Lorelei

It was like the dusk before a dawn, a shadow before the sunrise. Her life had always been filled with a sense of foreboding darkness, a never ending trail of corruption which had haunted and hunted her all her life. Nobody knew what to call it, no one could describe it, it was just a shadow. It was the darkness.

Her darkness, a never ending abyss which pulled her deeper and deeper into a maddening state of agony and dread. And it was her plague. When the corruption wasn't plaguing her, it was plaguing those around her... but the way people would look at her... the things they would say. For some reason, even in this madness, even when trapped within this unending mania. She wouldn't have had it any other way.

Then, the Rifters came. Men and women from every race, warriors and mages, barbarians and kings. All on an equal footing with one another, all in a state of serene tranquility and content. And for some reason, her darkness couldn't reach them.

She had tried, she had tried so very hard to corrupt one or the other. Calling on the ethereal threads of her dark energy to change any she could get her hands on. But even those born of chaos would not bow to her way.

It made her jealous, it blinded her in such a way that she couldn't see the monster she had become. To her, she was just trying to survive... but what she couldn't see, was how much in need she truly was. What she didn't know, was that in the end, she was the one in need of help. She was the one in need of change from the dark shadows that surrounded her, to a calm and serene existence which had rejected her all her life.

But the Rifters wouldn't turn away. Not even when someone as corrupt and manipulated as herself was in need. And in the end she would realize, that they owed her nothing. In fact, it was her, who owed them everything. That is the story of Lorelei.