What happened on the third night told us more was going on than we knew. That maybe - just maybe - our role was different than we had begun to believe.

  On that night we were tested. Were they dreams? Were they real? Illusions? Did we really do those things?

  We can’t say. But in the morning we were not the same people that had gone to sleep the night before.

  A girl sits in her chair in the darkness. Frozen in dread, she can only listen to the echoing sounds around her. Water dripping, stone scraping on stone, angry chittering and squealing echoing distantly - sounding like rats on a rampage. She shivers, shrinking in on herself, afraid.

  She stifles a scream as she hears a voice directly behind her. “I can feel your fear, girl.” The voice is thin and raspy, as if the throat had been damaged sometime in the past.

  “Who are you? Where am I?” she cries out, panic giving energy to her voice.

  “I? I am no one. Where? Why here, of course. You are in the First Chamber of Trials.”

  “Trial? What trial? What have I done to deserve this?”

  “Nothing, nothing. You have done nothing. Yet. It is what you do now that is important. Forget the past, forget the future. There is only now!”

  “You’re not making sense!”

  “There is very little sense in this world. That is why you have been chosen. Why you have been called to this world.”

  The girl stifles another scream as a hand falls on her shoulder. “Right here, right now you are helpless. But that can change. Answer this question: what do you want more than anything?”

  The girl falls silent. The scratching of claws and squealing of creatures can be dimly heard out in the darkness. The hand on her shoulder is hard. Heavy. Strong and unyielding.

  “I want to be strong,” she says. “I want to be the leader my friends need.”

  “These things come at a price,” the voice laughs derisively. “Do you think YOU have what it takes? A born weakling? Wanting to be strong? Is this a joke?”

  “I … I am not weak. I have the strength. I will. I will pay the price.”

  The voice gives an evil laugh. “Arrogance! I like it! Enough talk. Time to listen. You are weak. This is known. You must overcome this weakness. This is what you must know. Your mind holds the strength that your body cannot. You must discover the secret. To pay the price, you must survive. That is all. Do you understand?”

  “No! I don’t understand anything at all!”

  “Good, good. Look in front of you. Do you see the light?”

  As the voice says the words, a light appears. Far out in the distance.

  “Yes.”

  “You must get to the light. That is your trial. On the way, you will find your strength, or you will die.”

  The girl cannot respond. Fear constricts her throat and robs her of breath.

  “Before you begin, you must state your name. Your full name! No shortcuts.”

  “A-A-A-….”

  “Speak! Find your strength. The trial has not yet begun. Say your name.”

  A deep breath and some calm is restored. “Aoede Westridge.”

  “Then begin.”

  Aoede, Addie to her friends, reaches down to grasp the large wheels of her chair, then cries out as the hand on her shoulder pushes her forcefully out and to the ground.

  “This is not allowed. The trial is for you, not for some contraption!” snarls the voice. Addie hears the chair flying off into the distance behind her, banging and thumping and breaking apart as it bounces across the hard stone.

  “Now go!” Addie listens to the footsteps of her tormenter as they fade off into the darkness.

  All that is left is the distant light, the hard stone floor, a cold wet puddle under her left elbow, and fear.

  Addie has suffered her whole life under a rare and crippling form of anemia. Her blood just cannot deliver the energy her body needs. This weakness has forced her into inactivity. While she can walk, she cannot walk for long. Thus, the chair.

  Now that chair - a long-familiar companion in her adversity - is gone. Addie sobs quietly for some time, lying there on the cold hard wet floor.

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  But Addie is not weak. Weakness of the body does not imply weakness of the mind. Addie will not give up. Not now, not ever. Her current tears reflect fear of the unknown and humiliation. Not surrender. Oh, no. Addie is a survivor.

  And in terms of survival, today is her first real test. All her life, her needs were controlled by others. Now is the time to seize control for herself. With a grunt, she pushes up to her knees, then to her feet. She stumbles forward and catches herself. Then begins walking.

  One step and the journey begins. Ten steps, Twenty, fifty, a hundred steps before she loses count. Then she stumbles and falls.

  She can walk no more. So she crawls. Her knees and hands leave a trail of blood on the rough floor. She feels the pain but does not care. All that matters is the goal.

  Other things, however, smell the blood. Come running. Come hungry. Before long, she is surrounded. Creatures heard but unseen in the darkness.

  As long as Addie keeps moving, they maintain a distance. If she stops, they start closing in. They prey on weakness for they themselves are weak.

  Progress is slowing. Addie is growing tired. But she cannot rest. Once she tries but they come for her. Small fat hairless beasts - cat-sized - with sharp biting teeth. She is bleeding now from many small wounds.

  And she is angry. Angry at the Trial, angry at the beasts, but above all angry at herself. Will her will of steel be broken by her weak body?

  Finally she stops. She can’t move forward any more. Is the light closer? Who can tell in this deep darkness? The creatures close in.

  They bite and she kicks weakly. They bite and she becomes angry. Finds energy, lashes out in spurts. She is losing and she knows it. More anger, now impotent.

