Bleeder [Blood Magic, Book 1]

Chapter 25: Surfacing

I was nowhere. I was nothing.

No, wait: I couldn't be nothing. I was thinking.

Was I a thought? A lost thought?

I had language. Intelligence, too. But I couldn't remember anything before a moment ago when I winked into existence.

What was I? Was I always this? Or was I something else once?

How did I get here?

I wasn't hurt, nor panicked or scared. Neither hot nor cold.

I just was.

Drifting.

And curious.

I just lost some time there.

I didn't know how I knew that, but there was a blank, and then I was back.

Back where?

I was still formless. Still drifting.

Should I be doing something? I wondered.

What could a bodiless brain do? I tried to remember if there was something I should be remembering but nothing came to me. There was this, and only this, and nothing before this.

It was exquisitely boring.

After a dozen or so blink outs, something finally changed.

At first I thought I was imagining it, because nothing here ever changed, but I wasn't.

There was a little something extra to my awareness now, something out on the furthest reaches of perception: a hint of movement.

I concentrated on it, and it gradually became clearer. Wherever I was, whatever I was, I was moving.

Should I be concerned? I wondered.

Why? Something happening is better than nothing at all.

And even if I was moving, what difference did it make?