The dream was the same every night.For nigh on four years the dream has been the same, every night.A vast ocean of brilliant shades of gold and auburn stretched out in front of her. She was stood on a balcony, overlooking the only home she'd ever known, with its white marble and shining spires that were a beloved memory in these years past; seeing them swelled a bittersweet ache deep in her chest, a delicate sensation that teetered on a knife's edge between pain and joy. A melody played where silence should've been, hauntingly beautiful in its aurum notes. It swayed with the trees in the wind, and rose and dove from crescendos with the motions of birds dipping to and from the treetops. The day was done and now she stood, feeling the softly scented breeze sweeping in over the distant hills. It was a moment in time between times, when sunset would quiet the land beneath a blanket of stars.Memories of her life warmed her. Faces and names that she held close to her heart, some long gone from this world but in this moment, time stood still and she remembered them from better days. The music shifted like a tide of emotion as an awareness came to her; an awareness that this was, indeed, a dream. The hopeful notes that carried on the wind now were somber in their reflection of what once was, as was fitting for a dirge.Colors had begun to fade. Was this the sorrow she felt? The horizon, once brilliant and bright and beautiful now was dark, and devoid of starlight. It seemed to creep closer the longer she looked at it, and a heaviness in her chest sunk deeper, and deeper. And deeper.Insatiable, it rolled over the far hills consuming all in its path. It reached high into the sky, a veil of blackness that did not discriminate in its hunger. Wake up. Her heart pounded inside her breast and she could taste her anguish, metallic on her tongue.It was then she realized that the music had changed again. It hurried, echoing her fraught as she watched on, helpless while the darkness swallowed the golds and reds, the spires and the white marble. With trembling hands, she gripped the railing of the balcony as it crumbled like ash beneath her touch. Wake up!Her eyes and cheeks burned, but she saw every moment with crystal clarity. The Void had come. It was here, and it was tearing her apart at her very core from within. A hellish cacophany of wailing voices rose in unison, heralding the hollowing finale of this music most horrific. Wake up, Disglain!Disglain's eyes shot open to a vision of fine mauve drapes and gentle candlelight. The scent of rosewood was on the air and the sheets beneath her fingertips were real, and familiar. Her chest beat steadily as her waking mind returned and swept away the Thistling Darkness.Her dreams were her ghosts that haunted her, and the Deep Voice that lived in the shadows of her mind would ensure that they would forevermore. Patient, it would wait, and wait. And wait. The inevitability of it was certain, Disglain knew. There would come a time that she would hear that melody to the very end.And she knew that she would not wake after.