text: With a jerk of the body, he awakes. Standing up quickly while shaking off a feeling of something crawling over. He tries to look at what that was feeling was but cannot. Putting his hands to his eyes he rubs away a strange ink. Panicking now he rubs more and more as he begins to blink. Fear begins to creep in as he still sees darkness. Letting a moment pass his eyes begin to adjust. He was not blind, just the lands are covered in a vast darkness with no stars above for direction and no moon to follow. Just a faint glow coming off the horizon and a brighter glow coming down at his feet. Looking down he sees a lantern illuminating the ground that is covered in stone faces. Each with a look of nothingness to it. Confused by this he takes the lantern holding it out to look around. All over he sees more stone faces everywhere making up lands. His gaze stops. There is another lantern shining onto others laying on the stone faces. Each one next to a lantern of their own. *Others*, he wonders as a woman awakes. She sits up rubbing away the ink off her eyes. This gives sight to a blonde hair man holding a lantern shining light around them. She tries to speak but nothing is understood. They both speak, trying to get something, anything to be understood. Nothing, so they just stare at each other wondering when others begin to wake. A large man stands up slowly wiping at his eyes. Standing confused as to where he is or who he is. Looking down he sees a lantern by his feet and picks it up as another man, slimmer with hair of white, awakes nearby. He stands screaming in terror giving a shock to the others. Rubbing away the ink on his eyes, he stares at the others. Wondering who and why they are here when from the edge of the lanterns light, a hungry lion emerges. Eyes glowing red, fur of white, and front limbs larger than normal with massive human like claws, the lion steps forward unleashing a terrifying roar that intimates the others. All move away quickly while staring back, too afraid to do anything else. The lion takes this advantage as it pounces onto the skinny man. Slashing with its large human hand like claw cutting the man’s bare chest in several places. Blood spills out as the man tries to defend himself. The woman yells in terror as the large man trips while trying to step back kicking away a piece of the stone faces. The blonde man picks it seeing its more of a big shard with a pointed end. *A weapon yes*, he thinks while looking at the lion attacking the skinny man. Raising the shard in his fist, he lets out a booming yell encouraging the others to look for a shard. Now, each with a shard of their own, they attack the lion. The large man charges at the lion colliding with his shoulder slamming into its side knocking the lion onto its back as the man is sent flying the opposite way. This allows the skinny man to roll away stopping onto some loose stone faces. He pulls out a shard of his own while taking a breather to recover as the woman goes to stab the lion. Seeing a glow coming off the shard as it is coming down, the lion rolls onto its feet avoiding the stab. It slashes out with its large finger like claws cutting the woman’s arm. This causes her to fall back grabbing at the wound. The blonde man runs in front of the lion trying to get its attention away from the woman. It works, the lion sees him and leaps for an attack as the man jumps to the side barely avoiding the attack. The large man gets up and runs at the lion trying to stab its side when the lion turns to face him. They both stop and stare at each other as the skinny man joins the fight. He goes behind the lion as it is staring and stabs the hind leg. A roaring yell is let out from the lion’s pain causing the others to cover their ears from its deafening cry. The lion tries to step forward but falls to the ground from its torn limb. The large and blonde men both jump at the opportunity stabbing at the lion’s head killing it after several blows. All four now stand over the lion looking at this unusual beast wondering what it is. The woman holding her bloody arm begins to speak but the others look at her confused when the large man begins to cut the lion apart with his shard. The rest look at him a little confused but soon join in. Taking what they can from the corpse they set off heading for the glow on the horizon. A long walk with them dreading what else may be hiding in the dark jumping at each sound they pass. Upon reaching the glow they see it is a large collection of lanterns similar to the ones they picked up piled high rising several stories up pushing back the dark. They stop and stare at it as other people begin emerging from around it.