The world was pink and gooey.
Look down.
A body, -can'tbemine!- emaciated, tubes and wires sticking out in ugly-harsh black. Notright. Alien. The flesh had grown around them, to cradle, to keep in, to stick. Like a part of it. Extension. Other. –notmine.-
Elegant rounded breasts, the left a fraction of a decimal fuller than the right, knobby wristbones, a freckle between the first and second knuckles of the left ring finger
-mineogodmine!-
Panic.
Wait...
-can'tbreathe!-
Something in the throat. A tube... Like the bendy part of a straw... All the way down.
Have to get it out... Not here. Forward. Up. Stretch...
Push! Push! That's it...
Like giving birth to yourself... And out.
And out. Almost retching, throat contracting on the damn tube...
Air! Glorious. In, out. In, out... Alive. Going to be alive...
The world. The world is pink-red and the blue-black of the shells of insects. Pods. People... Like she was, just a moment ago, looked up to tubes and pipes and... Oh, God... People. As far as she can see, in these pods. As far as she can see, she is the only thing alive...
Someone... Rod Sterling. Said that 'Terror is the finest emotion...'
He didn't see this...
Did her vocal cords work? "Ned..." A rasp. Not her voice, choked with the goop. "What the hell is this?"
Silence. In the depths of her mind, the still of the tomb.
"Ned?" Like a violin hitting an off-note.
A... scarab.. Scarab of death, swooped in on her, clacking and buzzing.
Metal clamp around her neck, drilling backwards from her skull. Red Cyclops staring down, recalling tiny shrill voices screaming "Heeelllppp meeeeeee!"
Small explosions in her flesh, hissing black snakes flung from her naked-frog body. The death-doctor-scarab scuttled onward, oblivious.
Back into the pink embryonic fluid.
And down, some twisted, slime-coated funhouse slide. Grated lights pulsed in unnatural rhythm. No way to tell how fast she was going, for how long, moving like filth through sewer pipes...
The bottom fell out.
She was enveloped in watered-down filth, like some icy and profane blanket. Slipping under... Once, twice, three times... In Nomine Patris...
The darkness was going to take her...
Or not.
Light. Light so bright it was almost solid, reaching for her, wrapping her in strong steel arms. Up.. Heaven? Was this heaven ahead of her? Into the light, then, alone, enclosed in light, nothing but light... Stabbing light in her eyes...
An angel? warrior? mother? goddess? bent over her, skin of cafe au lait and eyes of obsidian, hair of ebony and velvet, and honeyed breath.
"Welcome home, Eyes-of-Lawrence."
-icantbeeyesoflawrencewithoutlawrence-
Darkness.