The Sounds of Silence

Pilot

The Asgardian warriors were convinced that in the afterlife the soul was separated from the body, and was guided for the Valquirias to the beautiful, majestic lounge of the Valhalla. There, where the stars are brighter than the sun, and your fallen comrades come along to join you in magnificent, never endless feats. They fantasized with an existence consume in eternal happiness, always distinguished by the total lack of pain and sorrow.

For them, the demise often seemed more attractive than life itself.

But Loki, who was prone to more sinister thoughts, had never being such a enthusiastic when it came to talk about death. He had always think in the end of the existence like something cold and dark, girded by an almost claustrophobic silence. He imagined loneliness, and confusion and fear, all mingled together in a illusion of blindness that would eventually make you go round the bend.

Maybe, he had thought that because the image of total blackness and confined spaces had always frightened him. Because with time, the closure of all thinking and reasoning has become his greatest fears. But now, that Loki was facing the inevitable end, he could say, with a bitter smile in his face, that he has been right. Death was, in the end of it, just a deep, large pool of gloominess.

The first thing Loki wondered when he find himself trapped in the Nothing, was how long would it take to his soul to slowly fall apart.

Some sort of heavenly darkness had surrounded all his being, embracing him in the empty quietness of silence. All the world had finally go away, leaving behind just blurry, shadowy memories. He had lost the power to open his eyes and part his lips. To nervously move his fingertips across the cold rugged floor where he lay. All he could do was stay there, starring at the infinite blackness of the Void.

With time, he knew, his ability to ponder would fade away along with his motor skills. He would turn into a fearful, immovable corpus, unable to reflect or feel, to cry, hate or love. Maybe, he must have feel scared by the idea of such a disgraceful end. The idea of becoming in such a numb, irrational beast, should have terrified him. But trapped in that dark daydream, completely isolate of the world he had once know, Loki has been reached by a strange feeling of emptiness, that allow no pain, fear or guilt to disturb him. And he embraced it, almost with relief, free of all the dark thoughts that had sifting over him during his life, impatiently waiting for the demise of his conscience.

For a single moment, seduced by the orchestral sound of the silence and the disturbing numbness of his own heart, Loki decided not to think anymore and surrender to the darkness, becoming one with the vacuum. And being there, feeling free of the bittersweet taste that had hitherto defined his entire existence, having lost all that once had reminding him he was still alive, he could have say with everything to gain that he was finally dead.

Then, suddenly, he start to feel a little tingle in his toes. All his body, trapped in a weary slumber, began to shake, and Loki, surprised by the now unfamiliar sensation, tried to gingerly move his feet. Soon, the little tingle became in slight stitches that slowly start to climb through his calves and knees, turning into strong pangs in his thighs. He sat down and embrace himself, suddenly aware of the wave of coldness that ran through his body.

The stitches become more and more strong, and knowing that the pain would not go away until he started to move, Loki get on his feet, with just a little hesitation. The world around him was still black, silent, and unmoving. He shivered, and rubbing his hands against his arms, trying to warm his body, he started to walk. Then, when he had just given five steps forwards, he stood, listening carefully to the vacuum around him. When silence was the only response, he roughly hit the ground with one of his feet, and wait for the sound of the coup. Nothing happened, and he swallowed.

Loki muttered his name in the darkness, testing again, but the sound of his voice never arrived. He bite his lower lip, and began to feel the sensation of claustrophobia coming back to him. He breathed deeply, and with a shaking voice and a violent gesture, he screamed his name at the top of his lungs, and again, he just meet the muteness.

He gazed the world around him, expectation filling his deep, green eyes. Nothing changed. The Void was silent, and don´t even the loudest scream of agony would have interrupted his quietness. The feeling of emptiness, that had clouded his mind when he had first awake, was gone. Everything became more clearer, and at the same time, most difficult to process. The whole world -life itself- had just disappeared from sight, like if all of it had just been a deceitful illusion. But in this wicked mirage of Ragnarok, his mind, body and soul remained together, and he just couldn't understand why.

He chucked, then.

Now he knew he was not dead. A dead man would have not be able to ponder about his own condition, his feelings or his thoughts. He would not be able to stand up, to walk blindly in the dark, or scream in frustration. And at the meeting with oblivion, he would not have feel numb, confused or scared. A dead man couldn't be capable to mourn himself in the lowest degrees of self pity.

A sad, twisted smirk appeared on his face, and Loki let out a convulsed, almost hysterical laugh, that was never to be heard. His misleading words have faded away within the aphasia. His silvertongue had been cut. Been there, trapped in the loneliness of isolation, with no one to deceive, and no one to play a prank, his wicked games were little more than vain. It was a well suited punishment for a trickster.

