I had the strangest feeling that I had awoken from one dream only to find myself in another.

I dreamed that I was a smart but otherwise average man, aged thirty. I suffered from chronic depression, and never accomplished any of my life's ambitions. My adolescent years were the worst. I would act self-destructively and even cruel at times to push people away so I could suffer alone. I almost cut my own life short on three separate occasions, possessed by the feeling that my very existence was a mistake and nothing I could do would truly make any meaningful difference. Luckily, I had tirelessly supportive and loving parents and the good fortune to form friendships with the kinds of people who help you to be better and do better.

Upon reaching adulthood I wrestled my demons more seriously and decided that at the very least, I'd like to be an uplifting presence for those around me. I wanted to give to others what I struggled to give myself: self-confidence, joy, peace. It was slow progress, but I started to do well both in my career and social life. With a string of failed relationships behind me, I eventually found myself in a healthy one, and despite that pervasive dark feeling, life was good and comfortable. Through my lover's prompting, I got professional help, found medication that worked well enough, and made that dark voice into a pesky whisper. And then I dreamed I was hit by a truck.

I both winced and laughed at the memory of my abrupt end.

"After all that trouble I went through to stay alive... what a way to go. Kind of cliché really. I wasn't even trying to save a kid playing in the streets. I was another idiot crossing the street while looking at his phone."

As the memories kept flooding in, I couldn't help but notice how that dream in all its extreme detail was eerily lifelike. My life. A disturbing dread began to creep through me along with other feelings too jumbled to sort.

"Was that my life? Yes... I know it was. Oh god. This is... too much. I-" A mental malaise began obstructing my attempt at coherence.

"Come on, keep it together. I'm not dead, or at least I'm not gone. So where am I now?"

As if to answer my question, my mind's eye filled with experiences that were certainly not my own.

A majestic and lithe white dragon with verdant green light reflecting off of her body flew gracefully through the sky. Two ivory horns grew to the side and backward from her skull and over a fringe of elongated feather-like scales. She had an aerodynamic snout, gentle yet piercing ice-blue eyes with a distorted ring of royal purple around the pupil, and wings that made the air around them shimmer.

I recognized her, Gwaelaraumorainë, the Herald of Hope. The weak and downtrodden revered her. The world's oppressors prayed she would not pay them a visit. Blurred concepts of her most formative experiences and feats are transformed into a sense of understanding in my heart. Her early hunts, flying faster than the rest of her kind, the first of many topplings of a mad ruler, saving entire races, mediating wars, receiving heaps of gifts from grand and diverse crowds expressing their gratitude. My pulse quickened and my heart pumped hard with a proudness I had never previously known.

"Mother."

Another dragon appeared in my mind, black as soot with ember-like markings on his underside that radiated dimly in the dark and burned brightly when he unleashed dragonfire. Two huge horns curved up and backward from behind his pupil-less magma eyes while other minor horns littered his skull. Flaming sparks occasionally rose out of his wide, pointed snout. Jagged teeth jutted out the sides of his mouth, which was even darker than his hide, as though it was scorched by his own breath. His grand wings billowed with smoke with every flap and the earth shook from his every step.

I recognized him, Mornathalohóndavirnë, the Worldscar. Even among the most ignorant beings, stories were passed down to ensure all would rightfully fear him. His strength as one of the five great Wyrms cowed even the Gods. The splinters of his memories were more chaotic and harder to make sense of: Battling for territory, reveling in victory, fire... so much fire, eating or smiting every annoyance.

But one moment is painfully, purposefully clear: rage and hesitation, a war that threatens to spill across the world, a nature-defying choice made to stop it, splitting a continent in two, killing it. The land's last screams. Regret. Gwaelaraumorainë. Hope.

The imprint was violent and erratic, but still my chest was full to bursting with both admiration and sorrow, even if I didn't even understand why.

"Father.'"

Their differing perspectives and emotions began to distill from vague sensory input into something beyond instinct or information. I knew my parents. Two particularly magnificent beings even by the standards of the magnificent, and two that seem so very different from each other.

I had barely begun to ponder what brought them together when I heard the most beautiful sound-music one could imagine. I knew this too as the Dragonsong - the sleeping voice and melody of our ancestors, residing in and passed on through blood. If I were to describe what I had experienced from my parents as alien yet personal, then this, my song harmonizing with the countless others, felt like coming home.

More knowledge poured into me, no longer requiring any mental strain to parse. We named the world, Angnora. The other races had their own names for it, but we know ours to be the truest. Dragonkind represents the will of the world given physical form. Our oldest memory preserved what even the Gods had forgotten, that our planet was formed by the flesh and blood of outer beings who fell in a cosmic war. For unknown reasons, the result was a world where dragons were born as nature's dominance and Gods as personifications of the will of mortals, to wrestle against nature.

