Nothingness.
It's strange how one could tune into a void consciously. The last thing she even remembered was the darkness swallowing her whole, numbness spreading from her nose to the very tips of her fingers. At first, it felt like pure ice running through her veins. Cold tendrils of frost running just under the surface of her skin like freshly-spun webs, vaguely reminding her of the absolute nothingness she was suspended in.
There was no other way to describe it: she was trapped in a state of absolute nothingness.
Even as the iciness in her blood faded away into something numb and hollow, it was as if she had never known anything at all. Consciousness was fickle, even in such a sedates state--and no matter how hard her brain fought to piece together the little fragmented thoughts she had left, she could hardly find coherence at all. The silence was unending--deafening, even--and it made the moment of nothingness feel like both a heartbeat and eternity at once. Only God knew how long she had been stuck in such a state--but what she did know was the fact that leaving her state of nothingness was nothing short of absolute torture.
The first breath she took filled her lungs with sharp, stabbing pain, as if knives were piercing her chest. Her throat burned and her eyes watered, her first breath choked out after what felt like forever; a grim reminder that the feeling of nothingness had been a state of blissful ignorance. Consciousness flooded her senses excruciatingly slowly. First her throat and her lungs, then her fingertips buzzing to life with pinpricks of feeling, until even the goosebumps rising against her skin caused chills to creep up her spine. Slowly, painfully, her blurry green gaze fluttered open and the dim, eerie light surrounding her came into focus.
Her first instinct was to curse as loudly as she could until the pain subsided. She parted her lips, on the verge of hissing out a colorful swear or two when she found that she could barely let out even a hoarse cough of protest. Her throat ached, chest throbbing painfully with each breath she inhaled--but the young woman knew now that the comfortable nothingness was now a thing of the past. Her pained cough gave way to a tired, worn-out groan as she swallowed back the dizzying sense of nausea twisting in her stomach. The dull roar of silence that had become her norm had faded away. As she forced herself to tune into her surroundings, she picked up on the faint sound of running water.
The light was dim, tinged with hues of deep burgundy and shades of gray. The air felt wet, as if sticky drops of rain would fall at any moment. She found herself staring straight up, back flat against... something strong and hard. She exhaled another breath, this time silently thanking whatever pitiful God that was looking out for her as the pain stabbing at her chest began to subside. Instead, she shifted, allowing the tips of her fingers to run against the surface beneath her. It was smooth to the touch, cool and sturdy. Wood. She blinked once, then twice, brows furrowing together as she pieced the new bit of information together with what little she already knew.
The sound of rushing water, moving beneath her and around her, along with the wood surface beneath her, pointed in only one direction--she was on a boat... or a canoe, perhaps. She couldn't quite tell which one and as she pulled herself upright, she let out an uneasy hiss. A wave of dizziness washed over her as she forced herself into a sitting position, head pounding. She narrowed her eyes in favor of taking in whatever she could see.
… And as soon as her green gaze focused on the scene before her, she found herself lapsing into confusion.
"What the fuck?" the curse slipped from her lips before she could quite contain herself, her voice hoarse. Well, she hadn't been wrong about being on a boat, at the very least. She found herself settled in a... canoe of sorts, floating down what seemed to be an endless river. The waters rushing past her were far from crystal clear. The currents were as black as ink, sloshing against her canoe as she floated downstream. She felt her breath catch in her throat and she instinctively reached out to grab hold of the edge of her vessel, as if to keep her from falling head-first into the dark depths surrounding her.
The sky above her--if it could even be called that--seemed to be just as dark as the waves propelling her forward. She glanced up to take in the inky skies overhead, taking in the clouds as gray as smoke and as thick as smog. There was light, however dim it may have been. The burgundy light bled out from behind the clouds, shedding its reddish hue down on whatever river she found herself floating on, and as the young woman reached up to brush thin, shaking fingers through her mess of dark curls, the cold realization that she was far, far away from any reality she knew made itself known.
What startled her the most, though, was the fact that the river seemed to be untouched aside from her own boat. She swallowed the lump forming in her throat, hoping to quell the nausea twisting in the pit of her stomach as she pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them as if to steady herself. She buried her face into her knees, a frenzied halo of her dark curls concealing her from the dark sky arching overhead. Each breathe she inhaled tasted of smoke, painstakingly reminding her that the acrid tang in the air only pushed her even further out of her element. She was lost--oh so lost--and for a split-second, the young woman didn't remember who she was.
It was at that moment that she was jolted upright--and not due to the thoughts racing through her mind at a mile a second. Her vessel crashed into a rocky outcrop, causing her to stumble forward and onto her knees with a sharp yelp. It jarred her awake, causing her to blink dazedly. Her thoughts--or whatever string of emotions she had attempted at translating into thoughts--had scattered at that exact moment and before she could even recollect, she felt hands roughly grip her upper arms.
"Stop!"
Her cry was hoarse, the sound of her voice ringing and bouncing off the jagged rock she had crashed onto. "Stop! Let me go!" each word that left her lips grew progressively louder, more desperate--but the hands gripping her didn't relent. The young woman let out another cry of protest as pain shot through her arms from where those hands held her--like liquid ice running through her veins, paralyzing her. "Stop...!" she managed out, though this time her word of protest left her as a weak whimper.
The feeling of ice running through her body only intensified and with a sharp exhale, she felt her entire body seize up. She trembled, sputtering out a gasp just as the gripping, painful sensation of being frozen alive took hold of her. Her knees locked and her skin felt ready to crack at any given moment, yet those hands only jerked her back and up out of the canoe she had previously been cowering in.
