Location: Celestial Realm
The sky shattered like glass across the Ruined Realm.
The sacred Tree of Creation was dead.
Its glowing leaves had turned into thorny bone while its divine sap blackened into acidic tar.
Death would have been a mercy in this hell.
Annabella fell to her knees in the apocalyptic wasteland of the Celestial Year 872.
Above her hung her people and her loved ones.
Most of all, her mother, Queen Seraphina, was impaled upon the corrupted thorns of the dead tree.
Her mother’s beautiful arms were torn apart and replaced by spiky, thorny eldritch flesh.
Their bodies were kept alive in a loop of endless, agonizing mutilation by the eyes and tentacles of the Abyss Abominations.
Anna stood completely alone as the last of the Celestials.
Then, as the ocean of eldritch horrors descended to consume her.
She raised her hands and screamed to unleash her Celestial divine core to beg for a miracle.
And then the screaming stopped.
The stench of blood and rotting air was replaced by the scent of starlight and blooming lotuses.
"Annabella, are you breathing, sweetheart?"
Her father Noah whispered with his comforting voice cut through her nightmares.
Anna gasped as her eyes opened to find herself standing on the pristine white marble of Docking Bay 4 in the Celestial Spaceport.
This was the grand hub of a civilization that had mastered the stars and anchored reality in stagnant causality within Consensus Reality.
"I’ve got you, Anna, you’re safe now,"
Noah said with profound concern as he smoothed her golden hair.
"Where am I?"
she asked.
"You’re here with us, my sweet child,"
Queen Seraphina responded gently.
"She is alive,"
Anna murmured to herself as she ran and cried into her mother’s arms.
"Oh my sweet angel, its alright, I’m here"
Anna’s mother, Queen Seraphina said as she embraces her daughter in a motherly warmth.
My mother is breathing... she isn’t suffering. I’m back before the Abyss took everything from me. Please let this be real. Please let it stay this way this time.
Anna thought to herself as she continues to hug her mother so tight and refusing to let go as she fears letting her go would bring the nightmare back.
"It’s alright my little star, i will always be here with you"
Anna’s mother whispered as she smooth Anna’s trembling shoulders.
Suddenly, a few moments later, a voice rang from above.
"Anna! By the Tree, you scared the life out of me!"
Looking up through her tears, Anna saw her older sister Angelica beaming down at her with naive eyes.
"What happened to you just now?"
Angelica came down elegantly to face Anna.
Then Angelica use her pale hands cupping Anna’s pale cheeks.
"One second you were walking off the ramp behind me and the next you froze and started crying! Did you get dizzy during the warp jump?"
"Angelica..."
Anna whispered clutching her sister’s sleeves.
"You’re warm. You’re still smiling."
"Well, why wouldn’t I be smiling when my little sister finally came home?"
Angelica laughed, her voice brimming with sheltered innocence.
"Though I won’t be smiling if you’re sick before the Starlight Banquet! Mother, feel her forehead, she’s freezing!"
"I’m not sick, Angelica,"
Anna choked out, hugging her big sister tightly.
"Im just... I had a terrible nightmare. Everyone was gone and I couldn’t save you."
"Oh, you silly little star,"
Angelica stroke Anna’s hair.
"A nightmare? The Celestial Shields haven’t flickered in ten thousand years! Nothing bad ever happens here. And even if a scary monster ever tried to sneak into your dreams, your big sister is right here to chase it away!"
Then came elegant footsteps interrupting their sisterly bond.
"Ahem. Perhaps we should step out of the docking draft before Princess Angelica squeezes the air out of her sister."
Standing beside the royal star cruiser was Albert, their friendly High Elf butler
Albert smiled with grandfatherly warmth as he offered Anna a silk handkerchief.
"Welcome home, young mistress Anna,"
Albert said kindly.
"I had the kitchen bake lemon tarts, though I had to guard them from Princess Angelica all morning."
"Albert, you promised you wouldn’t tell!"
Angelica gasped, blushing in innocent protest.
"I only ate one! Tell him, Father! It’s a royal duty to test the pastries for poison!"
"That is the royal taster’s duty Angelica, not your sweet tooth,"
Noah chuckled warmly.
"Come, Annabella. Let Albert and your sister take you home."
"Hold my hand, Anna!"
Angelica beamed, linking their fingers tightly.
"Tonight we’re staying up late in the gardens until you forget that silly bad dream. As long as I’m your big sister, nothing will ever hurt us."
Anna was back thirty two years before her world became hell and before everyone she loved suffered the agony of the Abyss.
Unbeknownst to her, a tragedy was already happening beyond the dimensional margins of Consensus Reality.
And the horrors she feared would come sooner from a butterfly effect of her own doing.
A/N:
Old Readers from the old book, yes i have cut the pacing of the first 20 Chapters to be faster compared to the old one .