Collateral Damage (bxb)

24. Slipping

A.N. This chapter begins from the perspective of Aidan.

The ethereal wind blew from every direction and none at the same time. Mounds of white fog contrasted against a seamless white void. I could not see the monolith that always stayed in the center of my field of view. It was strange to not have it there until I realized I felt something. Feeling the sun on your skin or hot and cold was not strange, but it was strange that I could feel a chill against my back, here of all places, but it was a familiar soothing feeling like an old memory that came back after it was long forgotten.

I closed my eyes and basked in the cold radiance that lulled me deep down into a state of absence of thought. Nothing came to mind and even a want to figure out what or where it was coming from. Just relax and forget about it all. No need to get out to deal with whatever I had to do.

Time does not exist when nothing is there. I am nothing, I was nothing, and I will be nothing. A good nothing. 'Nothing' has a bad connotation. It would be better described as an absence of purpose, meaning, and want for anything. It is a soothing thing to feel and to be absent from everything.

But that presence irks me. Always had been there at the back of my mind. It always hovered over me, watching what I do and feeling what I feel. It could be described as a parasite, but I know better, I am a tumorous growth that saps on its life.

Wake up.

My eyes shot open as the soothing chill had turned into a creeping sense of dread. I did not notice the change like a frog who boiled to death as the temperature rose. If I had to breathe here then my breath would be a raggedy cacophony of rapid exhales and inhales, but I was not given that chance of those cathartic motions the body expected.

I moved away from the chill that kept on creeping down my back to get up and look at it. What I was sitting against this whole time was the infinitely tall monolith. Like the Washington monument but jet black and emanating an aura of dread, and I was sitting with my back against it. I could almost laugh, but I knew this wasn't the first time I found myself here even if I don't remember it.

"Better not linger here," I thought. I turned to face the fog and moved away but the dreadful feeling at the back of my mind still lingered. I moved faster and faster away from it and even broke into a sprint to get away from it, but when I glanced back at it, it was just a step away from me. Dread mixed with my hectic run made me feel like it was chasing me, but the truth was weirder. Given Neverland's strange rules, I was stuck at this distance from the monolith no matter how I tried to escape it. The fog beneath me could be moving me back or the monolith itself chasing me depending on what perspective you take.

It was pointless so I stopped with a huff and sat down as far as I could facing away from its dark presence. "What now and how did I get here?" I dug through my last set of memories that lead up to this point, but they did not make sense. I know that Ian was the last person I talked to and I was at the...

Peter's parents. Now I remember. I put on the power dampening bracers and I woke up here against the monolith. I knew that something weird would happen, but nothing like this ever crossed my mind. At least I don't feel a surge of power coming so I have to have stopped it for now, at least, until someone removes the bracers. I hope Kitty didn't talk Ian into doing it... Oh, no. I groan out of frustration and helplessness.

The fog ahead parts to reveal something resembling color. The only other person I can think of comes to mind. Peter approaches me with lazy steps, his broken form holding itself together against all reason. He sits down across from me, the gesture taking a great toll on him as his partially missing face contorts in painful grimaces.

I am too carried away by my previous thoughts to care about him. "You've come here to gloat?" I ask the broken man and wait for a snide response, but he just looks out past the monolith. "Come on, you were right, I fucked everything up!" I try to coax something from Peter, but nothing comes.