Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2021 13:11:48 GMT -6
She thought being taken would be more painful.
The part before it was—god, the feeling of blood in her mouth, in her throat, spilling inwards from a wound is going to be another nightmare of hers, she can tell already—well, it was painful, as dying should be.
( Or, well, near-death? Is she dead or not? She can't tell if she died back there. )
But being taken itself? The stone morphing into some nightmarish imitation of her favorite place in the world, hissing and spitting, and Elodie assuming it was some hallucination or trick but screaming regardless when the world swallowed her whole—and the silence afterward, the darkness that smelled like ash and ember and the sky before a storm? It scared her, but it didn't hurt.
That's a little comforting, at least. When her parents were taken, it didn't hurt.
There is darkness. Some endless pit where she can't tell if she's floating or falling; if her heart is beating or if she finally bled out before the claws took her whole. And an eerie quiet, more silence than she's ever heard before, a kind of quiet that makes her heartbeat ring in her ears.
She—awakens? Maybe that's not the correct word for it. Whatever it is—there's a shift, and suddenly she's lying flat on her back in a forest, trees stretching high above her, the canopy a distant impression among black fog.
The fog. She remembers—she remembers this, back when her parents were taken. The way it streamed out of the broken ground, every crevice, grasping at ankles and filling her lungs, making it feel like bricks were weighing down her chest, fatiguing her movements (no escape, until there was)—except… it's different.
She sits up, slowly; her head spins and she grimaces, squeezing her eyes shut.
She still has that concussion, then. Figures.
A beat passes. As the dizziness subsides into a low-level headache pounding at the insides of her temples, she dares to open her eyes, staring into the Fog. It coils and grasps absently at her form, like a living thing, but there's none of the… agitation she'd seen before, all those years ago. She gets the impression of something docile; waiting to be put into action, but for now, quiet.
Carefully, she stands. Glances around, eyes tracing over the trees that seem almost too tall.
A glimmer in the distance catches her eye. Firelight. A campfire…?
If there's any way to figure out where she is, she supposes, that's her best shot.
A hand finds itself idly to her side, where she pauses momentarily at the feeling of a half-healed knife wound.
Fair, she thinks. No point in taking her if she was just going to bleed out on the forest floor the moment she got here. At the same time... the occurrence boggles her mind, a little. It's proof—proof that wherever she is, whatever happened to her, it probably doesn't follow the normal laws of reality.
She surprises herself with a little flicker of joy in her chest and a half-smile directed at the wound.
This is what she was looking for. She finally found it. After all this time, and the last puzzle piece was right in front of her. A line through a circle.
She huffs. Well, at least her work left her with some expectation of what she's dealing with.
With one hand brushing fingers idly over the texture of the staunched wound in her side, she begins her walk to the campfire.
The part before it was—god, the feeling of blood in her mouth, in her throat, spilling inwards from a wound is going to be another nightmare of hers, she can tell already—well, it was painful, as dying should be.
( Or, well, near-death? Is she dead or not? She can't tell if she died back there. )
But being taken itself? The stone morphing into some nightmarish imitation of her favorite place in the world, hissing and spitting, and Elodie assuming it was some hallucination or trick but screaming regardless when the world swallowed her whole—and the silence afterward, the darkness that smelled like ash and ember and the sky before a storm? It scared her, but it didn't hurt.
That's a little comforting, at least. When her parents were taken, it didn't hurt.
There is darkness. Some endless pit where she can't tell if she's floating or falling; if her heart is beating or if she finally bled out before the claws took her whole. And an eerie quiet, more silence than she's ever heard before, a kind of quiet that makes her heartbeat ring in her ears.
She—awakens? Maybe that's not the correct word for it. Whatever it is—there's a shift, and suddenly she's lying flat on her back in a forest, trees stretching high above her, the canopy a distant impression among black fog.
The fog. She remembers—she remembers this, back when her parents were taken. The way it streamed out of the broken ground, every crevice, grasping at ankles and filling her lungs, making it feel like bricks were weighing down her chest, fatiguing her movements (no escape, until there was)—except… it's different.
She sits up, slowly; her head spins and she grimaces, squeezing her eyes shut.
She still has that concussion, then. Figures.
A beat passes. As the dizziness subsides into a low-level headache pounding at the insides of her temples, she dares to open her eyes, staring into the Fog. It coils and grasps absently at her form, like a living thing, but there's none of the… agitation she'd seen before, all those years ago. She gets the impression of something docile; waiting to be put into action, but for now, quiet.
Carefully, she stands. Glances around, eyes tracing over the trees that seem almost too tall.
A glimmer in the distance catches her eye. Firelight. A campfire…?
If there's any way to figure out where she is, she supposes, that's her best shot.
A hand finds itself idly to her side, where she pauses momentarily at the feeling of a half-healed knife wound.
Fair, she thinks. No point in taking her if she was just going to bleed out on the forest floor the moment she got here. At the same time... the occurrence boggles her mind, a little. It's proof—proof that wherever she is, whatever happened to her, it probably doesn't follow the normal laws of reality.
She surprises herself with a little flicker of joy in her chest and a half-smile directed at the wound.
This is what she was looking for. She finally found it. After all this time, and the last puzzle piece was right in front of her. A line through a circle.
She huffs. Well, at least her work left her with some expectation of what she's dealing with.
With one hand brushing fingers idly over the texture of the staunched wound in her side, she begins her walk to the campfire.