Nearly three weeks have passed since James rose from a plush bed, his body adorned in a floral satin robe belted around his waist over a matching pair of satin shorts. He'd forgotten himself entirely and roamed the enormous palace alarmed and looking fierce.
A mysterious force had coaxed him into the botanical arcades where he encountered a large serpent with beautiful obsidian scales sporting three sharper scales running down its spine.
James had little time to register what happened to him when he feels a sharp pain in his neck. He freezes and surrenders to his fate, collapsing onto his back.
The heavy serpent slithers under his neck, raising his head. Slowly the serpent places its head over his forehead. A dark cosmic veil from above and below the borders of his vision and senses close in around his consciousness.
Do not sleep, there will be great pain, and then ecstasy.
He lay there paralyzed, wondering about that voice, when he realizes it belongs to the serpent. He feels incredibly heavy, his body turns into liquid. Then a pulse. That single beat of his heart moves the venom throughout his veins. It creates an indescribable pain so unbearable he was grateful to be paralyzed, if he had so much as twitched it would speed up the procession of venom.
Each heartbeat was an endless electrical discharge of pain. No fear, no happiness, no anger, no anxiety, no guilt, no aspect of the mind could overpower this kind of pain. Time slows down, breaking his perspective. Lifetimes pass before another painful beat of his heart, then another. Very slowly everything he considers as himself, his many perspectives, unconscious and conscious, erodes to pain. Then that too subsides, the one feeling pain no longer exists, just the subtle pulses of his heartbeat. He understood for a time, drifting in the waves of his beating heart, drifting in the infinite sea of ecstasy.
Then before him, far away, the gold outline of the serpent emerges from the depths of darkness. Its head came closer, and closer, and closer. The serpent is enormous and loops around him in wide circles, its obsidian scales draw him in. He drifts into them and witnesses himself in the crystalline depths of each scale playing out like film.
A harmonic reverberation explodes all around him, engulfing everything in and outside of him. He can feel once again, feel the subtlest particles taking the form of these harmonic sounds. Trillions of trillions of subtle particles, then larger particles taking the form of the subtler particles taking the form of sound. Like this it continues until the outline of his physical form appears. The surface of his physical form vibrantly glows every possible shade of blue with dancing white swirls. The golden outline of the obsidian serpent now glows white, and the inner dimension of its scales show him his entire lifetime up until losing it.
The looping swirls thin and finally the last of the serpent's tail drifts past. He hypnotizes himself as it slowly vanishes into a single point far in the depths of space. Suddenly he feels himself falling backward, his speed steadily climbing up to such an intensity he incinerates.
James jolts upright, his senses so refined there existed no delay in his mind or actions. His movements are swift, deliberate, and light. He stands and is surprised to find the serpent draped around his shoulders. It raises its head to meet him eye level.
"Nagahshya."
The serpent flickers its tongue and slithers down his body. He assists her down in a comforting familiar motion. Nagahshya undulates into the garden to resume hunting.
He knew at that moment the serpent had done him a service he could never repay. Had it not been for his familiar, he would have been through quite an ordeal, and although he could never regain his true memories, he knew enough of his former life to resume his position at the Hosleare estate without raising suspicions.
