“Wynter! Run away!” a distant voice screamed.

I looked around me, but I couldn’t see anything at all. I was surrounded by darkness, deprived of every sense except my hearing. I listened as the faint echo of my biological parents’ scream faded into the void. 

It’s this dream again, I thought to myself. 

This time though, the dream was different. All of a sudden, I could see what was happening. The darkness cleared up as if it was a cloud of mist being blown to the side. I was in a village on the side of a mountain, surrounded by lush grass hills. It was a breathtaking view with flowers spread across the entire landscape, painting the canvas of green with a plethora of different colors. In the middle of the village was a well, surrounded by multiple cottages made from stone.

Everything seemed fine, so why was this dream always so scary? 

“Wynter! Run away!” the voice repeated.

As I turned to see if I could find who the warnings were coming from, my attention was brought to the man sitting on top of the well. He was old. Impossibly old.

His face was wrinkled beyond belief, almost like he had spent his entire life in a pool. His hair was entirely gray, bordering on white, and he had a long beard and mustache that almost covered his mouth. He reminded me a little of if Santa Claus didn’t wear glasses and was severely malnourished.

An evil grin spread across his face as the well disintegrated beneath him, spreading the decay throughout the entire village, completely reducing everything to a gray dust. 

I turned around and sprinted as fast as I could, desperately trying to escape, but all that happened was I was whisked back to in front of the man as he laughed.

“Return to Father Time,” the man croaked. “None shall escape Chronos.”

“Wynter!” the voice screamed again. “Wake up!”

Suddenly, I was back in my room, my eyes watery and my mouth dry. I quickly wiped my eyes with my blanket and looked up and barely made out the massive figure of my adoptive father in the darkness.

“Huh? What’s going on?” I asked, confused. My father was always insistent on making sure I got a healthy amount of sleep, so he would never wake me up before noon knowing that I usually slept at three.

“We’re leaving. Come on,” he said gruffly. “It’s not safe here anymore. I’ll explain on the way.” 

With that, he grabbed me and threw me out of my bed, knowing that I’d already be in my clothes as per his rules. Another weird habit my dad had was forcing me to sleep in the clothes I’d wear tomorrow.

“Are we moving again? What’s with the urgency? And why in the middle of the night?” I asked.

“Take a look at what time it is,” he said, pulling out his phone and showing me it was already noon. “Does it look like it’s twelve outside right now? We’re in danger.”

I walked alongside him as he flung open the door and went outside to the car. 

“Does this have anything to do with why we move so often?” I asked.

“Quiet!” he thundered, looking up. “It’s too late.”

“What do you mean, ‘too late?’ Look, if this is about me yelling at you for making us move so often without explaining to me what your job is, I’m sorry. Can I go back to sleep now?” I whined, thinking this was some prank that he was pulling on me. “I mean seriously, I’m not a kid anymore, dad.”

“Take the car and drive as far as you can. Do not look back, don’t wait for me. Drive as far as you can, and never settle down. Run until the academy finds you.” he said through clenched teeth. 

“Wha- I’m serious! This isn’t funny! You’re starting to scare me a little.”

Immediately after I said that, a humanoid figure covered in a dark purple mist dropped down about twenty meters in front of the car. As he landed, any part of the ground that touched the mist was covered in it, spreading just as the decay in my dream did.

“Hello, boy,” the man in the mist said. He was clearly not the same man I had seen in my dream, but his voice did bear some similarity to the voice in my dreams that I always assumed was my biological father’s. It was deep and rich, but also silky smooth. “How have you been?”

“You know me?” I asked him as he slowly walked towards us, the shadowy mist consuming the ground as he approached.

“Stay behind me,” my father ordered, pushing me behind his massive frame. I wasn’t short by any means, but he completely blocked my line of sight. 

“Gunther Forrest. Step aside and let me speak to the child. This is a family matter.” 

“I’m his only living family, as far as he’s concerned. Get lost before I send you back to Hell.”

“Oh, don’t be like that. It would be such a shame if Chronos found out where we were,” the man threatened. 

“I’ve heard enough, Erebus,” my father said, clapping his hands together. An area of golden light formed underneath us, expanding to the ground underneath Erebus. By now, everything except the golden light was consumed by the mist, making the environment look like the pitch-black darkness I’d always seen in that dream.

Erebus cackled. “Are you going to fight me? You? The man who retired to become a family man?” 

As he finished his sentence, the mist around Erebus suddenly expanded and rushed towards us like a massive wave, threatening to consume us whole.

“Rule one: confine Erebus to a physical body.” my father said.

Golden chains shot out of the ground, locking around the mist and compressing it, until it was the same height as my dad. Erebus stood up and smiled and when I saw what he looked like, I was shocked to my core.

Standing in front of my father was someone who looked almost identical to me. He was about six inches taller than me, but his face was the exact same as mine, apart from the eye and hair color. He had purple eyes and hair as opposed to my black hair and dark brown eyes. 

He pushed his hair up out of his face, making sure I got a good look. He raised his hands and spread them to the side in a dramatic fashion. The golden chains which were no longer connected to the ground hung off each of his wrists, with another chain wrapped around his neck like a collar. 

“Let’s get this family reunion started, shall we?” Erebus chuckled.