As We Go Along - Prologue

 I was dreaming.

Dark branches hovered above me in an ever-changing pattern, shifting like the geometric shapes in a kaleidoscope. Except here, there was no light, no color. Only shades of black and gray.

The branches became grids of mirrors, dark yet strangely iridescent like oil in a puddle on asphalt. The grids grew ever smaller, spinning into infinity, until they blended to make one grid of larger mirrors again. The cycle repeated.

There was significance here that I could feel but not define. There was a reason I was seeing this. There was a reason that despite the apparent benignity of the images, they felt like nightmares.

I woke up.