Maredrauga

Preface

It was meant to be a simple camping trip. A final farewell to High School, before the weight of adulthood fell squarely upon our shoulders. Little did we notice the shadows shifting subtly around the glow of the campire as we told horror stories, unaware that our own, very real one was unfolding.

When we fell asleep, it came…

History

Aiden Dravis was that kid who slept through class. Suffering from night terrors as far as he could remember, he always fought off going to sleep at night. He was quiet, spending more time watching others interact then interacting himself. His solitude began to change junior year when he met Kevin.

Kevin started getting Aiden to hang out with him and his friends, which soon became Aiden’s friends. There was Jason, Katie, Alex, Shaun, Madison, and of course Kevin. Aiden particularly liked Katie, like liked…though he could never muster up the courage to tell her. Life was good…even the night terrors seemed to vanish to a distant memory.

Sadly, the camping trip changed everything. There were all taken, from what Aiden remembers, to a dark place called the lands of mist. Slowly he watched his friends die on by one. They were not alone in this place, dark things were drawn towards the light and there were others who were kidnapped. It boiled down to simple, primal survival…and it changed them all. Not only did Aiden have to worry about the monsters who lurked in the darkness…he also had to worry about the monsters he once called friends.

The Lands of Mist were a place of paranoia and fear. The Fae that took them was simply called the Monster, though there were many other threats in the darkness. The Monster, though, seemed to delight in driving fear to a fevered pitch and tended to murder its captives in gruesome ways to inspire the most fear in the survivors. Beyond fear, it relished in paranoia and seemed to have the ability to take many shapes to lure people to their doom and take away the ability to trust.

There was always new blood coming into the mist, and they usually ended up dying quick. Preyed on by the predators and other survivors. Those that survived, changed. Some became solitary, becoming colder and more animalistic. Others clustered in their groups that shifted constantly from internal and external attrition, they built up a indifference towards suffering and learned to read people.

Shaun was the first to go, his screams woke everyone up to the living nightmare. After that, though, time and memory became more fuzzy. Aiden remembers killing Kevin with a rock, after he watched him murder Katie and he remembers the sound of Madison’s screams as he tore through the brush and found his way back onto pavement and out of the nightmare.

When Aiden made it back home, he quickly realized two things; more time had passed then he originally thought and that him and his friends were not missed. They had been replaced with something else.

Fearing that he was not truly free from the terror that had transformed his life, he fled south to Athens, Georgia. There, a Summer Courtier, which went by the name Firefly, found him and introduced him to the Freehold of Athens. It was a strange and frightening to him at first, but he found himself swayed by Firefly.

Aiden soon learned a lot about how his life had changed. One thing he noticed was his ability and skill to control his own dreamscape. With the ability to control his nightmares, he started to heal and find a place within the Freehold among the Summer Court.

Aiden did not share the emotions to fit in with the Summer, nor did he like all the emphasis put on all the physical challenges. It wasn’t long before Firefly noticed, and guided him to an Autumn Courier named Deadfall. Aiden did not understand at first why he was being pushed away, but it did not take him long to understand. There was something about the Season that resonated with him stronger than Summer ever did, and they helped guide him to work on more than just his dreamscape.

It wasn’t long before his talents were put to use. It started with subtle dream-poisoning until it was a full blown invasion within the dreamscape that the Freehold couldn’t quite cope with. They simply were not prepared for an attack of that nature on such a scale and when all hope seemed lost, a small group showed up in the Freehold.

They were skilled Oneiromancers that pushed the threat back, yet the Freehold stood decimated. Aiden stuck around for a while, but with the Freehold reduced to a shadow of its former self, more physical threats began popping up and those that survived scattered to the wind.

Firefly had connections within Los Angeles and talked Aiden to making the trip to the West Coast. While she was a close friend, Aiden realized that he needed to find his own path and find out more about the Dreamscape and that group of strangers who made his survival possible.

Aiden still keeps in contact with Firefly, but he goes by a new name now…

Personality

Aiden has a thirst for knowledge, especially when it comes to dreams. He would rather read it out of a book, though than learn something through interaction. His durance makes it hard for him to ever truly trust anyone, and it takes a while for people to really get him to open up. For most of his life, he suffered from nightmares and now that he is in control of it all he pushes it as far as he can. Part of the reason he did not follow Firefly to Los Angeles is because he wanted to recreate himself and took up the name Maredrauga.