11-11-2020, 08:35 PM
She blinks, and in that moment, she opens her eyes to somewhere else.
The familiarity of it is nearly unnerving. There are trees – <i>her</i> trees – and for a moment she almost thinks that she is home. She blinks again, thinking that her eyes needed to adjust to the darkness, but no matter how long she stares, the colors just are not right. Everything feels dim, and there is a sense of dread that settles inside of her chest. She has never really asked her mother what the afterlife was like, prefering to keep ample space between Ryatah and herself, but she knows enough from simply living here. She has heard the stories whispered on the wind, she has watched others return from the dead, one by one.
And she also knows, since she had just been staring at them not long ago, that the gates existed. But where had they gone? Taking a few cautious steps along a well-worn path (well-worn by what, she is not exactly sure, and tries not to think too hard on it), she resigns herself to the idea that she will have to find a way out.
She has not made it far when she hears a sound.
It’s a sound that is familiar, that peculiar chittering of a language impossible for her to understand, but a language all the same.
Suddenly the air in her lungs feels like water.
Her bones feel like they are made of lead, and she is rooted where she stands when the first alien-like creature steps in her path. She scrambles backwards, never daring to turn her eyes from the knife-like tail that it flicks, almost lazy and cat-like.
It's the snap of the jaws of the one behind her that sends her bolting to the side.
She races through the trees, trying to outrun the crashing sounds behind her. She feels like she is in a nightmare, where no matter how hard she tries, she simply cannot run fast enough. Last time, Casimira had saved her. Last time, they had sunk their teeth into her sides and ravaged her with their poison but she had managed to survive. What happens when you die in the afterlife, she wonders? Running headlong along this narrow path, hardly able to see in front of her (she does remember it being foggy - where had it come from?), she is afraid she is about to find out.
The trees suddenly disappear, and even through the dark and the fog she can see that the ground she runs on is about to give way to a sheer drop off.
Spurred along purely by fear and adrenaline, and the faintest sliver of hope, she jumps.
The fall feels like an eternity, and a blink, all wrapped into one. When she hits the ground it is like being startled awake from a nightmare, but the pain the shoots through her body tells her it is real. Falling, quite literally, back through the gate, she is flooded with relief when she is assaulted by colors and life and fresh air. Even the sight of the shadowy figure is a relief, or at least, on this side of the afterlife it is.
The familiarity of it is nearly unnerving. There are trees – <i>her</i> trees – and for a moment she almost thinks that she is home. She blinks again, thinking that her eyes needed to adjust to the darkness, but no matter how long she stares, the colors just are not right. Everything feels dim, and there is a sense of dread that settles inside of her chest. She has never really asked her mother what the afterlife was like, prefering to keep ample space between Ryatah and herself, but she knows enough from simply living here. She has heard the stories whispered on the wind, she has watched others return from the dead, one by one.
And she also knows, since she had just been staring at them not long ago, that the gates existed. But where had they gone? Taking a few cautious steps along a well-worn path (well-worn by what, she is not exactly sure, and tries not to think too hard on it), she resigns herself to the idea that she will have to find a way out.
She has not made it far when she hears a sound.
It’s a sound that is familiar, that peculiar chittering of a language impossible for her to understand, but a language all the same.
Suddenly the air in her lungs feels like water.
Her bones feel like they are made of lead, and she is rooted where she stands when the first alien-like creature steps in her path. She scrambles backwards, never daring to turn her eyes from the knife-like tail that it flicks, almost lazy and cat-like.
It's the snap of the jaws of the one behind her that sends her bolting to the side.
She races through the trees, trying to outrun the crashing sounds behind her. She feels like she is in a nightmare, where no matter how hard she tries, she simply cannot run fast enough. Last time, Casimira had saved her. Last time, they had sunk their teeth into her sides and ravaged her with their poison but she had managed to survive. What happens when you die in the afterlife, she wonders? Running headlong along this narrow path, hardly able to see in front of her (she does remember it being foggy - where had it come from?), she is afraid she is about to find out.
The trees suddenly disappear, and even through the dark and the fog she can see that the ground she runs on is about to give way to a sheer drop off.
Spurred along purely by fear and adrenaline, and the faintest sliver of hope, she jumps.
The fall feels like an eternity, and a blink, all wrapped into one. When she hits the ground it is like being startled awake from a nightmare, but the pain the shoots through her body tells her it is real. Falling, quite literally, back through the gate, she is flooded with relief when she is assaulted by colors and life and fresh air. Even the sight of the shadowy figure is a relief, or at least, on this side of the afterlife it is.