Maris could've sworn she had died. She was detached from her mouse body and floating somewhere else. She was in the same terrifying blackness of her dreams.
Her thoughts were loud. Recollections of being chased, of killing, of telling Wilhelm all over again had become all she was in the void. Everything that had happened hung heavy onto whatever parts of her still existed. It projected out of her mind into the void. Clyde saw it. He swam through the void and heard the sounds of her memories, her cries as she knelt in front of the brutalised corpse; the confessions shared between her and Wilhelm.
Maris felt him close.
In the void, a bright green wisp appeared, which was something Maris had never seen before, but immediately could identify. It flew around peacefully in front of her; she watched it and felt its sweet magic. There was a soft and selfless feeling emanating from it. It called to her. Maris reached out to grab the wisp, her arm forming into existence from the black to catch it before it got away. It didn't flee, but drew closer to her, Maris felt its warm light on her hands, and closed them around the wisp.
A great surge filled her body, and she gleamed the blue-green of the wisp. When she opened her hands, it was gone. Her hands were dark and empty. But not a moment later, the light reappeared in the centre of her palm, and flowed down her veins and up her arm, into her chest.
"Maris! Stop it, please! Wake up!"
She knew the voice was Clyde.
"O' for heaven's sake, there'ye are. Yer alright."
She couldn't see him; but they were in the same nothingness, and he could hear what she was thinking. In the void, his thick accent called out.
"Maris, I've seen what 'appened to you. I can 'ear it all over you, I can hear you findin' a way to get it to me, you're practic'ly screamin' it at me, your will 'as a way of doin' that, it does. You need to stop Maris. I can feel it, I can hear their foul disgustin' mouths. It's callin' to me, so loud." She had never heard Clyde so painful and desperate. "Rule o' thumb for secrets is that they'll crawl their way out if they 'ave to, and now my secret is comin' round to bite me in the arse. This is all my fault, you should've never came to Ottswald. You 'ave to stop now, lass, you need'a wake up. You're in a bad state. Bramble didn't know who you are and why turnin' you into a mouse is bound to send you right round the bend. You'll be back in ye'self in no time, a'right."
A reply wasn't needed, they were in the same plane. He felt her response. His words made her panic, as she had been continuously for the past day and a half. Maris was far, far behind, her mind a jammed up backlog of processing waiting to take place. Her attack would slip her mind, waiting to be processed, the mines, the garden, Wilhelm's confessions, her life changing forever, waiting to be processed. Maris tried to shut it all out, parts of her fighting to allow Clyde in and parts not wanting him to know, and wanting all of this to not be real. How could this be real? She was dead; she had to be. She was surrounded in the closest thing death could be. Unheaviness rushed over her, and she was bound by no weights of existence. Yes, she was dead.
"Maris, yer not dead, you'll be a'right..."
