The Dark Serpent

At Throne of Shadows Prologue

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had strange nightmares. These are not like normal nightmares, these come in pairs and they only come every four years. These have been so real, that at one point, my girlfriend at the time had me taken to a hospital because, as she put it — I was being strangled! Yeah, that’s right. Not choking, her words to both the doctor and me were that I was coughing, struggling to breathe, and there was a shadow wrapped around my neck that kept getting tighter! To be honest I felt bad for the girl, especially after I broke up with her not too long after. That was right after the one which I am going to tell you now.

I arose from the mucky, moist ground. My vision was hazy, making me assume I had fallen asleep or something. But I honestly couldn’t remember where I was or what I had been doing before. It was all one big blur! I looked around, but could see nothing! No walls, no windows, not even the damp stone floor I knew I was sitting on! Everything was simply black. I wanted to call out for help, but something told me there would be no help in this place. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I had to be dreaming again. Due to the growing severity of my nightmares, I had developed a way to, in a sense, “eject” myself from my dreams. The first step is to recognize your dreaming. Just like in the movie, Inception, I had a totem to always…