An Imperfect Science | Ikemen Sengoku

Chapter 54

Darkness.

Ness struggled free from the darkness in which she was drowning and all that she found was more darkness.

The only sound she could hear was the rapid panting of her own breath, as awareness came slowly, her limbs tingling but unmoving. Beneath her fingers, she felt the dry, smooth lines of a tatami mat. She brushed one fingertip over the intricately weaved grasses and all the muscles in her arm seemed to burn with the strain.

Help.

She thought the word, but her lips wouldn't open and let it out. She had the strangest sensation, like she was both there and not there. It was as if her body and brain were out of sync with each other.

Help me.

The only sound that emerged from her lips was a tiny, groaning sob. She inhaled sharply, a quick, panicked breath of stale air, and struggled to take another breath. Her head throbbed. Her lungs burned. The encroaching dizziness threatened to take her away on a wave of familiar panic.

Breathe, Ness!

She heard Ieyasu's worried voice in her head, so vividly. Her lips parted and she sucked in a great lungful of air to quench the burning in her chest.

Inhale. Hold. Exhale.

Ness allowed herself to just breathe in that silent, dark space. Her eyes adjusted slowly but that did nothing to diminish the depth of the darkness. She had to rely on her other senses to make sense of where she was.

The space she was in felt small, somehow, the darkness intimate rather than endless. The air tasted like a place that was unused, the scent of dust settling on her tongue. She could hear no signs of life except her own. A hint of panic whistled at the edge of every breath.

Come on, Ness. Keep it together. Mitsuhide told you what to do.

You need to create an opening, so that you can run away.

You can't just sit here in the darkness and wait for something worse to happen to you.

Ness tried to force her limbs to respond to her commands. The muscles in her back straining, she gritted her teeth, and rolled onto her side with a long groan. The effects are wearing off. Her body's responses were sluggish but improving. She took a deep breath and then toppled onto her stomach with a grunt.

"Fuck."

It was the first word she had spoken out loud since she'd awoken, and it was more like a pained exhalation of breath than an actual word. Fuck. This stupid plan has gone so far sideways it's in another fucking timezone. She took another deep breath and pushed herself up on her forearms with a groan. Her arms shook beneath her weight. It felt like she'd already done a thousand push-ups.

This is so fucking undignified.

Her entire body trembling with the strain, she sank her fingernails into the grooves of the mat beneath her hands and dragged herself forward by a couple of inches. This motion was accompanied by a strangled, formless noise that might have been another profanity. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. It was so dark that she couldn't even see her own hands on the floor. Still, she reached out blindly, pulling herself on inch by inch, gasping for breath. Just keep moving. You're fucked if you stop.

And then she did stop, her fingertips grazing the smooth paper of a wall as her head bumped gently against it. She grasped it desperately, pulling herself upwards to hug it like she'd discovered an anchor. Paper, dry and dusty, rubbed against her cheek. She didn't fall over but she couldn't imagine pressing onwards.