A kaleidoscope of butterflies erupted in front of her. A myriad of vibrant and pastel hues, she could hear their tiny wings beating as they buffeted, swirled and soared. They filled her vision. No matter where she looked the multi-coloured wings fluttered around her. She felt safe. Cocooned.

Suddenly a hand breached the satin wall grabbing her arm and she was pulled forth. Now an enormous serpent, coiled around a dagger, was in front of her. It's tongue flicked the air as it wound its way around the blade then came towards her, it's powerful muscles propelling it across the stone floor of an elaborate chamber. It rose menacingly in front of her, yet she did not feel fear. Instead, she felt resolute, focused. She placed a hand on the side of its face, almost tenderly, and traced her fingers around its jaw. The tongue flicked again, this time connecting with her skin.

She gazed into its eyes. Its human eyes - brown, blazing, lustful. She looked deeper and saw a reflection. Was it her own? The face was blurry but it was a female form certainly. She sensed it was her, and in that same instant she saw the image bringing forth a dagger. She heard a distant scream as the dagger was thrust into the serpent's eye. It recoiled from her then froze, utterly immobilised. She saw its eye fill with blood then suddenly she was within the wall of butterflies again. Safe.

The wings shifted, parted, creating an opening.  A beautiful meadow stretched before her. She inhaled the sweet scent of ... peacebloom and mageroyal? She felt her face smiling. Fingers brushed the underside of her hand. Turning she saw a boy. His black hair, long and silky was tied up in a high knot. The bright green eyes and beautiful mouth caused her heart to skip a beat.  She smiled at the grassy smudges on his cheeks. 

He inched forward. The butterflies rose again this time encapsulating them both within their satin embrace. The boy's mouth pressed softly against hers and then... they were swirling, tumbling, soaring on the wings of their tiny protectors.

Her bliss came to a brutal finale. Now she stood next to a fallen tree. That boy, that ebony-haired boy was now a man, but he was dying. His body was torn and mutilated. As he turned his face towards her she started to scream. The debilitating pain of loss she felt was tantamount to the most heinous torture. Her screams and wails escalated, their tone altering from an echoing other-wordly distance rapidly growing in volume until they hit deafening.

     "Bernie!"

She heard someone calling out. Bernie? Was that her name?  Still, the image of that boy, that injured man was emblazoned on her mind.

     "Bernie! Wake up!"

She saw her arms reaching up, her fingers like claws trying to find the source of that voice. But the wounded man still haunted her, the pain of losing him, so fierce. With one desperate push forward she reached out again. Her lungs filled to bursting as she felt her body jettisoned upwards. She saw light. It was a mere speck but growing larger by the millisecond.

     "Bernie! You're dreaming."

She was almost there. A face was waiting for her. She so hoped it was the ebony-haired man, all healed, perfect again.  Almost there. She felt a force at her back giving her that final push and with everything she had, she screamed, "Camnath!"

Her eyes burst open and she sat up with such force her head spun. She felt an arm around her shoulders. She shirked away from it, flailing her arms to ward it off.

     "Bernie. It's me. Mel."  Her flatmate was down on his hunkers beside her, his voice laden with concern.  He leaned down further trying to catch her eye.  She clasped her hands over her face, her head shaking in denial.  These dreams had escalated over the last couple of months, but this one seemed to have been the most vivid yet.  Gently, he put his arm around her again and this time she didn't flinch.  "What's wrong, Bernie. Is it something from your childhood that plagues you?"  His voice was soft, caring.

Bernie shook her head more. "No," she mumbled. "Nothing from my childhood. Nothing like - this - at all, ever! "

Mel sat himself down.  In one way he was relieved there were no dark secrets.  He had thought for long enough there was something traumatic from her past that haunted her. "So what gives?"

She lowered her hands and looked at him. Her eyes were a little red. She had been crying.  "I don't know," she said, her voice but a whisper.  

     "Well, who, or what, is Camnath?"

Bernie frowned. "Camnath?" She tried to recall parts of the dream.  . "I - I think he was... an elf. A blood elf. He was – important to me.  Not me, but yes, me. I – I don't know."

Mel sighed, his shoulders relaxed. Bernie stared at him, a frown creasing her brow, questioning. "Role-play!" he explained. "You've been dreaming about some role-play you were in." He smirked.

She vehemently shook her head. "No!"