Under these two kinds of High-Immortals was everyone else: Orcs, Giants, Elves, Humans, Gnomes, Dwarves, and countless more diverse beings populating Angnora.

I knew that whatever I recalled from Earth's storybooks about these races was not likely to fully apply to their Angnorran versions, but since dragons, or at least my ancestors, never cared for learning the ways of "lesser" beings, I had not inherited the slightest inkling of their tendencies or behaviors beyond the most surface-level observations. I did, however, receive the knowledge of how each race tasted.

"Thanks, ancestors, real helpful."

Next, the world's lands became known to me: The continents, which races lived where, tidbits about the biggest factions, and a handful of particularly important locations including my current one. I was on a continent called Dragon's Head, both due to its shape and because dragons kept it almost exclusively for themselves. My brethren were relatively sure that it was the partial corpse of our Cosmic Wyrm ancestor, but since nobody could recall his or her name they decided to keep the land's name simple and not risk insulting our legacy. Strangely, I also receive with crystal clarity that this started a worrisome naming trend among dragonkind.

As the drip-feed of data slowed, I felt my sense of self returning.

I had become a dragon, an apex predator, and a creature of the peak of existence in general. I was aware of my capabilities: how to fly, my means of attack, etc.

I am power. I am purpose. I am superior. I am magic. I am a creature of passion and patient ambition. I am all this and more, for I feel it to be so.

"Oh cool, apparently magic exists," I noted to myself. "Also cool: my inner monologue is back under my control. This is by far the trippiest and most complicated dream I've ever had. I better not be in a coma."

Simple details about my biological needs and functions became known. Angorran dragons don't horde treasure; they discover something that captivates their interests and then single-mindedly pursue it. Though I also got the sense that that would not apply to me, that I am atypical, the atypical dragon. Not just because of the whole human memories thing but because I was born for a unique purpose.

Whatever else was happening to me seemed to be occurring more and more in the background of my headspace.

"Speaking of human memory, I think I've had enough of uh, eerily-vivid-and-realistic-alternate-world-lucid-dream... My family, my friends, my girlfriend. I need to snap out of... whatever this is. I need to get back."

And so, I tried the ol' trick of clenching my eyes really hard then opening them to wake myself up. It didn't work. Not the waking nor the opening of my firmly shut eyes.

"Okay, that's different. Though I suppose this is all different. Hmm. I feel like I'd normally be pretty freaked out but I guess the whole dragon package comes with a sense of being dauntless and feeling generally amazing. So that's nice. Alright, Plan A: fail. Plan B: try to explore this dream a bit. Maybe I'll find a clue in my subconscious. First thing's first."

I focused on my body for the first time since this ordeal started. Everything felt floaty, very warm, and safe. I was relaxed, comfortable, and tired to the point that it was not that I couldn't move, so much as I couldn't quite bring myself to bother. I intuitively knew that whatever was happening to me would probably sort itself out, so there was no harm in letting it run its course.

"No. If I am now a creature of Will then I shouldn't let even natural inclinations control the flow of my choices. Let's see if I can use this dream's logic to unravel it. Reject my instinct to rest, I want answers. I. Want... Answers!"

As if responding to my intent my heart once again started to thump loudly and raw power surged through me. I channeled the energy to slowly... move... my arm through what felt like a thick viscous substance.

"Wahaha, I am the mighty mover of arm!"

CLUNK

"What the-"

I felt that. I felt what I'd hoped, but doubted, was supposed to be my skin... clunk... against something hard.

"Inhuman but vivid tactile sensation. That's not how dreams work."

I internally scrunched up my face and sighed.

"Alright, stay calm. There is a reasonable explanation for this. Let's just try moving that arm in a different direction. Alright? Alright. Forward? Forward. Here we go. Just like that-"

CLACK

"Okay, if I didn't know better, that would be my... claw... clacking against what I assume is the inner wall of an egg... that I'm in..."

clack clack clack

"Yeah. Them be claw fingers. I no gots hands no more. Claws. Which means..."

I tried believing I had a tail and moving it, feeling I it move in response.

"What the fuck?!" I mentally shouted in response to a brand new friggen limb.

Then a booming regal voice containing mirth, chastisement, and concern literally echoed through my mind:

"Language, my eggling!"

"WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?!?!" I mentally bellowed even louder from shock.

"Child!" She insisted, stirring me slightly from my alarm and allowing me to recognize her voice.

"...Mommy?"