Chapter I
It's not like it was a strange day, it just felt…different. I had woken with a start. My breath was fast and my eyes were open wide, pupils dilated, looking for any source of danger. I sat up in bed and looked around my room. It was dark except for the faint glow from a burning torch that was mounted on the cave wall. It was casting eerie, flickering shadows all around the room. I rubbed my eyes, trying to calm myself down. I had been having that dream very frequently nowadays. I only got short glimpses of it…until now.
More often than not, my dreams would consist of flashes of a dark, wasted land where corpses were swarming out of the ground and a town lay in ruins. If that wasn't bad enough, I also dreamed of massive creatures whose skins looked they had been sewn together, forging long broad swords that glowed a bright blue and had almost tribal-like markings carved into them. Usually the dreams were inaudible, just dark and filled with ghastly images, but this dream had been the worst of all.
I could feel myself floating in mid air over a large pit, and in that pit stood prisoners of many different races chained up, wearing ragged clothing, moaning and calling for help. A few were crumpled in motionless piles like unwanted toys. I couldn't help but stare as I watched a mysterious hooded figure walk down the steps and into the pit. Their boots made a metallic echo as they walked across the stone floor. They pointed to one of the chained prisoners−a female troll like me. Instantly the chains dropped from the troll and she fell to her knees. The one in the hood continued to keep their arm out straight; they made an upward motion and the troll was hoisted to her feet. She staggered to stand straight as if it pained her to do so. She lifted her head slightly to look at the strange person standing in front of her. Just then they pushed away one side of their cloak to reveal a blade similar to the ones I had previously dreamed about. This person was going to fight an injured and unarmed troll?! I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I tried to look away but couldn't. The blade made a sharp sound as it was unsheathed. Its wielder held it with two hands in front of their body.
"No…please…" I heard the troll woman whisper. There were also shouts of "you monster!" and "get away from her!" from the other prisoners.
I blinked and in the next second the blade had pierced right through the troll's stomach. She was holding on to the hilt of the sword as if she had the strength to pull it out of her. The hooded murderer quickly pulled their weapon from their victim, pushed aside their cloak again, and slid the sword back into its sheath. Not a speck of blood could be found on the blade. The captives fell silent. The female troll collapsed to the ground and the cloaked killer turned and walked out of the pit without even looking back.
I began to feel my dream fade. I was floating higher and higher as the world seemed to be closing in on me until everything went black. That's when I shot out of bed. I couldn't believe what I had witnessed. How could I make something like that up?
I lay back down and pulled my boar skin blanket closer to me. I closed my eyes trying to shake the images of that horrible nightmare from my head. How could I even think such bad thoughts? For, when I woke up in the morning, it would be my birthday.