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Cold.
So cold, the chill wind biting through my fur and what little rags I scavenged from the hovel. I can feel my mind wandering as my feet follow suit, drifting through the storm.
I feel nothing, aught but the burning void within and without. I am falling, caught in the clutches of the storm. I can feel myself being buried by the snow as the grows long, but cannot summon the will to move on.
What is this?
A man, digging me out of the cold would-be grave wherein I lie. His face is weathered and care-worn, bearing the years with a simple dignity and pride. His words are muffled, twisted as if coming from a long tunnel. He seems...concerned for me, almost as if he recognizes me.
I awaken. Warmth, the scent of a bed freshly cleaned fills the air. A simple room comes to my eyes, filled with the warmth of a life well lived. I struggle to my feet, an unknown sense of purpose guiding my steps.
The old man enters the room and smiles at me, about to speak. Filled with a dark purpose, I drive my dagger through his heart. He dies with a smile still on his face, whatever words still on his lips forever unspoken. Taking his boots and cloak, I prepare to leave when something about him catches my eye.
Kneeling beside him I remove my dagger from his heart, red hearts-blood welling upon his chest like a macabre rose. In my mind I can see the patterns needed, the flows to chart and awaken. Excitement runs through me, calling me to follow!
I carve the flesh from his body, tracing the patterns in his blood. His corpse twitches, just once, before falling still. With a discordant pulse of disconnected fear I leave the hovel and the corpse behind, a footnote of violence in the storm.
I feel nothing.
Why do I feel nothing?
The cold wind bites at my heels, dogging me as I flee the scene of the horror that I perpetuated.
Why did I kill that man?
This question rings throughout my shattered thoughts as I blindly flee through the twisting alleyways, seeking answers from whoever might heed my calls. My steps lead to that place where it all began, the laboratory full of nightmares and lies. I find myself bounding down the steps as if in a great hurry, the path feeling familiar evermore as I come closer.
It is as I left it, full of the debris of the owners overwhelming hubris. I riffle through the debris in a manic panic, unsure of what I am looking for. My search finally takes me to the corpse, charred by the fires of magic gone insane.
Upon that solitary figure, a book I find. Bound in the finest leather and engraved with the finest silver leafing, something about it invokes...terror. Almost as if in a dream I find myself opening the volume, ignorant of my surroundings.
Within the book lies the things of nightmares. Strange symbols adorn images of things too terrible to contemplate, diagrams and notes describe experiments too foul to comprehend. I feel my mind shattering again, but in a different path this time.
The darkness comes rushing in as I fall, overwhelmed by the knowledge I now bear. How I wish it could be forgotten, misplaced and left aside the ways of time.
That would be far too great a kindness.
Coming to my senses, I flee from that place with the demons of memory at my heels.
The book left open upon the floor, its terrible secrets revealed to any who happen upon it.
Who am I?
That question has haunted me these last weeks, like the lingering remnants of a fading nightmare. I found answers in that unhallowed place where I awoke, answers that I now wish could be forgotten.
It does not matter. Who I was is irrelevant, a passing shadow of who I am now and shall be.
I am a student of the Great Work, a seeker of knowledge. I am one who walks the knife's edge between the madness of the fallen and the glory of the transcendent, a seeker of the forbidden knowledge. I am one who will rip asunder the lies of this broken, shattered reflection of a world.
I am Truth.
And I remember.
