A Glimpse of the Past

The visions came without warning, like a sudden, violent storm breaking over a placid sea. They weren't dreams, not in the way I understood them. These were more like invasive memories, sharp and visceral, thrust into my consciousness with a force that left me gasping for air. Laras would find me, sometimes awake and staring, my body rigid with a terror I couldn’t articulate, other times thrashing in a sleep that offered no respite.

"Aris, what is it now?" Her voice, usually a balm, was laced with a desperate worry that mirrored my own gnawing fear. She’d gently shake my shoulder, her touch sending tremors through my already frayed nerves. "Another one?"

I could only nod, my throat tight. The latest vision had been the most potent yet. I saw shadows, not the absence of light, but beings of pure, inky darkness, swirling around a figure hunched over a crude altar. The air crackled with an unseen energy, thick with the scent of damp earth and something metallic, like old blood. The figure’s hands, gnarled and ancient, moved with a frenetic purpose, weaving a pattern in the air, a knot of malice that seemed to snag at my very soul. And then, the toothpick. It was there, not the one I’d found, but its predecessor, gleaming dully in the flickering firelight, a tiny, wicked instrument of their dark intent.