[ETHERBOUND] Prologue: Dusk Before Dark

One of the heaviest rains in a long time battered the world outside. The world was passionately washing itself away, and yet I snuggled up warmly in my cozy room. The great torrent outside besieged my bedroom, slamming the walls and ramming the windows. The resolute walls held, as firm and defiant as ever, keeping the storm outside.

But somehow, the walls had also kept a storm inside. The bed was comfortable. The room was warm. I was tired--definitively tired enough to drift away in sleep. And yet inexplicably, I knew that I was not alone. I knew it was immaterial, but I felt that it must be massive, for it pressed down upon me with the full weight of the world. I knew it was invisible, but somehow in the confines of my mind I saw a dense gas of which I can only describe as the thickest smog I had ever experienced. Whatever it was, I knew that it was both real and imaginary at the same time-and so, to reconcile the strange discrepancies between what I knew and yet what I felt, my best guess is that it was merely a maelstrom of thoughts. Thoughts are the bridge between the imaginary and the real, so the mysterious thing present must be some form of thought. Henceforth, I shall refer to this thing as a Thoughtstorm.

Having only identified it, however, was no good to me. With its constant suffocating presence in the room, how was I ever to sleep? I fought it with every ounce of my resolve, and yet every attack I levied upon the Thoughtstorm was deftly parried. After all, how does one challenge their own thoughts when these thoughts are the very forces that govern us? The more I fought it, the stronger it was. The more I fought it, the more forceful it became. What else was I to do but resign myself to its power?

But the moment that I began to give in, I felt it give in as well. And as I began to let go, so did the Thoughtstorm. Before long, I felt myself floating away, being carried by clouds into sleep. But it was to be a restless sleep. The Thoughtstorm, though abated in the physical world, was far from gone. And before long, I was to find out where it went.