I was born from the dream of a man from another world.
A man with hair as dark as a raven's wing slouches along a street formed by red dust and looming, mismatched houses. His boots are half tied as if he is unsure how to do them, his jacket is a size or three too big, and his gloves have worn through, leaving pale fingers exposed to the air.
It is raining, abysmally so, and the man does not have a hood. He also lacks such things as a map, a clue, and, most importantly, a name. Alone with only rain to keep him company, the stranger lacks even a word to call his own.
Without a sound, he raises his gaze to the weeping sky and squints.
“Are those clouds?” he mumbles. In answer, he receives only a miniature deluge, just for him. A drop lands square on his nose and he sneezes, slipping on a stone amidst the sandy path and landing firmly on his rather skinny behind. “Ouch...” he adds, as an afterthought.
After some scrambling he stands, brushes his sopping wet hands on his sopping wet coat, and continues onwards through the sopping wet street, unaware that ahead, there is a dead end.
Not a sopping wet dead end, a dry dead end, but it serves him no good by any means. And he only makes it wet anyway.
Wondering if this is what people call 'good luck' he huddles in his coat and stares out what appears to be a large portion of air. Judging by the rain splatting against it, it must be a flat, solid piece of air.
What a strange thing to have, he thinks, to himself but stares at – well, through - it anyway. He's not entirely sure why he feels the need to be dry, or what 'dry' really is. Just that it's 'not wet' which begs the question of what 'wet' is. Despite being undecided on what it's supposed to mean, the room is pleasant enough to him; painted an exuberant sort of red with lots of strange foreign ornaments and flowers dotted about. There's a cupboard on the wall, half open, with an enticing something in it.
Curious, the man sloshes over to the object, picks it up, and takes a bite. Whatever it is, it's decidedly crumbly and the word 'tasty' comes into his head. By the time he decides he would like another, he has finished, but there are none.
I have no name, because I have not been given one.
Unaware, also, that he is in a house that does not belong to him, or even what a house is supposed to be, he clambers on the wooden work surface and firmly plants his upper half in the cupboard, looking for other items of interest.
Finding nothing, he clambers down and creeps to the window, staring out in all silence. The moon is the only thing not hidden behind a thick smog of roiling clouds. In its solitary light, palm trees shuffle in the breeze, shuddering before a city standing, steadfast, against a furious tropical storm. With a small grunt he leans forward and undoes the window, to better feel the warm wind.
It is then that his ignorance of the marble dragon aimed at the back of his head serves as a critical disadvantage.
“Die, fiend!”
