Smoke is white, which is wrong, because smoke is black, but right now it's white, clogging her senses. Voices and faces, the fragmented past coming together to form a kaleidoscope of story without arc, or beginning, or ending. Abstraction. Her ankles are caught up in rope? Or metal? Or vines.
And they break as she stumbles, ground giving to sand, dust as fine as smoke, and black. Ashy. Paint. A bed, mattress soft under her small body. Is she awake?
Please wake up.
A voice from behind, which becomes a hand, closing on her wrist. Beneath her, her bed creaks -- but it isn't the cot in her room on board the Tranquility, but a larger, more luxurious thing, and there is soft light coming through windows she doesn't recognise. The air is soft and claustrophobic. That grasp on her wrist is dragging her out, but it feels as though it's just gravity doing the work, tumbling her over the side, delirious and off-balance, bracing herself for a hard landing--
Now. Now she's awake. Possibly she hasn't actually fallen out of bed. Charles hasn't knocked, since the first time he tried, now just leaning with his hands braced against her closed door. Telepathic again, but it feels wrong. ]
cassandra anderson. level 20, room 192.
Smoke is white, which is wrong, because smoke is black, but right now it's white, clogging her senses. Voices and faces, the fragmented past coming together to form a kaleidoscope of story without arc, or beginning, or ending. Abstraction. Her ankles are caught up in rope? Or metal? Or vines.
And they break as she stumbles, ground giving to sand, dust as fine as smoke, and black. Ashy. Paint. A bed, mattress soft under her small body. Is she awake?
Please wake up.
A voice from behind, which becomes a hand, closing on her wrist. Beneath her, her bed creaks -- but it isn't the cot in her room on board the Tranquility, but a larger, more luxurious thing, and there is soft light coming through windows she doesn't recognise. The air is soft and claustrophobic. That grasp on her wrist is dragging her out, but it feels as though it's just gravity doing the work, tumbling her over the side, delirious and off-balance, bracing herself for a hard landing--
Now. Now she's awake. Possibly she hasn't actually fallen out of bed. Charles hasn't knocked, since the first time he tried, now just leaning with his hands braced against her closed door. Telepathic again, but it feels wrong. ]