Awakening

24: Puzzle

A sea of darkness surrounded him, but a part of his mind felt so awake. Blake was sure his eyes were open, but this nothingness was very disorienting for some reason. Was he blind? His balance felt a little off too; he wasn't sure if he was sitting down, standing, or even lying down.

Weirder still, he couldn't sense a drop of pain in his body. He couldn't really feel...anything. He stared down with a sunken heart.

"What...where am I?"

Sight, sound, smells...he felt nothing at all. Just an empty loneliness in his chest. Even his own emotions felt all twisted in his own mind. He'd felt this before, though. Whenever he encountered a spirit, he always sensed this emptiness, and now he almost felt that same thing within himself right now. He wasn't dead, was he? No, that didn't feel quite right. Yet this ever-growing despair burned inside. He wanted nothing more than to curl up and drown himself in the dark void.

......rise.

That was not Blake's own voice, not even his own inner thoughts. It sounded strangely familiar though; he knew he had heard it before. But where, and when? Blake craned his neck and looked around, feeling his own heart racing as he searched for any sign at all that something had changed. There was nothing there, however, only an endless darkness that stretched as far as the eye could see.

He focused harder, noticing something. The faintest glimmer perhaps. Could he see a horizon in the distance, amongst this sea of void?

Your injuries were not nearly as fatal as you may believe, young one.

The voice sounded loud, like it was close. It came from...behind him? Blake spun around and jumped in shock. He didn't know how he saw it, but the shadowy creature standing there was far larger than anything else he'd even encountered. The creature stood at least ten times his own height, and the outline of it was reminiscent of some dragon-like entity. But even that wasn't quite right.

He should be afraid. A talking Shadow, one as massive as this, he should absolutely feel some fear right now. But something about this dark creature was different. It gave off absolutely no malicious aura like the others. And its eyes; they were not silver, but a faded gold that still shimmering calmly in the darkness.

Just what was it?

No, wait, Blake had another question he needed answered first. "So if I'm not dead, am I dreaming?"

This is no dream, young one.

"What else could it be? Are you lying to me?"

A liar I am not. You have never been here, and you do not dream in this moment, not in the way that you would normally see it.

"That...what?"

This Shadow spoke differently than the other ones, as though it grasped far greater intelligence almost like that of a human. Or maybe even something beyond that. Why did it speak and act so differently than any other he'd ever encountered?

"Who, or what, are you?"

That is a difficult question to answer.

How vague. Blake scoffed at the simple and useless response. "Right. You were confident this isn't a dream but you won't tell me who you are? Why?"

You are not ready to understand.

Blake hated that answer, whether this creature was being honest or not.

Your heritage has already begun to emerge.

He paused at hearing such an unexpected comment. "My heritage?" Blake echoed.