Naihabi Ridge

Chapter Ten - Number 072

Avi

Black. It is often referred to as a cursed color by the friars, but really it is not a color at all. Black is the lack of color, so why must it be called a color when that is what it is least? Black is the oblivion that cannot be felt with hands or eyes or ears, but only by the soul. When a soul feels blackness, the heart yearns for something it has lost, but cannot get back again. When the soul feels blackness, something deep down, even if the physical mind does not notice, is irreparably broken.
    
So why do I feel blackness?

I opened my eyes to the darkness. I was sitting on a wooden chair in a dark room with no noise, no movement, no feeling.
    
There was blackness everywhere.
    
I didn't remember losing consciousness, and I didn't remember how I got to the room, either. The air was moist and my skin was damp, and for some reason it was cold. I hadn't felt cool air in months, and it brought along with it a tempting nostalgia, but that wasn't what bothered me. What bothered me was the dripping sound that echoed from somewhere nearby, though I couldn't locate it using just my ears. I didn't get out of the chair, either, though I could, as there was not anything physically holding me back. I sat as my eyes fully adjusted to the black, though it didn't allow any more to really be seen, and waited for something to happen, for someone to save me from my thoughts.

Then I remembered. I remembered Thirré as she said all those things, and Oriole as she brought me back to reality. And where was I now? It certainly didn't feel like reality, but then I remembered being dragged into the darkness. There was only darkness after that. Only black and the ragged breathing of the collectors as they dragged me away in my vulnerable state. Again, I didn't struggle. Again, I did nothing as someone was taken away, but this time it wasn't Lillian.

This time it was me.

I listened as the dripping noise became louder and more constant until it was a pour, then it stopped and there was silence. I didn't allow fear to work itself anywhere near me, because this was nothing to be feared compared to the night raid. I sat, willing to accept anything fate had for this wrongdoer, but there was just silence and darkness. Eventually, I decided that nothing was going to happen for a very long while if I didn't do something, so I got up out of the chair I was sitting on, though I couldn't guarantee it was a chair, and tried inching forward. I tried, but quickly found out that upon standing up, my feet had gone numb, and I stumbled down to my knees. I felt the cold ground through the thin fabric of my pants and shivered.
    
I felt at the floor, which wasn't wooden, as most of the Ridge was, and wondered what liquid was dripping seconds before, but my answer came to me as I crawled forward on all fours and my hand met a familiar icy substance that soothed my mind through contact. I couldn't see, but I had a creeping suspicion of the matter.
    
The orange liquid from the field outside Mithle...
    
But how? All I knew was that it either traveled with me—which wasn't entirely impossible—or it was both here and at Mithle.
    
I remembered the cold but soothing feeling before I went unconscious that fiery night. Any other survivors... would they have been taken to Naihabi Ridge also?
    
Unless I was the only one.
    
No, Lillian made it out. I was sure of it. She had to have.
    
The cool liquid slithered up my arm and onto my shoulder, but I lifted my arm and flicked it, sending the gooey liquid splattering back on the floor. I got back to my feet, steadier this time, and felt forward with my foot before stepping. The liquid tried its way up my pant leg, but I flexed my leg and it retreated. Why would this liquid possibly be at Naihabi Ridge? Unless the collectors took me away from the Ridge altogether, but that was unlikely.
    
I stepped forward, then bumped into something and fell back a few feet. I held my breath to preserve the silence in the tension, and reached out with my hand hesitantly. I felt empty, cold air on my fingers, and I dared to move forward again. Nothing. The thing that was there was now gone.
    
Which meant something other than the liquid was in the room with me.
    
I shivered, then paused. I was sure I had heard a shuffling noise two seconds before. I swiveled around in all directions, but it didn't do anything since I'd have been better off blind in this darkness. I stopped, my breathing heavy, and heard the shuffle again. I think I accepted that I was at least a little bit frightened at that point, so I didn't really understand why hearing a monotonous voice didn't seem all that surprising in that moment.
    
"Number 072. Consciousness confirmed."
    
The silence was broken, and I was full-on ready to get my heart rate down.
    
"What do you want with me?" I yelled into the abyss. "What have you been doing with the rest of the people at Naihabi Ridge?"
    
Silence. I felt the liquid squirming up my leg, but I didn't care. The silence dragged on, and then, "Affirmative."
    
A loud shuffling followed, and then a deafening squeal hit my ears. It must have been so high a frequency that no one else could hear it, because I had been past the summoning building before and never heard it. I crumpled to the ground, pressing on both of my ears to block out the screech, but it proved futile.
    
"Audibility: ninety-eighth percentile."
    
The sound stopped and I gasped, removing my hands from my ears. I felt a hot liquid on my palms and in my ears and my eyes widened. How much hearing had I lost just then?
    
Before I could process my thoughts, I felt a prick on my arm. I went to feel what it was, but my arm went numb and a tingling feeling spread throughout my body. I felt my arm while I could and yanked a circular needle-type thing out of it. I tried to throw it as far as I could, but my arm was losing its feeling and I only tossed it about five feet based on the weak clanking sound that followed, then my legs started going numb from my knees down, and I fell limp to the ground.
    
Paralysis?
    
I fought against it, tried to move, willed my mind to speak, but I laid useless on the floor. I couldn't even do so much as to stop the orange liquid as it overcame me for the second time with its soothing chill, and then the darkness let out to the unnatural peace.