The Binding

Chapter Twenty-Six

Something cold was pressing against me. I wanted to push myself away, but I wasn't sure where my arms were. A moment of swirling dizziness spun me before I fell back into a void.     

    Consciousness returned, but it was nothing but blackness stretched in front of me. I slowly realized something hard was pressing against my back and legs. My head wouldn't turn, my eyes wouldn't open, nothing would move.

    If I had time before to imagine how I would respond to being paralyzed, my first guess would be panic— blind, red and black panic. The kind of fear that takes over your body down to its core. But I didn't panic. My first response was curiosity.

    I started small. First, I tried to rub my tongue along the roof of my mouth. When that failed, I tried to swallow. I couldn't voluntarily move any part of my body, no more than I could move a pencil or a lamp from across the room. Then I moved my thoughts inward toward the involuntary movements of my body. Were my lungs inflating with each breath? Was my heart beating slowly, steadily in that familiar rhythm? Was my stomach growling, demanding its next meal? I wanted to gasp in shock, but I couldn't. The answer was no. I wasn't breathing, and I couldn't feel my heartbeat. I couldn't feel anything beneath my skin.     

    It was the single most extraordinary sensation I had ever experienced. My body was... dormant. I could feel, but only by the slightest definition. And with the tactile came consciousness. I don't know if I was conscious before. All I do know is it was the feel of something cold and smooth against my skin that brought my mind out of its stillness. Was there anything else? Yes. I was lying on something hard, and there was a blanket or something similar covering me.

    I felt something small flutter against my skin along my arm. An insect? A fly or mosquito? Annoyed, I silently willed it to bother some other corpse and tried to think logically. I needed a plan, some kind of strategy. Where was I? Did the man take me, or had Ezra found me in time? What had happened to Yisu?

    The ground was stable. I couldn't feel any waves or rocking. I wasn't on a boat or in a car. I tried to smell the air and see if the sea was nearby. Nothing. No sight, no sound, no smell. The insect returned, fluttering, and prickling against my skin.

    I waited.

    And waited.

    I cursed time and imagined myself sighing. Time is a taunting god.

    Time in a vacuum is difficult to define. Instinct makes us want to relate it to the standards we come to understand— seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks. When separated from yourself, those concepts seem woefully inadequate and beyond comprehension. Time wasn't slow, nor was it fleeting. It was inconsequential. Time existed, time was present, but worthless. 

    I waited.

    Sound crept up to me without my noticing. One moment I realized I could hear a voice muffled in the distance as if it were on the other side of a thick wall. My ears felt plugged and sluggish. 

    Was I hungry? There were sensations against my skin but nothing from my stomach. Strangely it was as if everything internal had been erased. Their absence was unnerving.   

    I could see... feel... no, neither of those are right... I could know spots of light, warm and pure, nearby. One bright light hovered close. There was another one further away, and still, several other glowed dimmer in the distance. They glowed colorful tendrils of light pulsing in a rainbow at the edges and combining into a bright luminous white at the center.     

    I waited.

    I strained to hear something else. A bird cried, muffled and obscure, outside but nothing else.