บท 9: Chapter 9: Visions of Fire

Vix opened her eyes. She was bathed in darkness, a black void that seemed to stretch away forever and ever, without any hope of ending.

Yet, somehow, she found she was not afraid.

Her gaze was drawn to the only thing there was to see in the endless dark. A few inches away from her nose, there was a very small and delicate branch. Vix let her eyes travel further up it, and saw that it was attached to nothing. It simply hung, suspended in the air, as though floating on a black, still pond.

A tiny tremor shook the branch. Vix looked down and saw at the very tip a pearlescent cocoon, silvery-blue and smaller than her little fingernail. It looked so frail, that she felt that if she were to even breathe on it, the whole thing would scatter, like dandelion seeds caught in a breeze.