Author's Note:
This is an alternate timeline from the previous Snapped entry. Each story in the Snapped series is based upon the same premise and use the same survival table (see character list if interested, about two chapters back) but have the Snap occur at various points throughout time.
Snapped: Awakening
January 17, 1987
It was hard to think for himself. It occurred only rarely, brief flickers between warm apathy that normally surrounded and smothered him. He lived for those moments, though they never brought him any measure of peace and only made his life more intolerable.
Never for long. He was neither happy nor unhappy, not rebellious nor obedient. For obedience requires will, and enforced actions have no inherent nature. He could hardly have been called a person at all, given most standard definitions. When one does nothing but what one is told, when one drifts through day after day in a haze of unconcern, nothing has any meaning.
Time was meaningless. Existence was meaningless. Death was meaningless. Survival, meaningless.
He lived for the tiny flickers of time when he remembered himself, when he could imagine for just the briefest moment that there could be a future.
Mostly he dreamed. He dreamed of a home, quiet and stilted. He dreamed of meals taken alone or with his father in cold silence. He dreamed of outings, brief interludes of calm amid an ocean of apathy, of trees and fields and lakes. He dreamed of his mother, dead and gone. He dreamed of his father, cool and distant.
He dreamed of his master, quietly whispering commands that he could never quite understand or remember.
Three months passed, (or was it ten years, or a week?) but he didn't mind, didn't care. He dreamed of blueberries on biscuits, and a quiet 'Happy Birthday' whispered in grudging tones, and he had dreamed of this before. It had been different foods, but the same words. Twice, or six times perhaps? He couldn't remember how often he'd dreamed of this day.
More days passed, and he dreamed of halls and warmth locked in against winter chill. He dreamed of snow and ice, and that too he had dreamed before.
His master was patient, but one as great as he could only afford so much time. He began to worry, in his brief flashes of lucidity, if there was nothing that could be done.
Planning proved impossible. So much time passed between moments, he spent so much time dreaming instead of living. He could resent it, momentarily, but he hadn't the time nor mental fortitude to do more. Plans were out of the question entirely. He was held, bound by power too great for him to resist, and nothing he could do would break those bonds.
Something else broke them for him.
One day, one quiet winter day, the world was broken in two. And his prison split open, leaving him gasping and shivering, dying and alive for the first time since his master's fall.
"My father is dead," he said aloud, and found it to be true. His voice rasped weakly, unaccustomed to such use, but he needed no voice to conjure his wand to him from wherever his father had hidden it, and though he had dreamed for a long time he had not forgotten his skill or his power.
He ran his hand along the wand, not quite touching, letting the static-like discharges of magic jump between the wood and his skin. For a time he sat, eyes half closed, as he allowed his dreams to fade and reveled in the sharp reality of power and possibility.
It was hard, to think for himself. Habits were ingrained within him now, habits of silence, of passivity, of inaction. He was to wait, stay out of sight, and perform such minor tasks as were necessary to keep the house running. The elf was his sole companion, and she knew to manage him calmly and direct his actions.
Where was she? Shouldn't she have arrived the moment his father died? He would be her only master now. But she didn't appear, and so he put her out of his mind.
Though he retained instinct and knowledge, his mind was slow to comprehend and accept its new freedom. Part of him missed the calm and quiet to which he'd become so accustomed, while the hidden spark that had raged silently all those years lifted its head and began to kindle into greater heat.
He sat, magic suffusing him, sparks of blue-green power jumping between his dancing fingers and the patient wand beneath.
Slowly, the dreams coalesced into memory. Faint and fragmented, as he'd had little reason to retain it, but beneath all the quiet imposed upon him there remained a whisper. A whisper he knew, revered, and would never refuse.
His master wanted him. Had been calling him for months, years, while he languished here.
That thought was enough to galvanize him into action. He stood, legs untrembling, and lifted his wand. Only a few had been told this secret, this power meant for use only in the last extremis.
"Morsmordre," he called, twisting his wand to direct at his own arm. Pain flared like fire, but he only laughed wildly. It had been so long, so so long, since he'd felt.
And he knew where he had to go.
"I'm coming, master," he shrieked. Laughing madly, he turned on the spot and disapparated.
The crack of his departure echoed once, dully, then the house lay empty and still.
It would remain so for a very long time.
Minor edits on 10-07-18: fixed a few typos and removed a repeated sentence.