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You walk out of the store and into the village square. "Let's hurry back to the inn," says Merlyn. "We don't want to worry Sharalinda."

You start to head toward the inn, but before you can take ten steps, the ground shakes beneath your feet. A burst of blood-red and glowing orange flashes through your head. You open your eyes again to find yourself on the ground. The shaking has stopped. Deke and Merlyn are still standing. But many people around you have fallen as well, and some buildings begin to crumble. People are running, a woman is screaming, and a child is crying.

"It's okay," Deke says, helping you to your feet. "It was just a small earthquake."

But the look in Merlyn's eyes tells you otherwise.

Deke starts to move away to see where he can help with cleanup. Suddenly Merlyn shouts, "Get down!" and pulls you both to the floor.

It doesn't matter. You were already falling. Orange and blood-red starbursts are exploding in your head like fireworks. The ground is shaking again. Directly beneath you it splits apart. Down you fall, and it closes up again, swallowing you. Down and down you go, arms outstretched but touching nothing. Glowing orange veins pulse through the rock around you; rivers of lava flow down and around.

But not only rocks and lava. There are people. People all around, standing and sitting among the rocks, watching, waiting. People with ropes, nets, even flying machines. People who can help you, everywhere! Why don't they help me? WHY AREN'T YOU HELPING ME?

You try to shout out, but all of your breath has already left you. The air is steaming hot. It burns your lungs, burns straight through them! There is a fire inside your body, and it is burning you up from the inside out.

A sharp pain tears across your forehead. Another across the back of your hand. It's the rocks, the rock walls all around you. They are falling. No, you open your eyes and look closer, they are not falling! It's the people. They are throwing rocks down at you, pushing you down. Hurting you more. WHY ARE YOU HURTING ME?

A sharp shard of rock strikes you in the eye, blinding you. You scream in agony but only inside your mind. Desperate to escape your torture you dive faster toward the glowing red river of lava below. As fast as you can dive �

You hit the bottom, and now your body burns away from the outside in as well, until nothing flesh remains of you at all, except for thin wisps of tissue that float up in the hissing steam above the molten rock.

And you wait for it to end. You think it should be over; the agony should be over by now � why does it go on? As the wisps become more and more, and they begin to come together, the horrible realization strikes you: it is not over. No, I want to die. Please just let me die! But no, your body, or at least a body, is coming back together. And rising upward through the crack in the earth. The people scatter and flee as you rise past them. Up, up, higher, and higher...

You open your eyes. And they work again. They are in your head again. And you are lying on the ground in the central square of the village of Bray, right where Merlyn pushed you. You have your old body: a head and hands and legs and feet. The ground is still shaking, but just a little. And Deke's concerned brown eyes are looking into yours.

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