I stumbled back, icy claws gripping my stomach as my throat began to burn. Hands wrapped around me as I fell into the chain oval, the grey draining out of everything until it was all gone.
There were millions of stars in the darkness, but so far away, untouchable. I reached my hand out, grasp something of their glory, but my fingers bent away from me- twisting and collapsing helplessly in the void. They stared at me, apathetic as they drifted in their home. I tried to close my eyes, skin pulling against sockets, frozen solid.
Slowly I began to turn, tumbling away from the celestial lights and into the the empty. The vastness of the shadow washed across my sight, consumed illumination. There was no emotion there. No sadness, no joy, no hate.
No fear.
Murky thoughts churned, drifting hazily to the surface as I gazed on the beyond. It reminded me of something, recent but half remembered. A great shadow, something in darkness.
No, not in darkness, of darkness. Even now it is here, not so far away. I could feel it submerging me.
There were others too. I could sense them there, more than just the blackness.
The nothing began to corrode the fog in my thoughts, clarity flooded across me as I thought. I reached with my conscious, tried to snatch the epiphany as it rose above the disorder. My mind closed around the understanding, started to absorb.
My eyes blink and the knowledge slipped between my fingers.
The stars were gone, the void dissipated- blurred forms made mumbled sounds at me, the grey world around spun slightly as I adjusted to false reality. I blink again as the walls solidified, Rill's face loomed over me, its left side beginning to slide off. I blink once more, and the hotel room was real again, I was laying on my back, spread eagle in the oval. I remembered how to hear just soon enough to catch, "-ll be for naugh, washted time, devoureddd. Soon or naw in our livves, tshoo late. Ish he rottegh?"
Rill turned her head to Narl too quickly and the damaged half of her face slipped off and spattered on the ground next to me.
"Ji will operate, mental shock, the mind inexperience passing."
Motor functions established themselves, I rolled my head and vomited across the floor.
"See, first born? The seeker wakes, returns to realms of the flesh," Rill said, though there was no happiness in her voice, "Now we make feet motion, the return."
She turned back down to me, I could see the alien muscles beneath her face lax and contract as she smiled her fake amusement at me.
Narl spoke from somewhere to my right, his voice was oddly slurred.
"The partshing way is closh, our tshransition prime, the move ish naw distancegh. We neee only several shor tshimes to achieve."
I tried to move my legs and they submitted, I rolled myself away from the sick and stood.
As I pushed myself to my feet, something cut at the inside of my hand. I looked down; the muscles were showing, bits of bone revealed at the joints, tendons an unsettling pinkish white. I tried to ignore these, focusing instead on the object held there.
The strange prong from the oval, clenched tight in ruined fingers.
Narl must have seen me staring at my hand; from behind me he spoke again, slightly slurring his words.
"Worrugh lishtle An-dragh-gee, the shkin ish onluh of thish world, it wull be reshurned tso youh."
I looked over at him, noting the hanging jaw and shattered teeth, one of his eyes was leaking out of its socket. He gestured at me limply and lead the way out, Rill followed closely behind. I slipped the prong into my pocket as we continued into the grey.
Still a collector at heart.
~Ji