The hands were cold and... smooth, like freshly-carved marble. Perhaps it was that odd feeling of being frozen, but she couldn't quite pick up on the feeling of skin. It was as if a pure marble figure had grabbed her, hoisting her up before tossing her back onto the rocky outcrop like a discarded ragdoll. If it weren't for that paralyzing sensation, the brunette was sure she would have had the breath knocked straight from her lungs, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't bring herself to move.
The hands left her as soon as she had been tossed aside--and for a moment, a rush of relief shot through her. It was a pleasant, dizzying feeling but as soon as it flooded her system, it had faded away only to be replaced by a fresh wave of panic. Paralyzed, cold, and unaware of her surroundings was quite possibly the worst possible state of being. She forced herself to focus though her mind and heart were both racing too hard for her to truly pay attention...
Yet the longer she focused, the more details she noticed.
The sound of heavy waves crashing against the rocks was only one of the sounds in the background. She heard... voices? No. Whispers. She could hear the faint, elusive breath of mingled whispers hanging in the air like white noise. It was indistinct, a jumble of syllables and words she couldn't pick out even if she was in a state of full consciousness. And layered just over that... slightly more distinct voices, though muffled by the repetitive sound of waves against rock. She inhaled a sharp breath, ignoring the painful stinging that it caused deep in her chest, before forcing herself to focus even harder.
"… the next lot."
"I can't believe.... so little."
"… be quite annoyed."
She tensed, picking up on the broken fragments of the broken conversation. The voices were... strange. They didn't fill the physical air around her, reaching her ears. At least, not the way normal sound did. She heard the words... in her head, like thoughts resonating in her, though she knew for sure that they weren't her own. It was a strange feeling and for a moment, a nauseating sensation of dizziness threatened to overwhelm her--but if she had picked up on.... that, surely she could do it again.
With another sharp, painful inhale, she closed her green eyes and forced herself to focus, hoping internally that she would hear--or think--those voices again. Moments passed her by in dead silence, broken only by the rhythmic sound of waves crashing one by one, and just as her own brain threatened to give way to defeat, she heard them.
"You would think they'd come in bigger batches, no? Pretty inefficient to ship over three at a time."
"Fuck no, our Royal Pain-In-The-Arse would be besides himself if he had to work so hard in one sitting. Can you imagine?"
She swallowed, wincing internally as she did so. She swore she heard... laughter. She could hear it clearly, though it only echoed in her head and not in her ears. It was the sort of laughter that came from two co-workers that ridiculed their boss during a slow lunch-break. It was... easy conversation. Simplistic, even--and in a way, it only baffled her further. The nausea returned as the little fragments of the broken conversation took root in her mind, forcing her to try and piece together whatever it was that they were talking about.
Three? Shipments? Batches?
It was almost as if those.... voices, whoever they were, were stuck working on the early phases of some cargo-related business... but then why would she be involved? It only took a moment for it to click--and if her blood could have run any colder, she was sure it would have. She was the shipment--or at least a part of it. She was a body--no, she was even less than that. She was a package to be sorted and handed out like some cheap import. And she wasn't alone. Or at least, the conversation had implied that she was one of three.... pieces shipped in tonight.
She cursed internally, trying to will herself to move--but it seemed as if she was still stuck in paralysis. She wondered vaguely how they--whoever they were--had managed to put her into such a comatose state, but she knew that right now was not the time to ponder how this had happened. Right now, she needed to get up and get out. Fast.
Surely if she was picked up and tossed out, they'd return for her--and it seemed as if the only viable option she had at the moment was simply biding her time, no matter how painful the paralysis was. She held her breath, forcing air into her lungs only when she absolutely needed to in order to minimize the sharp, stinging pain in her chest.
She tried counting down the seconds, hoping to find a way to distract herself somehow--anyhow--but as the seconds wore into minutes and the minutes bled into what seemed like hours, the exhaustion took hold of her. At first, her vision only lapsed into darkness for split moments at a time--it wasn't until she came to later that she realized that the darkness had swallowed her whole for God knew how long. She had woken with a start, choking out a gasp only to feel those familiar hands gripping her again--except this time, it wasn't painfully cold.
She whimpered weakly as she felt that dreadful sensation of ice in her blood melt away. The numbness that had engulfed her skin faded, forcing her to let out a pathetic wail of pain as the very sensation of being able to feel returned. She twisted in their grasp, whimpering and mumbling, though her body remained too weak for her to pry out of their grasp. Their hands--if they even were hands at all--still felt smooth and flawless like marble against her skin, but her exhaustion was much too great.
Her entire mind lapsed in and out of a conscious state all through the journey she was forcibly dragged through--and it wasn't until she was tossed back down onto the rock that she forced herself upright once again.
And in a way, she wished she hadn't gotten up at all.
It took a few painful, agonizing minutes for her to struggle into an upright position. Her arms were weak, bruised, and her knees and legs were bloodied with scraped and cuts form being dragged against rough, jagged rocks. She choked out a cough, struggling to breathe, but she squinted nonetheless and hoped her dizzying vision would straighten out long enough for her to make sense of her surroundings.
All she saw around her, however, was rock even blacker than the water she had been floating on earlier. The ground was callous under her fingertips--and warm, as if there was something.... alive pulsing beneath it. it was an odd sensation and she drew in a sharp breath as the tips of her fingers sensed the feeling of something throbbing and warm reverberated through the rock under her. It was... oddly comforting, as if there was a source of life in this void of darkness--but as her gaze swept around her, she felt that faint flicker of relief die away.
What she saw made her blood run cold. Whatever this was, she thought... it was a fate worse than death.
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