I closed my eyes, bowing my head. “Thank you, Doctor.”
“Don’t thank me yet. This might be a suicide mission.”
Needing a distraction before my mind raced with all the things that could go wrong, I asked, “How’s Jess? Skittles? Cal?”
Dr Campbell sighed. “Cal is operational, Skittles is healing, and Jess…she’s holding on. I hope for both our sakes that Sinclair handles his upcoming journey and Jess wakes soon. I’ll call you again when it’s time to leave. For now, rest and get ready for the longest trip of your life.”
Chapter Eighteen
IT WAS LIKE BEING trapped inside a monochrome kaleidoscope.
A tumbling, refracting kaleidoscope that was all blacks, greys, and shadows with no escape.
But instead of the chaos being visual, it was auditory with the occasional scent and the quick comings and goings of heat.
The longer I remained trapped, the more I strained to understand my new world.
For the first part of my prison sentence, I’d felt nothing.
I was just an inconsequential speck floating around, adrift and unwanted. A speck of no substance or history. No knowledge of who I was—just a vessel of lost memories.
I’d struggled to stay alive as that speck.
I had no reserves to stay clinging to the strange kaleidoscope my world had become. No power to endure the flickering in and out of lucidity.
But…
As time ticked onward, I grew stronger.
My speck grew to a seed and the seed into a vine. A vine that somehow latched onto the glowing string that occasionally lit up my dark world.
Her.
Whenever she touched me, she managed to tug me back a little more.
I had no comprehension of time and space, but as long as she touched me, I could stay with her instead of fading away.
Even though I didn’t know her name or recall her face, I knew she was special. I knew she was the reason I had to clutch to whatever scraps of aliveness I could.
And she had to keep holding on to me.
Otherwise, I would lose everything.
I’d…go.
To where, I didn’t know.
But it was a destination with a one-way ticket, and I wasn’t finished yet.
I needed to tell her something. Words I couldn’t remember, and apologies I didn’t know how to say.
But then, something changed.
The routine of my shadowy, silent world switched.
She stopped touching me.
The stability of whatever form I hid within became inherently unstable.
I sloshed up the sides of whatever container I was trapped in. I couldn’t brace myself against the motion that rocked me from side to side. I couldn’t tense against the sudden swoop of flight.
All I could do was remain gagged and blindfolded, too weak to move, too broken to cry out.
* * * * *
The string was back, warm and comforting around me.
I sighed and settled, the calamity in my blackened mind hushed.
I’d vanished for a while.
My consciousness clocking out as if I’d slept, even within this dark dimension.
But thanks to her, I was awake.
And I had more pieces to fit into the puzzle I couldn’t figure out.
I’m alive.
But I was also…not.
I’m a monster.
But I was also…human.
And if I was human, that meant I had legs and arms, fingers and toes. I should be able to move such things, to alert the girl keeping me bound that I could feel her. I might not be able to hear or see but I felt her.
She was the only reason the darkness hadn’t claimed me. It couldn’t because she’d claimed me. She was the only glow of hope in my otherwise pitch-black limbo.
But then, she let go again.
The string unravelled.
And I fell.
* * * * *
I blinked within my kaleidoscope world.
I blinked.
I had form again. Or at least…the knowledge of form.
I couldn’t see my body or signal responses of ownership, but phantom parts obeyed me. I blinked past the alternating shadows and contorting colours of chaos. I searched the blackness for signs of the glowing, humming string.
Nothing.
All progress I’d made reverted.
I forgot…
I forgot what blinking was.
I felt ice lap around the existence I fought for.
I couldn’t fight it, couldn’t stop it.
No.
I want to stay.
I want her to touch me.
Please, touch me!
But no string, no bind, no hope.
I slipped under again.
* * * * *
I gasped this time.
Aware that I once had lungs and those lungs still functioned, even if I couldn’t feel them.
I blinked in the blackness, and thankfulness swept through me.
The string.
It was back.
She was back.
I floated or flew, or maybe I crawled. Whatever method of movement I had, I made my way to her and wrapped a non-existent hand through the tether she offered.
I held on with strength I hadn’t had in a while.
I needed her to feel my answer.
She had to know I couldn’t exist in this darkness without her.
She couldn’t let go again.
She was the only thing I had left.
Chapter Nineteen
I’D LEARNED SOMETHING ABOUT myself in the thirty-one-hour journey from Geneva back to Goddess Isles.