It is a strange thing to find, a mirror made from obsidian. It stands at seven feet high, a polished oval of black volcanic glass that somehow reflects any person who stands before it, and yet nothing around them can be seen. There is an inscription along the edge, difficult to find.

“Dare not close the eyes
Beneath the Penumbral Moon
Lest you seek her Coils.”

It does not take you long to figure out the meaning behind those words. While the penumbra was reserved for a solar eclipse, a penumbral moon must mean the new moon. Morbid curiosity drives you to attempt it, to wait until the night is black and only speckled in stars. You look into the mirror, see your reflection impossibly within its surface. Only now, the world within the looking glass has changed.

Organic walls, the outside of a silver-scaled wyrm turned inward, formed a rounded hallway behind your reflection. You look back behind you, finding only the room that you placed the mirror into. Your heart beats faster, from fear or excitement, only the deepest part of you will know. Even though your heart beats its desirous warning, you close your eyes.

Nothing happens. You do not feel a change around you, no rush of impending doom. You wait, seconds, minutes, before sighing. How foolish a thought, that the words of an obscure mirror, a glorified art piece, could hold such eldritch portent. You open your eyes, a chuckle rising into your throat. You look at yourself in the black mirror and begin to laugh, but it dies quickly as you realize that you are looking at the room you were once standing in.

You quickly turn to find the serpentine hallway beyond, seeming endless, yet the end of it is within your sight. You can see a balcony, the visible landscape beyond was of such incomprehension that you cannot help but be drawn to it. The balcony overlooks an ocean of roiling particles, black sand and violet pearls swirling into crashing waves as unseen currents fight against a galactic whirlpool that spans the horizon.

Above, the sky is not a sky, but an expanse of slithering stars. Strange serpent beings dancing amongst a fathomless spread of striations. There is a fracture in the sky, a crack in the cosmic looking glass that is trying to grow. The serpents are keeping it at bay, their dancing presence fighting back against the expansion.

As your mind tries to break at the speculative display before you, a pair of hands rest on your shoulders. It is not a dangerous grasp, the fingers delicate in their movements. You feel a slight tremble in their touch, moving to caress your cheek and neck. This is not the touch of a predator, but of a tentative lover aching to do more.

“Hello, my dearest.”

The voice overwhelms your sensibilities. Not one, but many mouths seem to speak to you at once. Male and female, pained and pleasured, a choir of licentious agonies.

“Welcome to the Silver Coil.”

The hands pull away, allowing you to turn and see a being of glorious aberration. Tentacles writhe from her waist, spilling out as a serpentine gown upon and off the balcony. Tendrils dance from her brow, a mane of curling locks formed from ivory flesh dipped in wine. Her smile curves upon a reptilian countenance. The eyes allure your soul, one a silver slit framed in magenta, the other a black abyss surrounding a single violet star.

“Shall we seek a plot?”

Welcome to the Silver Coil, a place of torrid plots and strange desires. I am a writer of speculative horror and romance, with a deep interest in making forms of kink and fetish the highlight. If you like high fantasy, dark sci-fi, erotic horror and supernatural kinkiness, keep reading. If you like to support me, buy me a kofi


https://ko-fi.com/aroncaer