Mage: The Ascension - The Shadow Walker

The Awakening

It's been quite a rough week for this boy, after many exams he finally finds time to land in bed for a well deserved sleep, he reaches for a book from the shelf, “The Path of Druidry; Walking the Ancient Green Wayâ€, reading a few pages before falling asleep, leaving the book by his side as he rests.

The boy's name is Jason Dawnwood, and his constant passions ever since he was a child was occultism, he's felt a strong attraction to the occult side of the world, especially the way of his ancestors, the mighty druids, he's read many books on this topic and he intends to find more.

As he falls into the realm of dreams he feels something quite odd, a dream that feels so real, yet unreal at the same time, as if it is a prophetic one...-

Opening his eyes he finds himself in an empty room, on the ground, darkness surrounds him making him unable to see, as he raises to his feet he runs his hands along the cold walls, eventually finding a handle, twisting it around to open the door.

Once the door was open a cold breeze strikes him, feeling the cold winter air on his naked skin, snow flakes falling into the dark room, touching his skin one by one. He gazes into the sudden light, and as his eyes start to percieve his surroundings he notices he's down an alley, the very scenery feels so familiar, yet he can't understand why... He shrugs and continues his path down the alley... Step by step the whole scenery, the alley, the door behind him, everything was twisted and out of picture, the skies turn brighter and the snowflakes turn golden, something wasn't right, maybe he's under the influence of something...

Turning his gazes from a place to another he turns for the door one final time, perhaps he should turn back, he notices a man walking out of the room, wearing a black hoodie... Jason screams for him... "Hey...! Where are we...?!"

The man keeps his head down, ignoring Jason as he approaches, fixing his gaze at him as he suddenly removes the hoodie, yet no eyes, nose, nor mouth can be seen, he had no face... was he death...? Is death faceless... and dirty?

Jason freaks out, his eyes turn bigger staring at him for a couple of seconds in dread eventually turning around to run, suddenly meeting him again, this time one foot closer... he bumbs into the faceless man... How could he teleport...? But that wasn't the biggest problem, with a swift move, in a blink of an eye he reaches for Jason's chest, it was a tender and quick touch at first, but in a matter of seconds blood can be seen under his clothing.... bleeding quickly and continously... he fell on his knees gazing at the man one more time as he turns around to walk away...

Everything turned dark...- there was nothing but an echoing voice could be heard, the language seemed unknown, yet so familiar to him... he could understand tho.... "Now that you know the Truth...- will you Awaken?"

He then wakes up all of the sudden the moment that sentence ends, he is sweating, this was no regular nightmare for sure, he felt something real about it, he lifts from his bed only to notice he couldn't hear the initial alarm and he's running late for his courses, he takes no time to waste, getting dressed and picking up his books to run downstairs...

Hearing his footsteps his mother yells for him...- "Jason! The breakfast is ready, you coming?!"

He stops for a second only to divert his sight down the hallway saying..-"I'm in a hurry mother! Perhaps when I'm back!"..- running outside only to hear her yelling...- "Okay darl..-"

He shuts the door close running for his car, twisting the key in the ignition and hit the gas to reach the university as fast as possible.

It's a record, he's reached the university within minutes given the fact that he lives quite far from it, was it luck to hit only green lights or the timing was perfect? That doesn't matter now, he picks up his backpack heading for the classroom to notice the course hasn't started yet, he takes a seat by his best friend discussing what they wrote in the past exam they had, they're expecting good results.