There’s a state of existence that is more than sleep, more than a dream, more than unconsciousness, yet less than death. Or maybe yet even more.
I felt like observing my own body’s actions. Everything was hazy, and I felt distantly reluctant to obey what my muscles seemed to demand of me… if it were even my muscles. I felt like swatting my hand through the air to get the buzzing out of my head, if I’d known what to swat at.
Every moment I experienced I wasn’t sure I actually experienced at the time I was aware of it. I felt like looking at all my memories.
And then… I think… there was a moment of clarity, a moment of brief focus. I was somehow… looking at myself.
I was very thin, as if I hadn’t eaten for ages. Eaten… I tried to recall what that was again.. the last time I had done it... I looked closer, spotting dirt, and crusted blood... possibly not even only my own... and that thought struck me hard. What was blood doing on me? And suddenly I felt like the veil was lifted of a new set of memories... where I was...
I suddenly recalled... a village, and a few faces that were vaguely familiar, if only barely, yet they filled me with a longing... a feeling like missing something. But there was something wrong with the faces... and the feeling I had.
They were bloodied. Contorted in agony and despair, covered with grime and gore... and tears...
... but what was worse... I felt nothing at that realisation.
I felt conflicted. For feeling nothing, and for not knowing what then to feel. And for what I felt now. But did I even feel anything?
I tried to orientate. I looked around. Confused. I saw nothing at all, just swirling shapes, the occasional string of bleach colour. I wondered if I was moving or standing still. Or maybe lying.
I tried to listen to the sounds around me. Only dampened noises, humming, screeching. A slight pitch that wouldn’t cease.
I sighed inwardly. What was I? Where was I? What had happened? I tried to move an arm, assuming I still had any. Then again, why would I not have my arms.
As I tried to focus, the pitch intensified. It slowly become... well, the most coherent thing so far. If raw, and primal. It became a voice, a raw, gurgling voice, as from someone dying. I couldn’t distinguish if it was a man or a woman, but it spoke... it spoke...
“I have been released I, have been freed from my shackles of this dreadful prison. Now I am calling you, you want me, you need me, you LONG for me”
... words of damnation.
But I felt a change. The words were forgotten, yet... not... maybe they Echoed? It didn’t matter, I felt lighter, as if heaving, floating. And then, it was as if a storm erupted around me. Or maybe it had always been there, I just hadn’t noticed. A storm, made up of voices, howling wind, screams, sounds of collapse. A storm so loud it was silent, so silent it was all that I could hear.
I tried to look at it, but it seemed to elude my gaze. I knew it was there, I just couldn’t see it, as if it moved in sync with my head. My head... I tried to raise my hands to take it, although I didn’t know why exactly.
And noticed I could. I suddenly felt my head, and as soon as I realised that, I withdrew my hands to hold them in front of it.
They looked... horrible, really, I think the word is, although it didn’t shock me. Is there a word for that? They were dirty, but that was hardly the worst. There was encrusted blood on them, and they were scratched and grazed, and I missed the ring finger of my right hand. Also the palm of my left hand was pierced. None of this hurt however, and I distantly noticed I didn’t seem to care.
I figured (or hoped, perhaps?) that there was more to my body than just my hands, and I looked down at it, forced myself to become aware of it. I saw I was naked, and I supposed I was to be embarrassed over that. My skin was rather bleach, or perhaps that seemed to be so due to the blood that was all over it. Mainly my chest, adorned with a deep, blood-encrusted slash, and my abdomen and lower waist, that had been pierced several times.
Then suddenly, an image flashed across my mind, of myself, looking down at my body in the same way as I was now, watching with horror how a blade pierced me causing the wounds I had just observed. I also for the first time felt something. I feared. It was as if something in me relived, but that didn’t feel like a good thing, because it felt horrible. It was fear... primal, pure fear. And not even for myself, I noticed.
I caught myself on screaming, begging for it (whatever that was) to stop. And whatever memory had just unveiled itself before my eyes, faded. I felt like falling down, down a long way, on the ground, then to receive a punch in my face. And in a way, I guess I blacked out, but I still felt conscious.
Then, a restlessness I only now noticed faded. I felt the odd, hovering feeling again, the weightless-ness. My eyes however, were now able to look beyond my own body. Then again, I did look into a black abyss now, but the point is that I could see it. That is, if it wasn’t what I experienced because I couldn’t see after all. But no, something... I could make out something of the blackness. I turned my head, as if expecting to find clarity there. The distant, vague, abstract shape seemed to be everywhere, but still small, yet not changing place. I could make out a humanoid form, a lithe one too. Probably a woman. I could make out how she looked, yet still... yet still I couldn’t see her. She had black hair, long, past her shoulder blades, and it seemed soft, silky, cared for. Her eyes were like radiant gems, yet bright and clear. She had slim, yet full lips, a small nose and a bleach, well-cared-for skin. Her form was lithe, elegant and both luscious and exotic.
As I noticed these details, I noticed how clear my mind had become all of a sudden. But still... I had observed all this, but somehow I couldn’t make her out. As if I couldn’t put the details together to make a complete picture of her. Also I knew I hadn’t seen her, now. It was as if someone had told me about her in great detail.
I noticed I was laying down now. Flat on my back, on a hard underground. The darkness faded. Part of my confusion, and the abstractness, faded, yet it didn’t seem soothing. Not at all. I felt more worries, concerns, but of a different nature. More profound, in a way, yet also more plain and dull. If anything, it was scaring, and I felt a strange feeling, I suppose I was panting, sweating. Why? Was I exhausted? What had happened? What had just happened??