     "Has to be Bernie. We all play it regularly enough for you end up dreaming it. Even I've done that."

     "These are not dreams, Mel!" she inveighed.  "They - start off okay - even nice  sometimes.  But they end up in such a deep, incessant sorrow."

On his watch, Waquro had observed Bernie as she'd thrashed and cried in her sleep. Her mutterings and dream-filled movements had ebbed and flowed throughout the night. Sitting only a few feet from her with a small sharp blade in his hand he had been painstakingly whittling a small piece of wood for the past two and half hours. His small black eyes glittered from the remainder of the fire nearby. "They are memories." he said with aplomb.

     "She just said they aren't from her childhood." Mel emphasised.

The huge tauren snorted, a low rumble sounding in his chest. "I did not say they were her memories." His characteristic basso profundo had a soothing timbre in the deep of the night.

     "Wh - " Mel's brows pinched. "What?" He shook his head in disbelief at what the tauren implied.

Bernie, the incurable romanticist however, was drawn to Waquro's words. She sat forward. "What do you mean, not mine?"

The tauren put down the blade and the wood he had been working. Bernie and Mel sensed something of a spiritual lesson coming. They were not far wrong. "It is the belief of some races that spirits may, on occasion live within a chosen host, sometimes to right a wrong, or prevent one from occurring."

     "Possession? I thought that was malevolent spirits out to create havoc or do mischief of some sort." Bernie said.

     "Not all bear evil intent, Bernie. For some, it is love that drives them to enter a living being. That love may be for another individual, their family, a nation or simply to honour their beliefs, their faith.

     "Spirits are curious things, often playful.  A few may have only achieved possession serendipitously. Many, you see, have to wait several lifetimes to be reborn to the physical world, and live out their anchored existence within another sentient being.  It is therefore tempting, I would imagine, to opt for a little frivolity between lives."  He studied the faces before him.  They were obviously considering what he had told them.

     "Bull shit!" a voice from the shadows spat. "Oh, do excuse the pun, won't you?" Mick opined from his chosen sleeping spot. 

Bernie's head shot round.  Seething at his disrespectful utterance and tone she snarled a response.  "Your rudeness is pissing me off!"

     "Oh really!" he replied, pushing himself up and walking, rather shakily, over to her. "Your stupidity and credulity are having the same affect on me, Bernie. You and bloody Warren Haynes here," he scoffed, pointing at Mel.  By all accounts, he seemed almost inebriated.

Mel grinned at the attempted insult to him.  "Give it up, Mick. Even you aren't brash enough to think your behaviour will be tolerated by our current company."  He looked towards the two orcs at the far side of the fissure. They lay snoring, utterly oblivious. Mel rolled his eyes. Well, that threat failed, he thought.

     "Sit down." Waquro ordered Mick, as he picked up his blade and wooden carving again.

     "Or what, bull boy?" Mick said. He started gesturing to the tauren in a non-too friendly manner. The tauren held his stare but did not react to the childish behaviour.

     "For god's sake, will you stop!" Bernie hissed at Mick. "Have you no concept of where we really are? Of what can happen to us? This is for real, Mick."

Mick stopped giving Waquro the double-handed one-finger salute. Spinning on his heel he gave Bernie a dismissive wave, then sauntered back to his part of the fissure, muttering under his breath. Mel and Bernie exhaled with relief as they heard him slump to the floor. It was short-lived, however.

     "You know something Bernie? I should have left you with your fuck-buddy Drew. You could both have been snuggling up to that boring old fart Khadgar and his pregnant bride, playing Hearthstone or something."

Bernie balled her hands into fists. Mel put a comforting hand on her arm before adding his contribution to the conversation. "Well, if you had, you would've been spider fodder before now, wouldn't you, Mick? You should be thanking Bernie, not trying to degrade her."

They waited a few moments. No more offensive chatter. It seemed Mick's little outburst had exhausted him and soft snores were all that came from his direction. The two flatmates turned their attention back to Waquro. They were surprised to find the tauren laughing softly to himself. 

     "What?" Mel asked, struggling to suppress a smile at the sound of Waquro's mirth.

     "Boring old fart," Waquro laughed more. "I doubt the Archmage would be too enamoured at that description of his goodly self." He laughed again. "And a pregnant bride? Didn't think he had it in him." At that the tauren guffawed, which sounded frightfully like a bovine call for "charge".

