The beast tore through city. People ran in terror as the wispy, dead woman screamed around them. The scream was terribly deafening and Riptide felt his ears explode.

'Where am I?' He wondered to himself. All he could remember was getting knocked out by that woman who had Creak.

'Creak!' He thought in growing horror. 'They were going to sell her at an auction in StoneCold.'

Riptide had never been to the city, but as he looked through at the events playing around he saw a ripped banner.

StoneCold Annual Winter Festival

'I guess this is StoneCold.' Rip looked around. Where was she? Creak had to be in the city somewhere.

Trying not to focus on the many dying people, Rip scanned the area for a mess of brown waves.

There! Standing up on a stage in the center of the plaza was Creak. The siren dove down and hovered in front of her.

'She doesn't even look scare!' Riptide marveled. Creak looked more curious than anything else. He watched in horror as the beast grew closer.

Creak looked ready to run, but something held her in place. Rip watched as her eyes widened in fear before his vision blurred in front of him.

                                      *                  *                   *

Pain! So much pain, showed on Creak's face. Her stomach was ripped open, the sight of it made Rip queasy. He hoped Creak couldn't see the damage; damage that was too much to come back from.

Pressing his hands against her stomach in a hopeless attempt to stop the blood flow, he desperately cried. "It's okay, Creak."

She was as far from okay as a person could get, but Rip didn't want her to worry. He didn't want her to realize the worse. She couldn't know she was about to die.

If she even recognized him, Creak probably had no idea why he was so upset. 'She probably thinks I need to turn her in alive.' The thought hurt, but it would have been right if Rip wasn't a traitor now.

"Creak! Look at me!" She was fading and the realization made tears slip down his face. He pressed against her wound hard and her face pinched in pain. Blood bubbled over her lips and she coughed, choking.

"You have to look at me!" Rip screamed. He was so scared. Scareder than he had even been in his entire life. Even more scared than the time when his mother died and his father gave him away.

"I'm tired." She mumbled around the blood on her lips."I just want to go to sleep."

Rip looked down at her with pleading eyes. 'Please don't leave me.' He thought as he looked into her crazy eyes, dull and almost lifeless now. They were brown; such a warm beautiful shade of brown.

"You have to stay awake!" Rip tried to swallow back his panic, but it wouldn't go away.

"Why? Why won't you just let me sleep?" Creak gasped in pain. So much pain shone in her eyes; so much it hurt Rip to look at her.

The sight of her suffering sent a wave of pain through Rip, so great he struggled to hold back the choking sobs that threatened to give his feelings away. Creak was going to die. She had to understand what would happen if she let herself fall asleep. He needed her to understand why he couldn't just let her leave him peacefully.

He looked at her and tried to make her understand why he couldn't let her sleep.

"If you sleep now, Creak, I'm afraid you won't wake up." Rip said with a sob, before the world spun out around him.

                                               *                     *                   *

Rip's chest felt like it had just been ripped open and his heart had been stabbed with a hot, iron poker. He wasn't sure what he had seen or if it would happen. Maybe it was just a nightmare. Hopefully it was just a nightmare. He didn't want to know what it would mean if the vision hadn't just been a creation of his own imagination.

Looking out at StoneCold, Rip watched as Creak was dragged off the stage by some guy. He was fairly tall, with curly reddish-brown hair. Rip couldn't really make out any details from where he crouched on the top of a bright, red building. He knew they were holding hands for safety and to make sure they weren't separated, but Rip couldn't help the twitch of jealousy that flared inside of him.

Rip wished he could be that other guy. He wished he could be with Creak without the trouble of explaining himself. But he knew winning Creaks's trust would take time and that was the one thing they didn't have. He lost sight of Creak and her new friend as they fled from the plaza.

Just as Riptide got up to find a way off of the building his vision blurred and he felt himself fall.

                                         *                   *                  *

Rip found himself in a palace room, much like the one he had lived in for his first six years as the king's adopted son. It was a vast space, cold and lonely just like he could remember it. A bed covered in a fine quilt was as far away from the door as possible and there were two glass doors covering the wall at the foot of the bed. The doors lead to a small balcony, the only taste of freedom known to the room's occupant.

Rip used to love the view from his own balcony with its overlook of the king's gardens beyond which were his vast hunting grounds. As a boy, Rip used to fantasize about living in the wilderness with a nomadic tribe. With freedom and a loving family, two things he had never had in his life.

Walking out on the balcony, Rip found the same view before him. The sight made him feel like the four year old he had been when he had first seen it. After the king's birthday party, Rip had been thrown into a room. The king wanted nothing to do with him, so the servants were responsible for keeping him alive. Guards had always been posted outside his locked doors, just in case he needed something or to catch him if he tried to escape.

The room had been interesting for about a week, but Rip had been an adventurous boy who wanted to roam. He had been a bird locked up in his own small cage; the sight of freedom was the only thing that kept him sane.

Riptide spent the next six years of his childhood trapped and in solitude. On his tenth birthday the king assigned a knight to train him. As a squire he had been required to live out in the barracks with all the other squires all of which were at least two years older than him. It hadn't been a great few years, but it was better than the cage.

Sir Finch had been a father to the unwanted child. Rip learned a lot more than just how to fight. Sir Finch taught Rip all the things a father was meant to teach a son. He was the only family Rip had.

'But he's gone now.' Rip thought as he looked out into the gardens. His childhood hadn't been what it should have been, but if he could Rip wouldn't change it. If he hadn't been given to the king than he would never have met Sir Finch and he would have never trained to be a knight. In the end Riptide figured things had worked out for the best. Sure he wasn't in a good place now, but at least he had been for a year or two. It was those memories that held him together and forced him forward. Sir Finch didn't train a quitter.

For a few minutes the scene in front of him was peaceful and a moment he could consider worth remembering. Then the darkness came and the gardens were gone replaced with a small girl.
Everything around Rip was black except for the girl, who had just appeared out of nowhere.

She looked normal enough with blonde hair and blue eyes, but her skin glowed. It wasn't bright, but in the darkness the bronze light of her skin was obvious. Rip had never seen anything like it, but the girl looked harmless. Different, but harmless.

She turned towards him, but didn't see him. Rip figured he was just dreaming and that neither one of them were really there. The girl suddenly spun around and screamed. Her arms shot over her head as if they had a mind of there own.

Then they came. Creatures too terrible to be real. The wispy siren from StoneCold hovered beside the girl. Then a swarm of large wasps appeared and buzzed around her head. Beast appeared and disappeared around the girl and Rip watched with horror. They flashed in and out of his vision making it impossible to remember what they looked like. There were two dragon-like creatures and a few dark spots that looked like shadows with red eyes. An ever fading banshee that looked like it was made of brass.

The constant flashes of light and shifting figures gave Riptide a headache. He couldn't possibly try to understand what he was seeing or what any of it meant. He just wanted it over. He wished he would just wake up.

As if someone was granting wishes, Rips vision faded.

                                        *                   *                    *

Rubbing his head Rip woke up in a cold alley. He wasn't sure where he was or what had just happened. All he knew was that he had to find Creak because the siren in StoneCold wasn't the first beast. More were coming and they would be a lot worse.