Date unknown, time unknown. A coal mine.

I have once been a lady…but that is all a memory now. Stripped of my own flesh and blood, I have been cursed away to this wretched form of a leathery beast, to be hunted down like a dog by hunters. I know not if this etching will be read by anyone, or even if they were, if they will be heeded.

Patience and humility I have once known. But that cannot take place here. Day and night, every hour and minute of a day, I fend for my life, the hungry beasts and creatures, and the wealth-seeking human hunters searching for my hide and flesh. Hunt—or be hunted, that's all I know to do now. Love cannot take place here, in the cold and desolate mines. Why, I've had hunters stick painful arrows into my back when I've done as little as go in front of them. Is there something about my serpentine form that offends them?

Movement is cumbersome, and uncomfortable. My feet are still soft—or rather, I should say claw. The rocks and pebbles on the floor bite into my flesh as I tread the barren floors, the occasional scattered pickaxe stabbing deep when I go into the darker sections. How many hours I've spent down here I know not.

A memoir I have left with me; a stone, dusky in colour, a sign etched into its surface that I cannot comprehend now. It hangs around my neck, clicking against my scales each time I move. Memories it stashes into my mind every time I see it. Perhaps it is the only thing keeping me sane, the only thing reminding me of who I am. In fact, that is not enough—I barely know my own name, only that I have been once loved by a person now seeking me; the reason why I know this I know not.

Slabs of stone I have moved to let me sleep in peace and quiet; years I have taken to shift boulders and walls to where I wanted them. The miners grow increasingly worried about what I do; their faces display it when they notice that a large stone had moved so far. All the better; if they decide not to come near me, I won't be forced to eat them alive.

A frugal life it is, monotonous; day in, day out, there is a preoccupation with food in my mind for a reason I don't know; even if I don't feel hungry, there is still the urge…to kill, to eat, to devour and destroy. What causes it? Torture me, strike me, whip me—just free me from this torment. Rodents I am forced to eat, for there is no other food available; vile and foul as it tastes, it is the only nourishment I can have; lest I starve, I had better eat it.

Dark shadows follow me throughout the day, an ominous whistle of wind rushing through the tunnels as I explore the deeper coal seams for rats to consume. The occasional blast of light and noise I experience at times when I go down there; it's enough to send me back to the surface, scared right out of my mind. Something down there is after me—or what I have, little as it is.

The bitter taste of my own cold blood I have had; once when a goblin struck my tooth out, and often after that. I have suffered much in this cold and dank pit; struck by creatures, hunted by humans; if it were not for the little stone reminding me of who I am, I would have probably destroyed everything inside this quarry.

Pain bites at my leg now, for it is crushed by a hunter's mace. I will stop and rest here; I have also worn down one claw too much for my own good by writing this inscription.

Until the day that I hope to regain my former self,

A dragon.