Something cold was pressing against me. I wanted to push myself away, but I wasn't sure where my arms were. A moment of swirling dizziness spun me before I fell back into a void.
Consciousness returned, but it was nothing but blackness stretched in front of me. I slowly realized something hard was pressing against my back and legs. My head wouldn't turn, my eyes wouldn't open, nothing would move.
If I had time before to imagine how I would respond to being paralyzed, my first guess would be panic— blind, red and black panic. The kind of fear that takes over your body down to its core. But I didn't panic. My first response was curiosity.
I started small. First, I tried to rub my tongue along the roof of my mouth. When that failed, I tried to swallow. I couldn't voluntarily move any part of my body, no more than I could move a pencil or a lamp from across the room. Then I moved my thoughts inward toward the involuntary movements of my body. Were my lungs inflating with each breath? Was my heart beating slowly, steadily in that familiar rhythm? Was my stomach growling, demanding its next meal? I wanted to gasp in shock, but I couldn't. The answer was no. I wasn't breathing, and I couldn't feel my heartbeat. I couldn't feel anything beneath my skin.
It was the single most extraordinary sensation I had ever experienced. My body was... dormant. I could feel, but only by the slightest definition. And with the tactile came consciousness. I don't know if I was conscious before. All I do know is it was the feel of something cold and smooth against my skin that brought my mind out of its stillness. Was there anything else? Yes. I was lying on something hard, and there was a blanket or something similar covering me.
I felt something small flutter against my skin along my arm. An insect? A fly or mosquito? Annoyed, I silently willed it to bother some other corpse and tried to think logically. I needed a plan, some kind of strategy. Where was I? Did the man take me, or had Ezra found me in time? What had happened to Yisu?
The ground was stable. I couldn't feel any waves or rocking. I wasn't on a boat or in a car. I tried to smell the air and see if the sea was nearby. Nothing. No sight, no sound, no smell. The insect returned, fluttering, and prickling against my skin.
I waited.
And waited.
I cursed time and imagined myself sighing. Time is a taunting god.
Time in a vacuum is difficult to define. Instinct makes us want to relate it to the standards we come to understand— seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks. When separated from yourself, those concepts seem woefully inadequate and beyond comprehension. Time wasn't slow, nor was it fleeting. It was inconsequential. Time existed, time was present, but worthless.
I waited.
Sound crept up to me without my noticing. One moment I realized I could hear a voice muffled in the distance as if it were on the other side of a thick wall. My ears felt plugged and sluggish.
Was I hungry? There were sensations against my skin but nothing from my stomach. Strangely it was as if everything internal had been erased. Their absence was unnerving.
I could see... feel... no, neither of those are right... I could know spots of light, warm and pure, nearby. One bright light hovered close. There was another one further away, and still, several other glowed dimmer in the distance. They glowed colorful tendrils of light pulsing in a rainbow at the edges and combining into a bright luminous white at the center.
I waited.
I strained to hear something else. A bird cried, muffled and obscure, outside but nothing else.
I waited.
I sensed a white light approach and something that sounded like a voice nearby. I couldn't make out any words. Then I felt something warm and wet trail down my arm.
Soft green rolling hills spread out in a gentle cascade in front of me. Tall, strong trees dotted the landscape, unfurling their leaves skyward. In the distance sat a small cluster of wooden huts and what looked like thatched roofs. On the slope of another hill, a herd of goats was casually grazing. The wind shifted, blowing my hair around my face from behind. I moved to brush it back and stopped. The smell of blood, offal, and feces hit me like a wall.
I turned around slowly and faced hundreds of men. Bodies spread out in front of me like the scattering of leaves around a tree in the fall. Most were already dead. A few moved weakly. There had to be a thousand or more dead or dying. And there were at least as many, maybe more men walking among the bodies. Some men had managed to crawl away and sat against a tree or stone waiting to die; others were just waiting.
Whose memory was I walking through? I scanned the crowd for a familiar face but couldn't find anyone.
I noticed a few women picking their way among the dead, some were turning the bodies over, others were carrying baskets, and some had clay pots of what looked like wine. Most of the men had long hair tied away from their faces and wore long tunics with trousers made out of some kind of a loosely woven plaid tartan in browns, greens, reds, and a few blues. The women wore long skirts made out of the same material. Almost everyone was covered in blue paint. Wide bands, chevrons, and swirls graced the skin of the men and women alike.
Something was familiar. I had seen this before.
A woman stepped over a body and lifted her skirts clear of his intestines. It was a boy, no more than fifteen and smooth-faced. I thought I should be sick and realized I still couldn't feel my stomach. Curious.
I noticed a man nearby was bent over a body. His shoulders were moving slowly, rhythmically. I walked toward him, winding my way slowly through the littering of dead men. A girl, twelve or thirteen with dark blond hair, approached him. She had a large basket pressed against her hip. The man with smooth blond hair, lighter than hers, had a knife in his right hand, and he gripped the hair of the man on the ground in his left. He made a deep slash into the man's neck and grunted as he made another, deeper cut. The neck was thick and well-muscled, and the knife made a squishing sound as it sliced through the flesh. Sweat dripped down his face and splashed onto the corpse. Two more swipes of his knife, and he severed the head completely. He straightened, his hand gripped tightly in the hair.
