with every sunset || ONC 2022

fifth / with every sunset

And on the heels of bright, bright, bright followed the dark, dark, dark.

It was an impenetrable darkness, the kind that clung to your skin and weighed down your heart, that pulled on your limbs and doused your skin in fire and ice and nothing at all.

It was nice, for a while, to let her thoughts drown in darkness and not have to try to make sense of things.

It was nice, to just exist, something, and not have to feel pain.

It was nice, so of course it couldn't last.

Joan was pulled from the darkness, eventually. A phantom-hand that clung to her own, that pulled her up and up and up, out of the pure-black nothingness and into the shadows. Where light existed, again, somewhere closer than before.

There was the taste of dirt on her tongue.

After the darkness and the shadows, the dirt was the first thing she noticed. Dirt and a tang of iron, not steel but blood.

The realization made her shiver in her skin, and there was the horrible feeling of knowing what had happened, but not knowing why or how, and fearing the answers.

There were voices and whispers, a crescendo of noise.

One stood out against the lot of them, and it called to Joan like a phantom-hand, like a shadow in the dark.

She sat up, and the noise shattered.

Everything was dark again. At the second first, everything was dark.

It wasn't the living kind of darkness from before, this just was, but it somehow felt worse in the cold uncaring existence of it.

Joan opened her eyes, and closed them again.

The darkness persisted.

Her body was heavy like lead, like water-soaked fabric and a thousand stones.

Her bones were sore, and her muscles felt cramped, her skin tight, as though it couldn't contain everything that she was now.

Everything was dark, even as she crawled from one end of her cell (for that's what it was, where she woke up in eventually) to the other.

Light couldn't reach her here.

She wasn't sure whether she was supposed to feel grateful for that or not.

She might be more inclined to do so if there was anything soft down here, anything other than the cold damp stone and unforgiving walls. (Anything other than the cold dead darkness.)

She had wanted to panic, at first.

She was caught, kidnapped and locked away, and no one would know to search for her because everyone was dead.

But her emotions had been dulled, her thoughts slow like molasses, the darkness overwhelming.

And then, as the minutes and hours and days passed, the dark became less.

Her stretched skin settled, her muscles relaxed, her bones didn't ache quite so much anymore.

There still wasn't any light, but the change had kicked in, and Joan's eyes adjusted.

Her hearing became sharper, too, and she learned about the shift of guard outside of her door, and smelled it, now, whenever they knew (thought) she was sleeping and knew (thought) it was safe to bring in the new goblet.

Her thoughts were racing, much quicker in forming and disregarding plans, almost like before. But with the dissipating dulling darkness her emotions pressed much closer to the surface, and the anxiety shivered under her skin like a nest of bees. Angry, confused, desperate to get revenge on those who'd set their home on fire. But powerless to do anything without sacrificing themselves — not that Joan still cared overly much for her own life, not that she wouldn't gladly lay it down for some semblance of justice.

But rushing into it headlong wouldn't do her any good.

No, it was time to lie low and wait, and wait, and wait.

(She suspected she had a lot of time to kill, now.)

(An eternity of it, maybe.)

The guards were becoming predictable.

The goblets, the only meal that she got down here, filled to the brim with fresh blood, came frequently, and they served well to help her build her strength.

Three more (days? Or weeks?). Three more goblets, and then she'd be ready.

The cell was dark, and light never reached her, but she didn't need light to see, not anymore. She was fast, and strong.

Two more goblets.

Joan had pulled up stones from the hard-packed dirt floor, and they lay heavy in her hands. They'd make good weapons.

One more goblet.

Joan could feel it in her bones. This time tomorrow (or next week?) she'd be free. She'd leave the darkness behind, and always carry it in her heart.

No more goblets.

It was time.