An Introduction

[Hallucinogenic*]

You sit alone in the quiet and the black, watching the darkness pulse hazily in the distance. You feel peaceful, and you don’t want to leave the inky womb of your unconscious. Then you feel something wet hit your cheek, and the light invades your vision.

Once you awaken, you find yourself in what appears to be an old-fashioned prison cell, with no memory of how you got there. The lights are out, leaving you with only the pale moonlight to guide your eyes and the door to the cell sits quietly in the dark, hanging wide open, waiting for you to pass. Your head throbs as you get to your feet, and your bones ache from sleeping on the cold stone floor, but that’s the least of your worries.

As you stumble out of the cell, you start to realize your heart is beating a little faster than usual, but less so out of fear than something altogether wrong. Your body feels strange and alien to you now, like you’ve been placed in somebody else’s or you have to learn how to walk for the first time again. As you check yourself over for any bruises or marks, you find a small puncture wound in the crook of your arm, surrounded by a perfect ring of six smaller ones.

The last thing you can remember is turning out the light in your room before you went to sleep, and you wonder if this could all be a dream. Then you hear a sound in the distance, like a siren, and you crumble to the floor without another thought.

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Patience.

You’ll wake up soon enough.