Mel and Bernie both laughed lightly along with the tauren. "You know him well?" Mel asked.

     "I've met him. A long time ago now it seems. It was when he first came to Frostfire." He continued with his carving as he spoke. "He is a good man. Very powerful and not just by means of magic. He has exemplary diplomatic ability and is just and fair."

     "You admire him?" Bernie asked.

     "I do, yes." He resumed his more serious façade. "And how do you all know of him?"

At that, Mel and Bernie looked at each other. They were both thinking, what do we tell him? Somehow, with Draenor not too distant from their current location (at least in game terms that was) the news that they too hailed from a different dimension wasn't going to sound all that far-fetched. How they actually knew a lot of details about Azeroth however, was an entirely different fixation altogether. With a sigh, Bernie turned back to the assiduous tauren. "It is a rather long story, Waquro."

His meticulous carving complete, he held up a small totem, owl's head, feathers and all beautifully carved. He cut and yanked a thin strip from a small piece of leather he had at his side and tied it securely round the totem, putting a knot at the two ends. He handed it to Bernie. "This should provide a cessation to your dreams, for a while," he said. "Put it on."

She smiled and thanked him.

     "And now I suggest you sleep. Save your tale for tomorrow. It is a long trek to the Blasted Lands through the swamps and I wish for something to make the journey less tedious."

They all settled down again for the remainder of the night.

☸ 

Sarah lay awake, staring out of the open window at the waning moon. Sleep evaded her for three reasons. One, Drew had explained to her about Bernie and her two flatmates who had followed him through the portal. When Sarah had reacted captiously, Erik had decided to take his leave saying he would be back in an hour.

Sarah ranted at Drew when he explained how it all came about. She was spared the graphic details but obviously, Drew's brain had been somewhere other than where it was supposed to be when he met up with Bernie. Not to mention he was drunk and high so his mouth was also out of control. With his head hung low and staring at the floor, Sarah finally surceased once she realised how guilt-ridden he was over the whole affair.

Although he tried to dance around the topic, she also deduced he was really quite disappointed, if indeed not a bit hurt at the way things had turned out with this Bernie. In a bid to try and smooth things over with him and hopefully make him feel a little better, she said that Bernie couldn't be all that bad when she's picked out such lovely things for Ocel. Unfortunately, it didn't help Drew's mood much.

     "What's the worst that can happen?" she'd asked him, trying to get him to engage again. He shook his head and shrugged but remained silent.

     "Drew," she said, crossing over to where he sat. She nudged up next to him about to take his hand until she remembered the incident in the nursery. She lay her hands on her lap.  "I'm sorry. I guess I'm a still a bit crotchety with hormones and all."

He sighed, wringing his hands together. "No, you're right Sarah. I was a stupid bastard and I might well have started a chain of events that could..." He run his fingers through his hair. "Oh, I don't know! But if they run into any trouble, or cause it – which they will, with that Mick in charge - it would serve him right if - " 

     "Hey, don't think like that. He sounds like a dork yes, but he's out of his depth here.  As for - what was his name?"

     "Mel. He's an okay guy actually."

     "Mel, and Bernie. Drew, we really don't want anything bad to happen to any of them.  But, they might come back to Stormwind anyway once they realise this is all very real indeed."

Still staring at the floor, he imperturbably moved his hand across and folded his fingers around hers.   An audible gasp escaped Sarah as a vision of a large room with lots of people in it flashed in front of her eyes. 

She heard the distant thrumming of another's heart and it seemed she was watching everything through someone else's eyes. She surmised it was a man as she saw a masculine hand extend to shake with someone else. 

The eyes lifted and she saw another man, one with platinum hair. He was well dressed in a silver-grey suit with a maroon cravat. He was immaculate in fact and quite handsome.  She got the sense her 'host' did not particularly warm to the platinum-haired man however. 

The eyes turned to the right where the sparkle of tiny beads sewn on a black dress caught their attention. A young woman was glancing up at the eyes, full of love. She looked like...

Drew removed his hand and instantly the vision faded. The break in connection made her cry out. Drew turned and faced her. "What?" he panicked. "What did I do?"

She looked down at her hand. "Noth - nothing that you're aware of, I don't think," she said, trying to fathom what had happened for the second time that day.

     "What's that supposed to mean?"

