It started as a dream, the way it always does. The one where I'm running. Or trying to run. I can hear them behind me - heavy boots and harsh shouts, or leathery wings and laughter. Or silence.
The silence is the worst. I can feel it pressing in on me, like piercing eyes, a song of terrible discord not heard, but felt in my gut. If I could only hear it, it would be more bearable, but I can't hear anything - not a simple absence of sound, but like I've gone deaf. Like hearing was just a dream, the memory of which trickles out of my brain like water, leaving me in a soundless void.
The void has eyes. My skin puckers under the chill gaze, yet I'm hot, so hot, and the more I try to run, the harder it becomes, the less I can move. The blood in my veins is hot lead, my muscles drain of energy as the my fever rises.
I realize that I am in bed, and I can see my bedroom around me, through closed eyelids. For a split-second I'm relieved - it's just a dream - and then I realize I cannot move, that the Void is still staring at me, freezing my skin, it's here, in my room, in real life, and I can't escape, if only I could move - it's pressing down on me, heat and cold, and my breathing is too shallow, I'm suffocating -
I try to turn over, but I can't. I try moving my arm, but I can't. My hand. One finger. I must - if I don't, I'll die - it'll get me - I can't breathe - I concentrate, but the heat is unbearable, still rising, and the contrasting chill on my skin begins to hurt, creates a pain that becomes unbearable agony-
I'm awake, gasping like a fish out of water, trembling, I fight my way into sitting position, eyes frantically scanning the room for any sign of - of what? There's nothing there.
No, not nothing. There are lots of things here - objects with the dozy souls of the inanimate, dusty and familiar. There is wood and metal and plastic and glass and air, filling my lungs and not being less for all that - but there is no void.
And I pull the covers around me and pull me knees to my chest and cry in relief, my head in my hands, but my eyes wide open, not to let the void back in.
The silence is the worst. I can feel it pressing in on me, like piercing eyes, a song of terrible discord not heard, but felt in my gut. If I could only hear it, it would be more bearable, but I can't hear anything - not a simple absence of sound, but like I've gone deaf. Like hearing was just a dream, the memory of which trickles out of my brain like water, leaving me in a soundless void.
The void has eyes. My skin puckers under the chill gaze, yet I'm hot, so hot, and the more I try to run, the harder it becomes, the less I can move. The blood in my veins is hot lead, my muscles drain of energy as the my fever rises.
I realize that I am in bed, and I can see my bedroom around me, through closed eyelids. For a split-second I'm relieved - it's just a dream - and then I realize I cannot move, that the Void is still staring at me, freezing my skin, it's here, in my room, in real life, and I can't escape, if only I could move - it's pressing down on me, heat and cold, and my breathing is too shallow, I'm suffocating -
I try to turn over, but I can't. I try moving my arm, but I can't. My hand. One finger. I must - if I don't, I'll die - it'll get me - I can't breathe - I concentrate, but the heat is unbearable, still rising, and the contrasting chill on my skin begins to hurt, creates a pain that becomes unbearable agony-
I'm awake, gasping like a fish out of water, trembling, I fight my way into sitting position, eyes frantically scanning the room for any sign of - of what? There's nothing there.
No, not nothing. There are lots of things here - objects with the dozy souls of the inanimate, dusty and familiar. There is wood and metal and plastic and glass and air, filling my lungs and not being less for all that - but there is no void.
And I pull the covers around me and pull me knees to my chest and cry in relief, my head in my hands, but my eyes wide open, not to let the void back in.
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