Page 87 of In Death's Hands
“One. Two. Three. You do not see.”
My eyes fall shut, the next blink lost in forever.
“Four. Five. Six. You fall like bricks.”
My body is foreign in its new heaviness. I am dragged away. Far.
“Seven. Eight. Nine. The threads align.”
My heart stops. My emotions halt. My next breath is yet to come.
“Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Inside your soul we delve.”
Everything feels heavy. I don’t know where I am, but I can barely move. I don’t feel the cold anymore. Not even the damp shirt on my skin. All I feel, all I see, isblack. The deepest black I’ve ever seen.
I squint when light interrupts the unending darkness. It gets closer, brighter. So much so that I have to close my eyes. But even behind my eyelids, I can see the light coming closer to me. I force my eyes open and jump back when it pauses right in front of me, exuding warmth.
Expecting.
Expecting what? I don’t know. But as my eyes adjust, I see this radiant globe of light.
I take a step forward and the light pulses once, as if beckoning me closer. Another step, another pulse. My limbs feel lighter with every step forward, the earlier heaviness fading quickly. I swallow, knowing I should feel my heartbeat skyrocketing in panic, but all I feel is calm. Purpose.
I am exactly where I’m supposed to be.
It’s a first for me, and I let this knowing spread in my body. It seems the light was waiting for me to accept this, as it pulses once, twice, thrice before swallowing me whole.
Hello, Liv, says a voice made of many. It is neither young nor old, neither female nor male, neither high nor deep. It is nothing and everything at once.
I don’t know where I am. Light surrounds me, so bright I can’t even see my own body. I feel it though, like a distant thought. Or even just a belief that it’s there. The light isn’t entirely white. In it are pockets of colours and swirling pits of darkness with tiny beads of white shining like stars in their midst.
I open my mouth to answer, but nothing comes out.
You can only speak with your mind in here. With your heart. Think the words, and if they are truth, they become.
What the fuck?I think, but the thought echoes outside my head.
And the strange voice chuckles, the sound warm yet piercing cold.
Shit,I think, trying to speak once more but finding that my voice has well and truly been silenced.
You’re getting it faster than most. It is reassuring.
I open my mouth, pure habit, before closing it and thinking my next words intensely.Who are you?
Wrong question, dear one.
What is the right one then?
That is for you to find out.
I purse my lips. The idea of frustration is there, but I can’t feel a lick of it. Not truly. I look around again and focus on the colourful swaths of light.Strange.
What is strange?the voice asks.
I hadn’t meant to say that out loud—or rather think it out loud—but I explain anyway.They’re not lights, are they?
The light around me pulses, as if to congratulate me for a job well done.No, they are not.
