I dream of him.
He is running in an empty street, frantically looking around for something, a way to escape, I think. A pack of great canine beasts appear; snarling, sniffing, their great claws hitting the ground with loud thuds as they chase after him with devastating speed. The boy with dead-pale skin, dressed in all blacks, grips his sword tighter, and starts running again.
As he moves, my sight shifts so that my consciousness stays with him. This is a vision, and it is centred around him.
Brick walls of houses loom over his small figure, rising up to the sky intimidatingly as if they want to pierce it. The street must be quite lively during daytime, but it reminds me of a stone skeleton in the dim illumination of the streetlights. He seems unfazed by it. 'But it is only natural,' a voice assures me, giving me goosebumps. It is as if the voice comes from miles and times away, and is too weary to keep up the effort to talk, 'He is, after all, of the night; and has no reason to fear it.'
Not taking heed to the alien voice at first, I study him. I've been seeing a lot of him in my dreams, or in my daytime visions, and this makes me feel oddly familiar of him. My Olympian parentage comes with a bonus pack containing a knack for divination. I know for certain that the Moirai; the Sparing Ones, or the Three Fates as most are familiar with, entwined his string of life with that of mine, scheming with their wrinkly hands and minds as old as time itself -only that would explain the way visions of him haunt me.
'You are a wise one,' the voice praises my judgement, her voice echoing in my head and her power resonating through my bones, this time. I only feel threatened by her compliment. My vision then falls into darkness. I move through earthen tunnels with great speed, and am taken to the very depths of the Underworld. I can sense something very old, something arcane, up close. I find myself standing by a lump of earth, but the lump changes constantly, before I have enough time to study it. I realise that it grows more and more humanoid with each second. I can feel the lump trying to pull itself together; trying to be whole and sober again, but the process is so alien for me to understand. It has inconceivable, icy cold power that makes my blood freeze in my veins. 'What a pity that the gods have chosen to curse you,' she continues.
It feel hope, mixed with the dread the voice gives me. 'Someone knows me,' I think, 'someone can see through the curse!'
'I am impervious to such shallow curses that the Gods might cast.' she tells me. 'And I want to tell that your journey is about to start now, in spite of what the Gods possibly could have in mind. They need you desperately, as do I.' I have a gut feeling that I would wish not to be of service to her, for some reason. 'I will thin the mist around you as a gift of good will; I can only do a favour of this extent in this state I'm in.' She pauses, and the lump of soil before me moulds itself into a face with no distinguishable features, into something more monster than human. 'I am a kind patron, and I will treat you kinder than any Olympian already has.' the face concludes, what must be her mouth contracting and relaxing after each letter. The features of the face shift every second. Unable to spot any good will in the voice or any compassion in its gaze, I look away from the visage, unable to bear its horrid, monstrous features. 'Go away now, girl, and know that your time has arrived.'
The dream dissolves. I open my eyes, drenched in cold sweat; breathing heavily as I regain my senses. 'King of the Ghosts,' I mutter to myself, 'King of the Ghosts'. I have goosebumps all over my body, and I just lay frozen, disbelievingly running through the details of my vision, thinking about the curse, about the boy.