A boy with golden-brown hair and bright blue eyes woke up abruptly from a dream        - no - a nightmare!  He gazed around his small dull bedroom half believing he would see one of those things in his dream, it had seemed so real.  There were creatures contained within the nightmare that he had never seen or heard of before and they were terrifying, some of them were huge with muscles that looked enormous even on them!  Others were tiny imp-like creatures but this obviously made them no less dangerous; he had witnessed one of them reduce an armoured warrior into a pile of dust, which it blew away, with a beat of its tiny spiked wings.  There were other creatures that he did recognise, though he wished that he didn't as from what he had heard of them, the 'dream' had not shown what they were fully capable of.  These were vampires of old myths and legends with skin as pale as ghosts.  Sided with them were dimensional Demons, some of which had names that differed between the different 'Alpha' species, but the more feared ones had universal names to which all shuddered, ones like the Balr... His dull, plain bedroom door abruptly swung open and standing in the doorway was his tall, red-haired stepmother.

"Son are you alright?" she walked over to him slowly and gently touched his forehead.  "My goodness you're broken out into a cold sweat, wait here while I fetch the village healer.  It's a good job there are so many extra healers here to over-see the tournament, she should be able to come straight away, and you're not going to that either" She added, "You're going to stay in bed until I'm satisfied, understand Conna" She gave him a stern look.  Conna let out a long low groan; he had been looking forward to the tournament all year.

"I'm fine Hazel, I just had a bad dream...that's all" Conna replied."I still think that I should go fetch the healer just in case, son."  Hazel looked at Conna as though convinced he had a fever."No seriously Hazel I'm fine, give me until the tournament begins to feel better and if I'm not well I won't take part I promise" was Conna's desperate reply."Well alright but maybe I should still...""I fine really and I have to be checked over before they will let me take part anyway so give me till then please mom." He'd done it that bit always worked!"Oow, alright alright, but I'm going to make sure you see that healer so you had better be back here well before high-sun or you're in trouble young man.  Now get dressed and come down to breakfast."  She left and Conna got up out of his bed and headed for the wardrobe.  But Conna was still thinking about the nightmare he had been mercifully been awoken from only a few short moments ago.  There had been many of the varieties of Demons within it, maybe all of the universally named ones and more, they and the other fairy-tale creatures of hell had formed armies in the north and south of this planet and had marched upon the settlements there.  Conna had witnessed the destruction of countless lives, cities lay in ruin and the vampires had a feast in one village catching the villagers as they fled their homes whilst the giants flattened them in a footstep.  But there was something else as well; creatures that he was not afraid to look upon, instead when he did they made him feel at peace.

  One was a man with silvery white hair that hung down below his waist.  He had wings, huge wings that looked as if they had come from a giant white bat.  He looked very old but extremely wise.  He was also blind and did not look directly at Conna, but still Conna was sure that this creature knew he was there, somehow?  Despite having what seemed to be severe disabilities Conna sensed no weakness in him, instead this winged creature seemed to project an invisible aura of great power around his billowing light gray robes.  This was probably the reason why he could survive in the vast emptiness of space because he definitely was in space the shinning stars in a sea of black added even more grandeur to the being.  The creature turned at looked straight into Conna's eyes, and Conna realized just how right he was about this creature being powerful when those white eyes met with his, paralysing him with both terror and admiration.  As if summoned by the creature himself, a shooting star shot in between them, it quickly passed but the creature was gone leaving only the stars of heaven. 

  Then Conna found himself surrounded by the flames of molten lava, in the heart of a volcano.  Suspended in mid-air over a pit he found himself staring into the blazing eyes of another strange creature with fire red skin.  His hair looked like it was aflame, the flames dancing on his head like the flames of lava that danced around them.  He seemed to be a being of immense strength with wings that definitely were made of fire protruding from a very strong looking back.  Without warning the creature's body turned to flame but retained a humanoid shape, now however, it looked like his whole body was on fire.  The volcano must have been erupting for the lava had swiftly risen to consume the human fireball.

  After the 'Fire Creature' came a very pretty looking, pale blue girl with hair of shimmering sapphire crystal and tiny wings to match.  Her sky colored, crystal like eyes were enchanting but they looked around her home of glittering, rainbow coloured crystal with sadness.  As she turned to her right, Conna could see what looked like cracks scaring her pretty child-like face and completely covering her left arm, making it look extremely fragile, as if it could break off at any moment.  The scene faded slowly leaving Conna with the somber memory of those scars. 