  She fights the creatures off, throwing them off with her hands and crushing them with her feet when she can. They bite. It hurts.

  In her agony, she uses every weapon at her disposal, even her teeth. In desperation, she bites into one which is clinging to her arm. Pulls it off, tearing its flesh open. Blood gushes into her mouth.

  She gags and chokes and swallows all at the same time. Spitting out the beast, she feels a sudden surge of energy. She rises to her feet, takes ten, maybe fifteen steps forward. Falls and crawls again.

  How? Where did she get that energy? Addie is logical, intelligent, even smart. She knew that she was at the end. Only one thing happened. Only one thing was different.

  Blood.

  She remembers something. The rare, bloody meat she ate that first day. The surge of energy it brought. She brings her mind back to the present. To what happened just now.

  How did she draw blood so easily? She runs her tongue over her teeth, finds small fangs. Two top, two bottom. Images from a double dozen horror movies flicker through her thoughts.

  She now has a theory that must be tested. Assumptions and misplaced confidence can kill her. Previously held beliefs and behaviors must be cast aside. A price must be paid. That’s what the voice said. She slows down and stops. Curls up into a ball. Waits for the moment.

  Several of the small beasts work up the courage to attack again. She flails about, grabs one in each hand, brings one to her mouth, bites down.

  Blood gushes down her throat. She spasms as a flood of power washes over her nerves, courses through her veins. Overcome by an uncontrollable urge, she sucks the squealing creature dry. Drains it to the last drop.

  She rises to her feet again. Her tongue licks her lips clean, feels the fangs which have grown from the two outer incisors, top and bottom of her jaws. Smiles.

  She feels powerful. Like she’s never felt before. All of the creatures which surrounded her have run away. She brings the squealing creature in her other hand to her lips. Ends its life quickly, drains the life from the body, feels the wounds on her own body close up and heal, feels another surge of power.

  With a wordless snarl she throws the small bodies to the ground and she begins to run. Run to the light.

  The girl stands in a meadow at the root of a mountain looking up at the Tree. Legend has it that this tree is an ash tree, though of a size far greater than any ash found in nature. The Tree, in fact, would dwarf even the mighty Sequoia were they to stand side by side.

  Yggdrasil. The tree of life. She recognizes this dream. The mythology of her desires. The knowledge that the All Father found here once: the knowledge she longs to find again.

  Vines cover the tree, their small dark green leaves standing as a counterpoint to the lighter color leaves of the Tree. Great perpendicular branches thrust out from the trunk at regular intervals. Each branch itself is as thick and as mighty as the great ship trees of Northern legend. Such is the size of the Tree, it has its own ecology. Birds and animals twittering and dancing high above the ground.

  The roots of the Tree descend deep into the still waters of a mist-covered lake. As the girl approaches the tree, she is careful to avoid the questing tendrils of those poisonous vapors. Near the shore of the lake floats a small boat. The path the girl walks ends there. On her arrival she stops and looks at it for a moment.

  "This is your trial," says a voice from behind her, though when she turns to look there is no one there. "Do you know what you must do?"

  The girl nods her assent. This trial is rooted in legend; ancient myths which are near and dear to her heart.

  “What is it that you want? More than anything?”

  The girl reaches up with her right hand. Fingers together and slightly bent, she taps her head twice. Knowledge!

  "State your name to start the trial."

  The girl makes complicated gestures with her fingers, spelling out Sakura Tsubaki.

  "Very well, you may begin."

  Without looking back the girl climbs into the boat, which mysteriously begins moving across the lake under its own power. Although the lake is vast, the boat somehow makes it to the base of the tree in just a few moments. Clambering out of the boat onto a gnarled root, she begins climbing using hand and foot holds in the thick rough bark. Soon she is high above the surface of the lake.

  Her left foot slips, leaving her hanging by one hand from the trunk of the tree high above the ground. She kicks frantically at the vines around her, trying to find purchase. The vines began to shake and quiver, moving now like snakes. She gasps and struggles but makes no other sound. Nor does she cry out when a vine wraps around her hand and roughly breaks her hold, pulling her upward and across toward an enormous burl.

  Other vines snake around her legs and arms, slam her up against the burl facing down and outward. Covered with thorns, the vines tear into her delicate pale skin. More vines wrap around her torso, ripping through her clothes and causing her to gasp in pain once again, though she says nothing.

  Blood begins to trickle from many cuts. She is hanging on the underside of the burl, arms stretched out to either side. The swell of the burl angles her body so she can look down into the lake below. Head bowed and long tangled hair hanging around her face, she stares into the water with a feverish intensity.

  She watches and she waits. This is her trial. One which has haunted her dreams all her life. Though this time it feels real. The pain is intense, yet she does not acknowledge it. Blood flows freely, trickling down her body and dripping off her toes into the waters far below.

  She enters a trance-like state. The sun rises and sets, rises and sets, and rises and sets again and again and again. So many times that she loses count.

  She is thirsty and hungry. Painfully, deliriously so. But she does not look away from the dark waters below.

  She watches and she waits.

  Waits and watches.