Harkat used to be a vampire called Kurda Smahlt. He'd betrayed the vampire clan in a bid to prevent war with our blood cousins, the purple-skinned vampaneze. To make up for his sins, he'd agreed to become Harkat Mulds and travel back into the past to be my guardian.

I'm Darren Shan, a Vampire Prince. I'm also one of the hunters of the Lord of the Vampaneze a.k.a. Steve Leopard. Steve was destined to lead the vampaneze to victory over the vampires. If he won, he'd wipe us out entirely. But a few of us the hunters had the ability to stop him before he came fully into his powers. If we found and killed him before he matured, the war would be ours. By helping me as Harkat, Kurda hoped to help the clan and prevent their destined destruction at the hands of the vampaneze. In that way he could put right some of the wrongs he'd committed.

Having learnt the truth about Harkat, we returned to our own world rather, our owntime. Because what we worked out later was that the wasteworld wasn't an alternative universe or Earth in the past, as we'd first thought it was Earth in the future. Mr Tiny had given us a glimpse of what was to come if the Lord of the Shadows came to power.

Harkat thought the ruined world would only come to pass if the vampaneze won the War of the Scars. But I knew about a prediction which I hadn't shared with anybody else. When the hunt for Steve was finally concluded, there would be one of two possible futures. In one, Steve became the Lord of the Shadows and destroyed the world. In the other future, the Lord of the Shadows wasme.

That's why I woke in a cold sweat, to the sound of my own screams, so often. It wasn't just fear of the future, but fear of myself.