The Sands

8.4K 752 638
                                    

You keep slipping in and out of sleep

Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.

You keep slipping in and out of sleep.

Your consciousness wavers, floating to the surface of reality for a minute or two before sinking again into the abyss of slumber, leaving your brief moments of alertness blurred and the details indiscernible.

The first time that your fuzzy brain awakes, it's to the unclear image of something massive and white with a splotch of turquoise blue floating in the middle. There's a lot of shouting, something growling in a low animal timbre, and you think that there's loose soil cradling your head.

You sleep again.

Your next reality is an unfamiliar face and a quiet male voice, warm hands pressing soothingly to your forehead. Your eyes are barely open so you can't see well, but the man appears to have skin made of sheeny metallic gold.

"You're gonna be fine," you hear his voice say from far away before you lapse back into oblivion.

The darkness is so peaceful to you, so blank. You have no thoughts, no feelings, no fears. It's just a faint cognition, a vague existence of yourself floating freely through the everything of nothing.

The third time you wake up, you wake up for real.

It's a stark contrast to the pleasant darkness of being unconscious .

When you're awake, you're in pain.

Your body aches a little and your head hurts; the soil that you can barely remember has been replaced by warm cloth, heavy and soft, but somehow not soothing at all to your pounding head. The air tastes balmy and warm, a soft breeze carrying in the scent of water.

You try to open your eyes, but instantly close them again when they're flooded with painful light. You gasp at the stabbing hurt, turning your face into the firm pillow resting beneath your head.

It smells floral, not like roses but something a little sweeter.

Underneath the floral scent is a deeper musk, spicy but so subtle that your nose barely picks it up.

It takes a while until you're able to fully open your eyes without pain, readjusting your pupils with small stints of light exposure until your ability to see is returned.

The vision that comes into light with the readmittance of your sight is one that sends shivers of indulgence down your spine, filling the cavity of your chest with your caught breath.

Billowing silk waves like a sea of light in the gentle breeze, hanging unhindered from the ceiling in a ring around you and allowing tiny slips of air to flow in, bringing with them the taste of an exotic, foreign place. The material of the bed drapes are so fine that you can almost see through them, the edged outline of objects beyond rendered a soft greyish-pearl, only a faint impression of existence.

The bed you're reclined on is low-slung and massive, littered with intricately patterned brocade pillows in vibrant jewel tones and embroidered with gold thread.

SparkWhere stories live. Discover now