Flying.
She was flying, flying in an empty sky, surrounded by a brilliant blue.
She couldn't see the ground, but that was okay. What was there on the ground? She was just fine up here – she felt refreshed, euphoric. The blue was good. The emptiness was tangible, and it encapsulated her and kept her safe. She could stay forever in this void, forever in the blue.
Was the blue the sky? She thought so, thought it must be, but for some reason it reminded her of water.
And of falling.
The blue was endless. The emptiness was endless. She was endless. She thought that maybe she could live on past the end of time, past a point when all life on the ground had ceased – when the ground had ceased. All of time and beyond, surrounded by the blue.
The only other thing flying with her was the sun. It seemed close enough to touch, but it gave no warmth. She felt cold, but that didn't matter. In the blue, nothing mattered. Nothing at all.
She flew.
There was another shape in the blue now. She couldn't see it, not exactly, but she could just make out its silhouette above her. She thought maybe it was a bird, but what would a bird be doing here? The sky was hers. The blue was hers. And this intruder encroached on the emptiness.
The intruder wasn't soaring perfectly as she was – its flight was punctuated every few moments by some movement (wingbeat) that she couldn't place. But the blue was around her, so she didn't care. The intruder was slowly moving between her and the sun – or was she moving? After a time, more and more of its silhouette was surrounded by the light, until finally it was framed entirely.
Its limbs rose and fell in that same motion. And again. And again. But its left seemed to lag behind the right more and more, until finally it refused to rise at all.
The intruder's shadow was like an N against the sun.
And she watched, transfixed, as the fire behind it burned brighter and brighter, and she saw the intruder begin to writhe and convulse as it was seared by the flame.
She saw this and flew on.
The blue protected her. The blue kept her safe. And any intruders would pay with their lives.
She looked again at the bird – only it wasn't a bird anymore, its limbs had extended into hands and feet, it was some other thing, had morphed into some other thing, and a word (SYN!) echoed through her mind as she watched it fall.
When she began to fall with it, she realized that she was an intruder, too.
The blue loved no one.
The other creature was very near her now, and she could see its bubbling skin and the cracked white beneath. Its hair was entirely gone, and its lips had peeled back from its blackened teeth. Some cloudy fluid dripped down its cheeks, and it was only when it raised its head and she could see the black holes where its eyes should have been that she realized what the liquid was.
She reached out her hand for the thing, wanting to grab it, hold it despite her repulsion, but when it reached out its own hand and their fingers met, she felt only a cold surface. It shattered, first sending up a fine spiderweb of interstices that filled her vision before collapsing completely, and when she saw the reflection shatter with it she began to scream.
The shards of glass dove downwards and waited underneath her, and as they flashed sun in her eyes they suddenly morphed into whirling blades (You little bitch) and she fell towards them, writhing and shrieking and insane and so, so very cold.
She suddenly realized that the blue was gone now, there was only grey, a vast grey deepening to black, and even though the blades below her had dissolved when she looked back still she kept screaming, and still she fell.
Another short one, but next chapter will be much longer. It should also bring us out of the dark just a bit - I've realized that my tone dove down into the depths for this and the last chapter. I can't promise that it won't ever go back (I can actually guarantee that it will, and more than once), but we should have a breather for a bit.
Expect an update in a few days, and, as always, feedback is loved and cherished. Stay gold.