Chapter 3: How It All Began (2)
My eyes flicker. My hands tremble. My body is being crushed. No—it is being crushed. I try to glance left, then right, but my spine refuses to obey. My neck gives way, yet I remain rigid, as though four walls are closing in on me, pressing my form thinner than a sheet of paper. My breath catches. My pupils dilate as an ominous darkness seeps into my being. Everything around me flickers—like heat mirages on a blistering summer day, distorting reality into a wavering haze.
The darkness shifts. White particles rise, swirling, while a crimson glow pulses from my body, casting me as nothing more than the silhouette of a solar eclipse. The particles twist and coil, assembling like fragments of a puzzle, as my arms are forced inward, crushed against my torso. I want to cough. I know I will vomit blood. My veins protrude, stretching against my skin like overcooked noodles, and then—an eye stares at me.
No. Many eyes.
I feel like I will burst. Like my eyeballs will be forced from their sockets, my ribs will pierce through my lungs. But the eyes vanish. The unseen walls within the abyss fade, as if they had never existed. Instead, I am weightless. Suspended.
I reach for myself, running frantic hands over my body like a security guard at a checkpoint. No wounds? My brows furrow, my gaze darting left, right. My widened pupils find only the void, until above me, something takes form—a luminous substance, distant yet achingly familiar.
It feels forgotten.
As though I long for it, but can never reach it. Light.
I stretch my hand upward. It flows past my fingers, staining my pale skin red. My pupils contract. My lids squeeze shut.
A chill licks down my spine. A hissing sound curls into my ears.
Wind. My screams.
I am falling.