Loki was not prone to sarcastic comments. Being the deceiver he was, he knew that such a sardonic language was the most pretentious way to left lies uncovered. However, he knew about irony, and he could laugh at it, even in the most distressing moments. Suddenly, Make fun of his own misery seemed like the most appropriated thing to do. His laughter, however, so painful and mute as it was, became more slow and soft, when a little glow on the middle of the blackness called his attention.

In the beginning it was just a tiny spark, floating over his head. The light was faint and flickering, like if it was afraid of the darkness that surrounded her, and was trying to hide himself from his touch. He tried to stare at the strange anomaly, but his vision, so used to the murkiness by now, went dizzy. He blinked a few times, trying to accustom his eyes to the sudden clarity, and then, when he was able to look again, the tiny spark had became in two.

He reached out and tried to touch the strange glitter, but it fell apart between his trembling fingers. Now there were tree tiny sparks in front of him. They were warm, and soft in sight. Somehow, Loki find them soothing. He shivered again, and an unfamiliar feeling of nostalgia fell upon his chest. He stared at the lights without really looking at them; his eyes were unfocused, and his vision was blurry again. He felt strangely calm and relief. His muscles, that had been tense and shivering all the while, were now relaxed and sleepy.

He feel like if he was ready for something, but he did not know exactly for what. But the lights where growing in size, becoming more bright and shining, consuming the darkness. And all Loki could do was look at them in silent admiration, as they built large staggering channels of flowing glitter around him. He couldn´t think straight, everything seemed too surreal. He don´t even get to realize when took a step forward, sinking in the channels of lights that were pounding around him like a living pulse. Everything went blank, and the last thing he could register, before lose consciousness, was the sudden, frightening feeling of falling.

*_._.-._._*

The sounds of noise, startling as they were, awoke Loki from his weary slumber, that had keep him from opening his eyes at the bright, glowing flashes behind his closed eyelids. The anguished, breathtaking darkness that had surrounded him before had finally disappeared, and now the shinning, colorful world around him seemed foreign and surreal. His limbs were numb, once again, and his entire body felt unnaturally light. There was a curious, uninterrupted buzzing in his head that didn´t let him think straight.

It was a cloudless blue sky the one that loomed over his head. Its bluish tingle was furrowed by a blurry and wild color green, and Loki, wandering between hallucinations, asked himself where it would come such a strange, unnatural hue. Later, when his thoughts become more lucid and his vision went clearer, he would recognize the same green in the treetops that towered over him. He remembered Alfheim, then, and the towering trees that grow in those deep forest of evergreen leaves. A place were green was a reminder of life, and it prospered between the nature in a inbred way. Loki, among groans of pain and failed intents to sat up, managed to laugh at the thought.

He had always thought Alfheim was a strange place, but now, submerged in the dead silence of his surroundings, with no sigh of life anywhere nearby, he believed that it was a good place to die. In that precise moment Loki didn´t feel pain, and he could tell, even in that light-headed state, that he wasn´t injured. But he felt weak, unable to move, to think straight, or to breath properly. He had lost the control of his motor skills, and now, he was trapped in his own body. And the world around him was cold, unoccupied and silent; sunk in a cautious tension that he had only meet in the heat of battle. And he was not scared, or disappointed, because while Loki was trapped in the never-ending darkness, he had became accustom to the idea of dying, and the expectations of death were a thought difficult to remove.

Then, a movement in the bushes caught his attention, and his dark reflections were forgotten when the startling sound of voices and the unfamiliar howl of an unknown animal came to his ears. He frowned. Somewhere nearby a dog was barking, and he could tell, or at least sense, that the can was being followed by two persons. At the beginning he couldn´t understand what was happening; all that time he had feel catched in sometime of daydream, where only he and his mind could converge. So, when a caught a glimpse of two men staring down at him, brow furrowed in confusion, he had almost expect them to go. To abandon him in the depths of the forest, to leave him to die alone.

They weren't Elves. They were too undaunted, to roughs to be elves. But they had deep, beautiful blue eyes that had suddenly caught him in a dizzy spell. There was something imposing, even frightening in their frame, and their gray uniforms and their metal hulls make him think in midgardian soldiers. He went still at the thought, but the strong, deep voices of the two mans, speaking a rough language that he couldn't understand, didn´t let him delve in it. His vision was narrowing, growing fuzzier. Suddenly lightheaded, Loki felt the world fade around him.