Julia's eyes fluttered open, and she had no time to consider the darkness she found herself in before it was dispelled. Images formed under her feet; or rather, they were revealed, having been there, under the darkness the entire time. Stained glass, like a temple or church might have. And it pictured... her. Julia Banks stared back at herself in the glass mosaic. The Julia who stood atop the glass was alone, but the one embedded in the glass was not. 

Her brother was there, in glass, as were several people she thought she knew from class, but before she could consider it, a voice rang somewhere between in her head and out loud. 

[i]"So much to do, but so little time..."
[/i]

"Uh," she spoke out loud, not being able to project her voice into that strange liminal space, "Is there?" 

[i]"...Take your time."[/i]

"With what?" Too confused to be properly afraid, she was already stepping forward when the voice asked her to. Next she was asked to choose between three tools. Without much thought to it, she took the shield. Her hand was reaching to take the wand with it, but it vanished. 

[i]"There will be times you have to fight."[/i]

"Ah!" Juls looked frantically about at the shadows that rose up. "Fight with just a shield?" Even as she exclaimed about the ridiculousness of the thought, she bashed one of the creatures with the front of the shield. The effect this had heartened her, and she drove the point down on the next one, then brought it up to block the claws of a third. She pushed it back and struck it with the rim of the shield, launching it further and into the next one. With a quick step forward, she struck both of them in quick succession. 

"The closer you get to the Light, the greater your shadow will become."

Even as she smote the last creature, an even greater one appeared within her own shadow, and rose tower above her. 

[i]"But don't be afraid."[/i]

Her mutated shadow drove a fist into the ground, obscuring the stained glass once again, and drawing more of the little creatures up to grab and Julia's ankles. Soon they were pulling her into the renewed darkness, her shield pinned to her side by their oppressive numbers. 

[i]
"And don't forget.
"You hold the mightiest weapon of all."[/i]

She let out a final wordless cry at the unfairness of it. She had no weapon, mighty or otherwise. The shield was no longer helping, and she was sinking. Dying. 

[i]"You are the ones, who will open The Door."[/i]

All was black. 

~~~

Julia woke with a start, but quickly lost the thread of her dream as she peered across the room to the clock she kept on the wall. It was late for her liking, and she jumped up and began to dress with a frenzy borne of some anxiety she couldn't quite place. 

On her way downstairs for breakfast, she rapped sharply first on Jacob's door, and then, less loudly, on her sister, June's. 

She that both of her parents were out, so she set about cooking sausages and eggs in their pristine kitchen.