and with a rather victorious skip in my step, I flicked off the alarm, grabbed my school messenger bag and opened the door.

    That gaiety however, was quickly killed, as I nearly fell backward screaming from the sight in front of me after I opened the door. I was shivering, and tried to calm myself, but I still felt the color drain from my face as I stared ahead.

    There, smeared in a putrid, rusty-smelling, red lettering across the wall and other dorm doors, were the words, "GIVE UP AND WE MAY LET YOU LIVE".