The monster is clawing at me, ripping me to shreds fighting to get free. So much anger but underneath, concern. I focus on the concern. I should be dead, for they promised. All I can remember is her face, so much sadness and so much love there in her eyes. Then it was darkness. Silence. Nothingness. I thought I was dead, set free, but here I am. It’s like I’m swimming up from the ocean floor. The darkness is fading into light.

A voice whispers in my ear and through my head, making not only my thoughts muddled but also the others. A small hand radiates heat onto my head, and I feel the power sliding through me. Slowly, I open my eyes. Once again there’s her face, still filled with love and sadness. This time though, there is also fear. Something she sees gives her some relief, and the tension in her face relaxes a tiny bit.

“I love you.” Those three words ease the knot in my stomach until it notices what’s in her hands. Through my eyes, it sees the emerald tablet, it knows what it is, what it can do, and that information sends it into a frenzy. Her body tenses. “We think this can save you. We think it can draw it out, and that’s what the cave was first for. Maybe the magic of the cave was changed by the ones that began to control your clan. Yggdrasil came here after they realized the bonding wasn’t working. We hope this tablet this piece still has the original magic designed to pull it from you and lock it inside.”

The reaction of what’s inside me tells me that they might be right. It feels as if my body will be ripped in two, and I know I don’t have much time. “How?” The word comes out as a harsh growl as I fight for control of my body.

“We don’t know exactly.” Fanfuckingtastic. My muscles lock, and I shake my head trying to block the screaming. “We thought maybe since they had told your people you had to welcome them in, excepted them, and that if you don’t, it will be forced out. Asger’s dragon said if they denied one another, their bond would be broken.”

I let my eyes travel over every face, silently saying my goodbyes just in case, until I once again reach her face. There is no way I can tell her goodbye, for even in death, I will be with her. Somehow I will force my threads to remain woven with her. I will find her in the next life. I’ve waited as long as I dare. He grows stronger with each moment.

I don’t know if I need to say it out loud or not. “I refuse to give myself over to your corruption. No longer will your kind destroy us. You are not welcome in this body.” A scream is ripped from me as I’m torn apart. My body arches as bones break as it fights to stay. Her face is the last thing I see.

Eyes flash red to gray and back again as I rage and fight. I will not leave this body willingly. He has trapped me within it for thousands of years, and now they wish to trap me in the stone. I have starved as insanity clawed at my brain. I can no longer even remember who I was. This is his fault; always he has fought me and fought the gift he was given.

It is pulling at me, the magic of not only the stone but also my people. So long I’ve been alone. I sensed her often, the one who brought that stone here, who carved that tablet with the words of those that came so long ago. She’s gone from this place now. There will be no escape for me if I enter the stone -- only more insanity, more nothingness. No, I will not be forced to an eternity of nothing, of being alone.

I fight harder, breaking his bones, crushing his organs, shredding his brain. I will leave him as nothing and them with nothing. He fades away, and I feel gleeful as I listen to them wail at his loss until it flares stronger. Something is strengthening it and it rips me away.

I was wrong, it is not darkness. It is a colored window to the world. Showing me everything I can’t have. Slamming against the walls of my prison I fight to get out, it is of no use. Here I will stay until time ends. Until another of my kind frees me or I free myself. I see them gathered around as the tablet is dropped forgotten to the ground. My only joy is his death.

The one from the old world, the one as old as we, picks the tablet up and I scream as he peers at the stone for a moment before wrapping it and locking me into darkness.