She looked up at him.  God he looked tired. What on earth is going on with him, she wondered, deliberately not giving way to correcting herself and saying Azeroth instead. "Is there something you're not telling me, Drew?"

He turned away and once more she witnessed him wringing his hands.  She had never known him to be so unsettled, so agitated about something. He had always been the one out of the two to be the calming influence.  

     "There's little that would sound crazy to me Drew. I mean, look where we are and consider what we have both been through already."

He managed a semblance of a laugh, the trace of his smile still on his lips as he tilted his head to look at her.  "True, I guess."

     "Then come on. Spill it. Let me be your faithful puppy now."

He nodded and proceeded to tell her about the strange experience he had at the train station. He explained some of the peculiarities that had occurred afterwards, such as the unshakeable knowledge that he knew Bernie liked watching the cat in the park, that it meant something, though he knew not what.  And the feeling that there were memories locked away, deep inside that he was convinced did not belong to him.  He told of the last incident on his way to Erik's, when he was wide awake, walking!  The butterflies in a jar, the girl in the black dress that sparkled...

     "Whoa! I saw her too!" Sarah said, wide-eyed.  "Just a moment ago when you took my hand." 

Drew looked almost relieved.  She had just given him confirmation that he was not going mad. "Did you see her face? There was something familiar about her but the visions faded before I got a good look at her."

She shook her head.  "No, only her dress.  Like you, things faded before I had a chance to see her.  There was another man though, with platinum hair.  And  - this must  explain the extra heartbeat!" She was excited by this revelation.  Now she could sense a spirit's heart?  "I'm pretty sure, however, going by what I did see and sense, it's from here.  Azeroth. It didn't feel like it was from our dimension."

She had lost Drew when she'd mentioned the heartbeat, but that wasn't important.  It seemed that spirits were quite ubiquitous beings and the interesting point here was the amplitude of their reach.  Not only did they remain within their own time and space, to reincarnate perhaps decades or centuries later, but they crossed over into other dimensions entirely.   A new interpretation on hitchhikers of the galaxy, she mused.  Furthermore, whoever Drew's 'guest' was,  she was certain that it was no fluke, he had selected him of all people to pervade. But why?   And was there a link in this with Bernie with whom he had sensed, albeit briefly, perpetuity of some degree? 

By the time Erik returned for his house guest, Drew and Sarah were back to being good friends again.  She pondered more about the phenomena after they left, particularly when they hugged and she experienced no spiritual memories or feelings at all.  Perhaps they were only triggered when emotions were in turmoil, she did not know, but it was a relief to find that she wouldn't suffer an onslaught of images every time she and Drew shared a friendly hug.

The second reason for her insomnolence was  Khadgar's visit to Dalaran that evening. The Void or its potential threat at least had been brought to his attention by Illidan after one of his patrols had chanced across two Frostwolf orcs.  By rights, they should not have been able to enter this timeline.  Due to the Iron Horde's incongruity, the portal had been defused, preventing anyone entry to  Azeroth from Draenor.   Somehow, it had been reactivated.

Having been party to the war against the Burning Legion, she had hoped it would be a long time indeed before they were faced with yet another threat to their existence.  Survival on Azeroth seemed to be continual challenge outwith the normal confines of daily life.  The humdrum problems of just getting from morning to night on earnings from employment, trade or thievery were commonplace and met without much difficulty.  But, it seemed  they were destined to  always engage in battle against some mega nasty in one form or another, on a relatively regular basis.  The game at least held true to that much.  The reality however, was more terrifying that one could possibly imagine. And this beast, this enemy, was going to be the greatest terror of all.

Her thoughts drifted to her son, sleeping in the next room. How perfect he was.  So innocent, but with the world at his fingertips.  This morning, she had no doubt he would  grow to be as important, influential and well respected as his father.   Now, in the cold dark hours preceding dawn, the very real possibility that his young life could be snuffed out before it had even began, settled over her like a mourner's veil.  Her heart contracted.  This was not going to be the happy ever after she had envisioned.  Her breath caught in her throat and she stemmed an errant sob.

The distant swoosh and whirl of a portal in the hallway bespoke Khadgar's return.  A sigh of relief escaped her lips. She waited to hear their bedroom door creak further open. Instead she heard the dull and final click of his study door closing. Therein lay her third reason for sleeplessness. The pillow beside her would remain empty this night.