She looked hastily to the bars of the door that held steadfast and then away again. The hallway outside it was empty, as it had been for the last four hours. What her fate would be, she had no idea. She only knew the ring was her only chance.

 She looked up to the light again. Her pale hands shone red against the source of it. 

 It was the last possession she would ever own.

One of a collection that always seemed to wake Terra Carter woke her this night. She rose groggily from her bed and advanced immediately to the pantry downstairs, as she always did when bad dreams woke her in a hunger at dawn. The next night when she saw it for just a second—flashed there and back; saw the trees, a tower, and then her closed eyelids once more—she thought it was another dream. She had no idea that her necklace was building to something much bigger. Three nights later, when it happened again, in fact, she would already have forgotten that this very night was when her whole story really began.