Darkness.
Not the kind found in a moonless night or a shadowed alleyway, but an infinite, all-consuming abyss—a void so vast, so formless, that even time itself seemed meaningless.
I had no body, no breath, no heartbeat.
Only awareness.
I drifted in nothingness, untethered, thoughtless yet conscious. There was no sound, no sensation, only the overwhelming stillness of a place that existed beyond existence.
Was this death?
Had I faded into some forgotten afterlife?
Or worse—was this all there was?
Then something shifted.
A flicker, distant yet undeniable.A spark of something that did not belong to the void.
Heat.
A fire, unseen but felt, like an ember in a vast ocean of cold.
Then, a pull.
A force is both terrifying and absolute. It came without warning, without explanation.
The pull was relentless, like invisible hands dragging me toward an unknown fate.
I wanted to resist, to hold onto the safety of nothingness, but the force did not care for my desires.
It yanked me forward, and for the first time, I felt fear—true, unrelenting fear of the unknown.
The void shattered around me, and I fell.
Pain.
It was the first thing I felt.
Not an ache.Not a distant sensation. But an all-consuming force- pressing in from all sides, crushing, twisting, suffocating.
I was small. Weak. Helpless.
My limbs—foreign, fragile, unresponsive things—curled inward, trembling from cold air against my damp skin.
My chest tightened. My lungs burned.
I gasped for breath, but there was nothing. Only pressure, unbearable and unyielding.
I was being pushed, squeezed, and crushed into a shape that felt wrong.
I fought.
I struggled.
But I was powerless—trapped in a body that did not belong to me.
No. Not trapped.
Being born.
The realization sent cold terror through me.
I was no longer a soul adrift in the void.
I was something else now- Something mortal.
Then came the sound.
Muffled at first, distant yet real.
Urgent and frantic, voices reached me through layers of flesh and warmth.
"Push, Your Grace! Almost there!" a strong, commanding voice urged.
"Come to me, my little dragon…" another voice, softer, weaker and filled with love and exhaustion said.
Then—light.
Blinding. Overwhelming.
The world crashed into me all at once.
Air slammed into my lungs like fire, cold and biting.
My tiny body convulsed, my chest heaving violently as I gasped for breath. It was as if I had been drowning for an eternity, only now breaking the surface, forced to inhale the cruel, foreign world around me.
I had never needed to breathe before.
I had never felt it before.
And it was horrible.
The weight of gravity pressed down on me, an invisible chain tethering me to the world. I wasn't floating anymore—I was held, cradled in warmth that was both soothing and strange.
My heartbeat pounded in my ears, frantic and desperate. My muscles trembled, unable to control the small, pitiful movements of my newborn body. My ears rang, assaulted by too many sounds at once—voices, the distant crackling of fire, the shifting of fabric, the murmuring of people.
Everything was too loud.
Too real.
The world crashed into me all at once, a storm of sensations I had no control over.
The whisper of wind against my damp skin.
The weight of fabric pressed down on my fragile limbs.
The rhythmic pounding of a heartbeat—not mine, but someone else's, thudding against my ear.
I was helpless, drowning in a body I didn't understand, overwhelmed by feelings I had no words for.
I was alive.
And I was terrified.
A blinding gold erupted before me, searing into my newborn mind. My pupils shrunk violently, my head instinctively turning away.
It was too much.
Too bright.
Too raw.
Like staring into the heart of a fire after knowing only darkness.
The world was a smear of colours—warm reds and deep shadows, the glow of candles dancing along polished stone walls. My vision swam, shapes blurring and shifting as my mind struggled to comprehend the world around me.
A hand, pale and trembling, reached toward me. A voice—soft, breathless, filled with love and exhaustion- said, "Come to your mother, my little dragon…"
I was lifted, my body pressed against a warmth so familiar yet so strange. The soft press of lips against my forehead.A deep, shaky breath, a voice whispering my name.
"Aemon…"
The name settled over me like an unbreakable chain.
It was mine now.
Even if it hadn't been before.
Even if it never should have been.