Tale from the Deepwater

Chapter 61

A new, nameless sensation pierced her body, searing through it like blood, making every other sensation forgotten. A pang of pain, sudden and sharp, made her shriek out before she forgot about her concerns regarding someone hearing her. She tried to fly up and away, but the throbbing pain made it impossible to go any higher, and she did the only thing she thought she could do. She plunged into the water of the river. The water dowsed the fire instantly, but there was something else, something strange in the water here that she had never felt before. She was glad that the burning sensation was wearing off, but she could not understand the loosening of the grasp of control over her consciousness. She struggled to keep her eyes open but they kept shutting as a pale ache, and dull numbness reached all the way to her mind, failing her vision. She tried to swim, or at least, keep her body afloat, but it was she feared she was going in the water, deep down. The experience of pain was new but what scared her more was the fear that she would drown, and collapse, that too, in the water.

Was this similar to an encounter with death, she wondered. In any case, she couldn't tell as she failed the struggle against oblivion and closed her eyes, wondering when she would open them again if at all she would.

She did open her eyes to strong light coming through her eyelids. Was she on the surface of the water under a scorching sun? That was her first thought as she struggled to open her sensitive eyes after what seemed like a long time. But as her consciousness returned, she realized it couldn't be the sun's light, because instead of a golden yellow, myriad colors danced on her eyelids. She suddenly felt relief from her discomfort as something blocked the lights soon enough, shading her eyes. She tried to open her eyes when she felt a soft pressure on them. As she attempted to flicker them open, the pressure was lifted, but the shade still remained in place, now allowing some light to pass through the chinks in whatever it was, but not all the light.

She opened them slowly and carefully, and everything was a blur for a while, and then her vision returned. She saw something dark hovering above her eyes, and only after some thought, realized it was two rather large hands that had been acting as a shade. She placed her hands on them, removing them to reveal the face of the red-eyed man who was kneeling down, trying to cover her from the strong lights. She looked around. She was in her shell again, and the lights, whatever they were, were coming from underneath her, from inside the shell.