  The next one was in a dense forest, a tall elf-like female with long, leaf green, wavy hair.  Her skin was dark like the bark of the oak trees surrounding the clearing where she sat on a rock next to a pool of crystal clear water at the bottom of a shimmering waterfall playing what seemed to be a small wooden flute.  Surrounding her were winged creatures that were even smaller than the beast he had seen before, only they looked more like human children, not imps, and their wings were not spiked but curved softly like that of a butterfly's.  The little fairies danced merrily to the sound of the music, around the women who herself had wings of emerald green gossamer.

  With a roaring sound like the wind the dream had taken him beneath the waves swimming with the dolphins and great blue whales.  Behind the biggest of all the whales Conna saw a creature that was human above the waist, but fish below.  As the vision had taken him closer he could see that it was, the human half at least, a female.  Her hair was long, straight and dark.  The tail on the other hand was the rich colour of royal purple.  Conna had gazed at her for some time fascinated.  On her arms were purple fins that she used to help propel her forward along with webbed hands and that enormous tail.  She was by far the quickest and most agile of all the underwater creatures at her side.  She wove in and out of them effortlessly and at one point she did a fast spin out of the way of a playful baby dolphin.  As she had done so Conna had spotted the large, delicate looking, dragonfly-like wings which she seemed to use as flippers to give her that extra mobility.  But than the tranquil scene had faded revealing a vision of total destruction and the army of evil continuing on their campaign of terror.

  The only one he actually saw in flight came after a vision of a burned down city under a blackened sky.  She was soaring in and out of the white, fluffy clouds escorted by a guard of eagles and even a long, thin dragon that could fly without the presence of wings, weaving in and out of the clouds.  This female had long flowing hair of sunshine yellow with wings that were brighter than the sunlight, yet when the white dragon wove it's way behind the women it was still visible through the translucent glow.  Eventually the patrol of winged, and un-winged, beings had flown beyond Conna's sight.

  Next had come the darkest area Conna had seen yet with graves outstretched as far as he could see and what seemed to be a black-bricked castle in the center beneath a dark, blood red sky.  Tending to a broken cross headstone was a being whose complexity was so pale that Conna first thought it was a vampire, until he had spotted the oil-like wings of darkest black on his back, hidden beneath a dark black clock with blood red lining.  His hair was short, smooth and just as dark, his eyes were like black holes but even these dark eyes possessed a warmth that took Conna's first fears of him away.  His black armour was very creepy with red eyes that moved independently from each other scanning the surroundings.  Lightning flashed in the sky and he was gone.

  The lightning continued to flash but Conna was back up in the clouds right in the heart of the storm.  The noise was unbearable, thunder echoed in his head as it did in the angry clouds around him.  There was another fork of lightning to his far left, then to his right and then directly in front.  It was as if time stood still, the fork remained for a while longer than the others giving Conna a chance to see through the glare to probably the strangest creature he had seen yet.  Conna stared past the brightness and the creature stared back, or at least Conna had imagined that it was as he could not make out a face or for that matter a solid body.  Instead he was staring at a creature made of lightning which flashed and flickered from it's heart to fill out an area that looked human enough except for an area on it's back where the bright forks of lightning fanned out into a pair of wings resembling a woven mesh.  But the lightning quickly vanished and the storm went silent as a bright gold light washed over Conna, blocking all else from view. 

  Conna could not see the face of the final creature because of the armour of gold and silver that covered most of the body, but Conna could still see that she was a girl.  She had wings of pure gold feathers that appeared from under a long cape of shimmering gold.  There was a bright aura surrounding her so Conna could not tell where she was, but the aura was stunning to his senses even in this dream and it made Conna feel protected.  Long, golden-brown waves of hair washed down her back from under the helmet.  The gold knight's mount was something his real mother had told him she had seen as a maiden.  The unicorn had a horn that glowed gold with magical power, it's hoofs, mane and tail were the same dazzling gold as the horn and its rider's wings.  Just as Conna was trying to picture the hidden face of this hidden warrior,  a dark shadow, which had such an evil feeling to it that it sent a shiver down the sleeping Conna's spine, loomed above the gold warrior and destroyed the gold aura replacing it with it's own dark glow and descended upon the girl and the unicorn.  In response the unicorn reared up and sprouted a pair of huge gold wings like that of its rider, bucking in fright in its beautiful blue eyes it threw the warrior off it's unsaddled back.  The shadow enveloped the bucking winged unicorn that with a cry of terror vanished.  The shadow then slivered through the air towards the gold warrior, she got up ready to fight drawing a long silver katana, but as the shadow drew nearer, the warrior turned and looked unmistakeably at Conna.  She reached out, her hand outstretched for him to take, but the shadow closed in on her, the gold glow growing dimmer she collapsed to her knees shacking with pain. A low male laugh, and the knight's wings began to burn black.