The moon was rising, a siren from the deep, her light shimmering with terpsichorean lucidity, glimmering and vacillating through the sky, calling out the creatures that flourished in the darkness of the night. However, on this night they stayed in hiding, giving the land a Plutonian aura, a deserted and grim shadow that enshrouded all. A silence, all encompassing and arcane, a silence that connotated a deep seeded dread had crept up on the lands like a gorgon disguised, enmasked as peace or tranquility.

Phäethon was slinking through the old, Stygian, murky wood, the gloom of the land prevalent on his mind, terror clenching his heart in an iron grip, barely letting it beat, and icing his mind until he was physically trembling, quaking in fear. He knew it wasn’t safe that night, that They were out, and hunting, but he also knew that if he didn’t find his clan, his pack, he’d be as good as dead and his Homeric quest would cease, like his heart, like his soul. And if he did not succeed…well, that would result in the destruction of perhaps all that lived on that insignificant world.

At first, to Phäethon, that notion had seemed preposterous, at the least, and now it seemed rather thespian, all too melodramatic to be true, but the farther they went and closer they got that doubt began to evolve into absolute belief in the dilemma’s verity. Instead of cravenly avoiding the upcoming battle for the planet against Them somewhere to the South, Phäethon had decided to join up with a small but Promethean group of warriors bent on overcoming the enemy, the nemesis, and they had, though hesitantly, allowed him to come along with them.

They let him tag along with trepidation because they hadn’t thought that he’d be any help to them, as they were all Argonauts, strong, powerful, brave, with a pension for adventure, and he was young and short, scrawny, completely juxtaposed, out of place…though he knew this was his place. And that was probably why, when the pack was attacked the night before, and he’d been separated from the rest in the ensuing fight, they had left him for dead at the mercy of the ragged, vicious harpy. But, in an amazing (if he did say so himself) display of antaean prowess, he slaughtered the iniquitous creature and began to track his deserters. This little myrmidon was not going to be left behind, Phäethon decided, and now he believed he was close to catching up.

The boy halted behind an old, moss covered tree as a calliopean melody lilted through the forest and shattered the silence. He recognized it as Their voices, the voices of evil, lulling and deceitful, paean and inspiring to those who knew not of its utterer, of their malevolence, of their demonic nature and eidolic ability to destroy this world and travel through their phantasmagory with ease.

Phäethon froze—the song drew near—grew in intensity, as did his pulse, until he could hear the clicking of its talons, the gnashing of its teeth, could smell the stench of death—and he could sense the pure, unadulterated evil of its halo. He gripped his knife in his sweat coated hand, and slid down the bark of the tree into a disheartened crouch—ready to defend himself in what he knew would be an exercise in futility—when, through the trees, the moon shown with a shaft of pure light, and the oracular call of his pack sounded.