Brady Tyson's Walk Along the Precipice

The Things That Humans Cannot Bear - 4

 A numbness fills my body. It starts in the center of my chest, and as I drop further and further into the ground it spreads out faster and faster through my body until it reaches my fingertips. It's only when I try to take a breath that I realize I am frozen in place.

I struggle. Struggle to move my lungs.

But I can't think. I can't feel. All that is is the gray rock that stretches out around me, within me, in all directions. As the oxygen stagnates in my lungs my vision begins to fade, and I remember all the things that I don't want to. My first kiss with the boy at the back of the library. When me and Ofelia went ice skating together. When Mr. Argyros hugged me for the first time.

And then there's a tug on my body.

At first I don't realize what it is, and then the image of a rope being tied around my waist floats foggily through my mind.

I have to pull back.

I have to pull back.

I can't just quit now.

The stone grip on my fingers cracks ever so slightly. But it's enough. My hand jerks back, the numbness in my body receding in waves as I grab the rope behind me, giving it a big tug. The force ripples away from me like a great tsunami, and I'm shot forward in response. As I spin through the rock-air the seal on my lungs breaks and I take a massive gasp before my feet touch back down on whatever constitutes ground in this place.

There's a moment where my senses reorient themselves. I fell through the floor, but obviously I can't be moving around like this in solid rock. Was it just... an illusion? And there's light in this strange void-like area. How else would I be able to see... the grayness?

My stomach feels gross.

"Akil?"

I call out into the space. There's no reply.

Another tug on the rope around my waist. Has it already been five minutes? I look back to see where the rope leads, but after traveling back from my waist for a few feet it fades away into the rock.

I tug back on it anyway.

I'm fine.

I can figure out what's going on.

I look around again, but there's still no discernible difference in this place. At random I pick a direction and start walking.

The rope tugs keep coming incrementally, though I can't say they feel five minutes apart. Though if they feel longer or shorter than that I can't tell. Have there been five? Fifteen? Seventy?

With nothing else to ground me in time I begin counting my steps.

One.

Two.

Three.

Eight.

Eight.

Eight.

What's his deal?

He acts like he knows everything.

Pisses me off. But I suppose he does work for the literal men in black.

That was a good movie.

One hundred.

One thousand.

Nine.... I give up.

I wonder what Mold is doing now.

Ran away with her damn boy toy.