Monika awoke in darkness. Blinking once or twice, she squinted with all of her might and found that she could see nothing. Even when she looked down at her own body, her vision revealed nothing to her. A wind blew around her, brushing against her skin with the slightest of chills. She hissed and rubbed her arms, where rows of goosebumps had broken out. Where were her clothes?
After a moment or two of curling in on herself in a vain attempt to retain body heat, she realized that the area around her mouth was still warm. She touched her cheeks with her fingertips, confused. Then, she breathed out experimentally. The air came back to her, warming up her cheeks. She frowned. Was there
someone in front of me
a wall or something? She tried to reach out to feel for it.
Astoundingly, she felt absolutely nothing. She felt no wall, and although the wind hadn't stopped, she didn't feel her arm pass through the cold air as she lifted it up. And, of course, she still couldn't see anything. Frowning, she grasped about at random to no avail.
Her eyes widened. She really couldn't feel anything with her arm. It wasn't even cold anymore. She slapped it hard, but felt only a dull pain. She began rubbing both of her arms together, but before long, the numbness spread throughout them entirely. She could've cross-hatched her wrists dozens of times over and she still wouldn't have felt a thing.
She rubbed her feet together. She curled her neck around to rest her head against her shoulder. She bit her tongue until it bled. She did everything that she could to feel something – anything.
She fell down. Or did she? It felt the same either way. She was hyperventilating, but
Can you
the high pitched wheezing of her throat had long since
hear me?
been muted. She felt her chest
Please
rise and fall,
tell me
felt the air rush in and out of her throat
you can hear me.
until she didn't.
Anything.
Nothing.