Drip.

Drop.

Drip.

Droplets of the water brushed across Alana's neck. The girl glanced up to find out the unknown source of the water. She could not. A ginormous lacuna was what was above her head. It was not the night sky which beheld the shiny stars. It was empty and without any matter. Rather unending.

Fear was a history. Alana was not afraid of the dark. She had spent days locked up in freezing, dark cubicles in her early training periods whenever she committed an accidental mistake. Alana scoffed at the Driren's stupidity. She was aware of what Drirens were and what they were capable of. The girl only did not before believe that they were real till she saw one with her own eyes.

The Drirens' specialty was luring in a single prey if they were alone or in a pair. They equally did not step back from tormenting the victims by showing their worst fears in the most repugnant and grim manner, especially if they were in a group of more than two. It was their strategy of breaking apart a group so that the Drirens could grasp the opportunity when the prey was at their weakest moment and then feed on their blood. Alana wondered why the Driren was making her show the darkness. For sure, Alana's worst fear was not the dark. It could not be. In reality, the girl was not familiar with her own matter of fear. Blood, death, violence, what the girl's fear was, was yet to be found.

Alana walked across the shallow water body which's level was till her ankle. She was simply walking without coming across any obstacle or end. There was nothing to look around even. Unlike the others, the moment Alana had stepped inside one of those white houses, she had found herself in this enormous vacuum.

The girl came to a halt when she found a mirror appearing out of nowhere. The mirror stood still in the water without any support. Alana traced her fingers on the intricate designs carved on the four sides of the rectangular mirror. It was old, no doubt. There was evidence of the mirror being old.

Was she supposed to fear a trifling mirror?

She was not. She was supposed to fear something else, and Alana soon received the answer.

Cracks like cracking of the Earth's surface began to appear on the mirror. Alana, unbeknownst to her, stepped back immediately, resulting in the minimal splash of water. With furrowed eyebrows, the girl watched everything unfolding in front of her.

In the mirror before, Alana could see her own self and just the way she looked. She still had scars on her face and she still appeared as the way she always did. When the mirror was cracking now, bit by bit, Alana's face in the mirror was cracking as well.

An atrocious scream that Alana never knew she was capable of, left from her throat. The pain was gruesome and horrendous, making her want to die at that very moment. Alana watched her reflection, mirroring her actions and crying her eyes out due to the immense pain. She touched her face. There were no cracks, but in her reflection, there were.

Alana had gone through the pain of deep wounds before and not once did she scream so loud...ever. The excruciating pain was shredding her insides apart and making her want to die to put an end to this pain for once and all. This agonizing affliction was too unendurable.

Slowly, dark red blood began leaking out of the cracked wounds, only increasing the throbbing.

Alana was perplexed to say the least. Going through physical pain was never her fear, then why in the world the Driren had chosen this path to directly inflict pain upon her instead of using his twisty way, was a subject of question and confusion.

Alana's heart dropped to her stomach when she viewed the next thing in the mirror. Her eyes were now completely black, putting a black layer over the sclera. Black fluid which very much resembled raw blood, gushed out resulting in the production of another guttural scream from the girl.

"Show yourself you foul Driren!" Alana screamed while tightly holding her palms against her eyes. Although she was not bleeding literally, she could still feel the pain.

Her voice merely echoed and nothing came out. Alana screamed again in utter frustration, ache and anger. She never felt so defeated in her entire life but now she did. It was wrong of her to underestimate the Driren's powers when she herself was going through one of his sly strengths. And all of a sudden, Alana was introduced to her worst fear.

Long gone was the mirror and now in front of her at a little distance away from where she sat, collapsed, stood her very own self with her precious dagger. The other Alana moved towards a crouching figure with predator like steps before coming to a halt and stabbing the female figure.

Alana's eyes seemed to bulge out because of the scene. When she got hold of what was occurring she found her own self murdering her mother.

It was more traumatizing than experiencing death. More traumatizing than watching someone else killing her mother. To witness her other persona murdering her mother was enough to make Alana cry out.

And she did. After so many years, Alana cried out loud as heavy tears plummeted down her eyes narrating tales of her mother's unfortunate end.

In the midst of crying, Alana did not realize when the person she was seeing as herself had morphed into a creature. A creature she was most familiar with. A Driren and it was him. The source of the origin to everyone's misery.

Twelve years ago, the Driren was not even present there when Eluscan was feeding on Alana's mother. Twelve years ago, it was not the Driren's fault that Alana's mother had fallen prey to Eluscan. Twelve years ago, Alana was present there.

And twelve years ago, Alana Thornheart let her mother die in front of her very own eyes. When she was able to muster up the courage to attempt to kill Eluscan later, then why not initially? Why did she give in to the Dragonesian Guards when they were holding her hostage? Why, just why was Alana so pathetic?

Alana killed her own mother. She could not save her even though she could have. But she did not. It was all her fault.

With motionless eyes, Alana stared up at the Driren who was looking down at his delicious delicacy.

Alana stood up but not on her own accord. The dagger magically appeared in her hand and before she knew, she had stabbed the Driren right where his heart was present. The Driren coughed up blood. Alana laughed with tears still evident in her eyes as a feeling of happiness rushed through her. But it all came to a pause when her blurry vision due to all the crying cleared away and the girl found herself facing her very own mother.

With trembling hands, Alana let go of the dagger which remained stuck inside her mother's chest, creating a deeper wound.

"Mamma," a whimper left Alana's mouth. When she came to her senses, she desperately tried to pull out the dagger but it was not coming out for whatever reason.

"Alana."

Alana looked over at her mother's dead eyes with her tearful ones. Her cold hands held onto hers tightly clenched ones as she uttered the next words, shattering Alana completely.

"You killed me. You killed your very own mother. I regret being your mother. I wish you were never my daughter."

And just how the woman was virshed that night, today as well, she faded away.

Alana stood there with no words coming out of her throat whatsoever, except for the constant dripping down of endless tears. She was so immersed in collecting her shattered thoughts that she did not notice the original creature behind her. And before anything could possibly happen to the broken Alana, she fell into an embrace.

A warm embrace which was able to diminish all the bottled up emotions.

After twelve years, Alana Thornheart cried her heart out, in the embrace of Leon Heirora. One was a human who was delving closer to her tragic childhood and the other was a Dragonesian who was trying to run away from his trapped childhood. Both of them were similar. They belonged to different species but their pasts did not. They were both running. Running in search of something. One was running towards freedom and the other running away from the past.

When they could not run, they crawled. But they still did it. Broken with destroyed selves deep down.

Leon was bewildered when he found that the surrounding illusion had disappeared abruptly. And soon he was running somewhere. He did not know where. But he was running away from the hellish illusion he had experienced before he had come across a hysterically crying Alana. Her eyes were closed which only signified that she herself was going through her worst fear.

Leon did his best to wake her up because he knew that the Driren would kill off Alana in her unconscious state. When Alana did not budge, Leon did nothing but take the girl in his warm embrace.

"Shh, it is alright. Everything is alright Alana," Leon had spoken into her ears while caressing her back soothingly. The Dragonesian was close to tears seeing Alana not wake up.

"Please wake up. I am here Alana."

And that is what it took for Alana to open her eyes, thus breaking free from the illusion. When her already tearful eyes met with Leon's crimson ones, like a heavy downpour, more tears were released.

Without any share of words, the two stayed in one another's embrace while shedding tears of different but almost similar tales.