Serpent In Love (🔞) - Completed

1. A Happy-Go-Lucky Snake

"--... of Gaia, listen carefully to what I have to say." My dying mother's half-close eyes seize my woeful face as she enunciates each word. Her voice is benevolent yet stern; "...You were born, so that others may live. You are a protective gemstone, birthed into this world to safeguard it from an impending doom," she touched the amber-pendent on my necklace, her benignant eyes never stray from mine, "When time of danger draws nigh, she will summon you." She weakly reaches up to caress one of my cheeks, "...Until then, live...and do well to remember my words; at any moments in time, to rid yourself of your mortal fears, recite out loud these words;--"

My eyes flash open before the dream ends.

In the dead silence saved for my gaspy breaths, eerie semi-darkness greets my sight.

It's still pre-dawn hour.

I register this from the dingy visibility and frigid chill in the air of where I'm at.

Despite my sorrowful heart, I expel a sigh of relief upon recognition of my surroundings.

From the wane moonlight casting into my bedchamber through the window, I can make out familiar things.

My things. Ones which reaffirm to me I am still safely inside my bedroom in my home on the edge of Emerald Sea.

My current home. Not the one I used to reside with my mother prior to her untimely death.

Thinking about my mother, I stare at the ceiling for a moment. My restless mind mulls over the age-old dream of her in disbelief. It threw me off guard as this is the first time I ever dreamed of her - in over twelve years since her passing.

To be exact, it's more like a forgotten memory than a dream.

A long-lost memory of my mother and her final strange words uttered to my younger self on her deathbed.

Recalling those nonsensical ramblings right now, they still sounds as comical as they did back when I was little. The only difference was that my mother's voice in the dream wasn't exactly hers.

Or, perhaps I'm actually wrong about that? I sigh.

Still immersed in deep ruminations, I get out of bed. Bare-feet, I walk to the window where the oak pane separates my bedroom from the outside world.

I take to the cushioned bay-seat by the window with its curtains drawn back.

In depressive silence, I peer out at the endless body of water of Emerald Sea. It appears tarry black in this transitional hour except for its undulating surfaces. Which sparkle and glint like polished diamonds in the crescent moonlight.

A truly majestic sight to behold to pacify any restless souls.

Except for mine.

Right now, my waking mind is still much too perturbed by that dreamed memory.

Reflecting on it, I feel readily stunned. Shocked by the reality that, even now, I can still recall every detail of what had happened that day, over a decade ago.

Though, what astounded me the most is how I'm currently feeling that dredging inconsolable sadness deep in my heart, exactly like I did back then.

That's what's so astonishing to me this instance. My ability to feel that stifling sorrow and desolation even after such a long time has passed.

I'm shocked by this rare phenomenon because of what I am, intrinsically.

So, exactly who or what am I?