The Jotun's Daughter

Chapter 23

"It's time to wake up, Kayla." The voice pushed its way through the dark. I tried in vane to open my eyes, to see where the voice was coming from.

        "What happens if she doesn't wake up?" A second, slightly higher, but still a male's. I... I know that voice. My brain was clouded with ash and dust, and the black fog that surround my nerves and vision was making it hard for me to think. Confuddled and slightly bemused, I knew that there was no way I could control any of my limbs yet, much less open my eyes.

        "Do you think that the chamber has done its job?" The voices began to slip from my grasp, and I struggled to reach them. 

Don't leave me here! I can't live here!

        "....Million dollars.....done.....part...." Deeper, ignorant. I could practically hear the richness oozing from his voice, at least what I could make of it. I struggled against my bonds, and dark surround me like a thick blanket. Help, I choked. I gasped for air, but there was none. I was stricken between the dead silence and the moment before death, grasping for things that weren't there.

        Get me out! I can't do anything! HELP!         

       If there was one thing in life that was scarier than being stuck in eternal darkness, it was the fact that I had no control over anything my body was doing. My mind was the one thing that I couldn't run from; my worst enemy. I would eat myself alive, wearing away in the black from the inside out. I yanked once again, this time desperately at the nerves just outside of my grasp. My senses brushed something, and deep in my mind I felt a disturbance to my lower right. 

        "....Wake.....Please....Kayla!" 

        But I couldn't. I couldn't do anything: couldn't move, couldn't breath. There was no pain, no song, no air. I was drowning in waters no one dared to swim. 

        You have to do this. Only you. There has to be a way out.

        I shifted inside, looking for a light. I couldn't sense anything but endless darkness. The night didn't close in here, it was here it slept, here it was born. It was always dark inside ones head, but I had never been scared to dive in to other's brains, just my own.  There was a disturbance in the dark, and I felt a drip of something hit me. A chord that was strung too tightly was pulled and vibrated with a deep resonance.

        Wait-I felt that. 

        I looked for the source and found it above me, somewhere I couldn't see. I reached out, looking for something, anything-a roaring sound shattered the silence, and I screamed, unable to drown it out. The wave hit me with a thud, knocking me down and out and over. I struggled against the waves with no avail. I thrashed against my bonds as the darkness thickened around me, tightening, clenching with a fist I couldn't break. I wanted to yell for somebody-anybody, but I couldn't. Only I could do this, but I couldn't find the top of the source, and drowning while trapped in my mind would be a thousand times worse than reality. I pushed myself up as the liquid rose, and suddenly I caught a glimpse of light.

        Then it was gone. I must have imagined it. Spots were floating before my eyes as I gasped for something I couldn't have, and the liquid filled my lungs. The only sound I heard was the roaring around me, the thrashing in my ears that sounded oddly out of place in the rushing water. A slight sound escaped me; a whimper. I could do nothing as I neared what I knew was death. Then the light broke through. It was only a sliver, but it crashed over me with the same intensity. Dark, then light again, as if something was opening and closing. Movement to my left, and right, and then it all comes to at once, as if my mental capability did not include the willpower to hold the doors shut.