He handed the head to the girl. She carried it, dangling along her side while balancing the basket against her hip. As she passed by, I noticed several other severed heads in the basket. What the hell? I looked around at the battlefield. Many of the men were busy butchering the bodies, and more than half the corpses were already beheaded. As I watched, another man with long hair piled roughly high on his head and a full beard stepped up to the body of the boy and began cutting at his neck.
I scanned for the girl and found her walking toward a small group of horses. She set the basket at her feet and grabbed a wad of the head's hair. Holding the hair up, she quickly secured the head to a leather ring around the horse's neck. I heard the man grunt softly next to me.
I followed him as he carried the body up the hill, dark congealed blood, and some clear fluid drained out of the neck opening. I wanted to be nauseous, but I felt strangely detached from everything I was seeing. I was horrified, yes, but bizarrely clinical at the same time.
A warm wet cloth moved down along my skin to my hips and legs.
The man stopped at the crest of the hill. Other men buzzed around, placing large tree trunks onto a wide wooden platform. The rough tree trunks, quickly removed of their bark, served as posts as other large trunks were fitted lengthwise into notches across each post's top and secured with rope. It looked like the men were building some kind of square rack, almost as if they were making the frames for clotheslines. The man walked toward one of the timber racks and dumped the body next to it. Another man walked up to him and helped secured the body to the post. A third man came and followed suit, tying another body to the top log. I understood. They were setting the headless bodies out for display.
Hands moved away from my legs for a moment, pulling me back to the present and then returned. I felt a warm oil drip over my legs, and strong hands began massaging it into my calves. As those fingers dug, my muscles deeply stirred to life. My sense of self slowly returned inch by painful inch. I had never paid much attention to the presence of my internal body before. I never consciously felt my lungs, my stomach, or my liver. It was only their absence that made me realize the loss.
The vision returned so quickly it was as if I had never left it. The sun was beginning to dip below the hills. The smell of blood and decay was stronger than ever. As I stepped across the grassy hill, I realized I could feel the earth spinning beneath me, spinning so fast it was as if it wasn't moving at all.
The death display on the crest of the hill was complete. Perhaps it was a kind of altar or temple. Row after row of decapitated bodies hung upon the logs, standing erect and ready for battle. Each body had a spear and shield tied to his hands. Large bowls of fire were placed around the structure. A few men were busy adjusting spears and tightening ropes. One man standing near the edge of the platform was painting blue lines across a lifeless torso. He turned to me. I'd seen him before, somewhere. Where? Chestnut hair lightly sprinkled with premature grey was pulled in a long braid. He was naked from the waist up and vibrant blue tattoos, mirroring those he was painting on the body.
He had a sharp square jaw outlining a wide, full mouth. His mouth spread into a slow lustful smile. He thrust his chin up and called out, "They will sing our victory to The Mothers!"
Two men dragged a young girl, naked and crying toward him. He ran his fingers over her skin, stopping at her breasts before sinking down between her legs. She quivered and cried again. He clamped his hand down and pulled her toward him.
I couldn't watch. I closed my eyes and listened to her cry. But it was too much, and I had to open my eyes again. He had her pinned to the platform.
I screamed without realizing it. It was some time before I realized I was screaming, "Stop."
He stopped.
His eyes darted around, searching the air where I was standing.
I kept screaming. "Stop this! Stop! Just let her go."
He looked down at her as she gasped and sobbed. It wasn't pity that swept across his face, but maybe something like it. He sat up and pushed her away.
"Go."
She scrambled up to her feet and stumbled, clutching herself, down the hill. We stood together, me watching him as he watched the girl.
I jumped as Sria stepped out from behind the platform and brushed past me so close I could almost feel the air rustle gently around her. She looked up at him, her jaw tense, "It was a sound victory."
He shrugged.
"But, who will sing your victory when your head is taken, Poas?"
He smiled and, with a swift motion, wrapped his arm around her waist and smiled. "They have to beat me first." He turned and led her down the hill away from the platform, howling raucously, and then stopped for a moment to pick up a few severed heads along the way.
I slowly pulled myself away from the vision. I didn't need to see any more. Was it Sria's memory? Was it the man's? Why was he so familiar? I realized I had been certain it was Ezra's. A moment later, I understood why. I had seen a vision of him in the rain dressed almost identically as he fell from the rope bridge into the ravine.
If it was Sria's memory then I was safe. If it was the man's then, where was I? Maybe Ezra returned in time to rescue me.
I was suddenly very tired of being immobile and wanted to talk, move, stretch... and breathe.
I had to wait.
Time passed.
The sounds of movement in the room came and disappeared slowly. My memories of that time are like scattered moments of the past that want to be a dream, so much like a dream. When the line between the real and the imaginary begins to blur, how can we know for sure which side of the line we are on? From the moment I met Ezra, my life had been straddling that line, and it was becoming impossible to tell the difference.
I heard a low somber call to prayer trill in the distance, soothing and magical. I understood why they used it, a sound so beautiful it would make anyone long to pray.
Kaja is straight up not having a good time right now.
What do you think is going on?
TEASER:
"And which is she, dead or living?"
"I don't know yet."