"Ouch..." A whimper escaped my lips. My legs were mangled, and my head was bleeding.

A girl about my age, maybe younger, ran to my side.

"Do not move, I can heal this." She said, turning me on my back.

Her body was emanating an odd yellow glow, and she grabbed both of my legs.

A scream erupted from my lips, and I saw Cedraw standing near me. He fell beside my mangled body, cradling my head in his lap.

Suddenly, the glowing girl let out a high pitched noise. The sound was glass shattering, but as she did so the glow inside of her began moving through her arms, into my legs. It was over within five seconds, and I slowly began to move my feet again.

I smiled up at her, but she was sweating and tears were streaming from her face. Another woman reached for her, pulling the girl to to her chest.

"She has absorbed your pain, but she will recover in a short while. Read the scroll, the time has almost come." The woman said, and then guided the young girl back down the stairs.

Fully recovered, I unrolled the scroll.

"Who here can read the ancient text?" I called into the crowd.

A young boy, no older than twelve, stepped forward.

"I can do it." He said, motioning for the scroll.

I reluctantly handed it to him. Even unable to decipher the strange words, I could feel the power emanating from the text. We had come to the right place.

"Another time slip!" Someone from the crowd yelled. He had a pocket watch dangling from his hand.

"How much longer do we have until the spell can't be repaired?" Another person called.

I glanced down at my own watch. Another forty minutes had passed by in an instant, a warning that the spell was weakening. We soon would run out of time. If we failed, the beasts would overtake this world, leaving nothing in their wake.

"We have to act now." I said.

The young boy was nodding, still studying the scroll.

"I can read it." He said, looking up.

We turned back to the crowd of sorcerers. Many of them clung to one another, fear paralyzing their faces. The bangs of the door were growing louder, and the room began to shake.

"Listen, All!" I announced to the crowd. They turned towards me, terror obvious on their faces.

"We have trained for this for our whole lives, and we have looked true death in the face and outran it!" I paused, giving my audience the time to understand my words before continuing. "This is our one chance at redemption. We all have the gifts of our ancestors, and tonight we put them to use!"

The heads nodded, they had all long before accepted their fate.

We wasted no time, and soon we had formed a circle in the large room, hand in hand.

"We must focus our energies together, we must bind our gifts to the humanity of the beasts!" I called out.

Cedraw was beside me, his hand in mine. I could feel the sweat between our palms, and gave him a squeeze of encouragement. The young boy beside me placed the scroll on a podium in the center of the room, inches from his head, and began to speak.

"Ver bind humanityinn aptr til beastrinn

Lioa demonanaptrr til hvilao

Hvilao fyrir pau hverr kut djupr

Gefa balanceinn hverfa illr"

As the words were spoken, a wave of energy began pulsing through my arms, causing me to go rigid. I could see our power growing, and a light began to form around our circle, closing us in.

The boy repeated the words again, and the floor began to shake. I could still hear the banging on the doors, and as the boys words intensified, so did the beasts behind the stone.

The boy repeated the words for the third time, and a huge cluster of light emerged from our circle, growing and pulsing with each syllable. The young boy screamed out the last word, and the ball of light barged from our circle, sending some of us flying back, and shattered through the stone wall.

The bodies began pouring in and screams rattled the wall, but they were not our own. The beasts screamed and writhed on the floor, some sobbing and others screeching in agony. They were beasts no longer. They were the Unspoken.

A small child entered the room, crying and wearing his nightwear. I slowly walked over to him, and crouched down. He was newly turned, and he wore a look of terror on his ashen face.

I knelt down, so that we were at eye level.

"It is over now. We are saved!" I cried.