Until Ragnarok

Part 9: Jotunheim

Kaida tried concentrating on the word Jotunheim as Angrboda had instructed. It was like when you say a word too much and then it loses its meaning. She was certain that all words just turned into Jotunheim, and it would make as much sense. If any word were said often enough, like Beetlejuice, the word Jotunheim would appear and everything would lose all meaning.

It was easy at first to think of a word that meant nothing. With no meaning, it was easy to make it replace other words. You could 'Jotunheim your Jotunheim straight to Jotunheim', and it would still make sense. When the alternative was to think about the warm gelatinous sludge of unknown composition that she was submerged in, it was a simple game to play.

The thought of Jotunheim, regardless of what you could do with it, was replaced as her need for air increased. A meaningless word was no sustainable replacement for oxygen and this was not as quick of a trip as she had expected.

This was not a trip she wanted to take but hoped it was what she needed. The more time passed, the more apparent it became that she was asking the wrong questions. This unsettling trip down a gummy slip and slide became less important about what she needed, or expected, but became apparent that the question of "could" became the most urgent.

Could she make this trip? How could she trust Angrboda? The other woman was not from earth. What if Angrboda wasn't as human as she appeared? Kaida questioned if physiologically they were different. Maybe it wasn't so much indifference to Kaida's well-being, as she had assumed based on Angrboda's careless behaviors towards her and Kimi, but ignorance. How would an... alien.... know what a human could survive? What if the other woman had extra large lungs? She never seemed to struggle after their trips devoid of oxygen. Angrboda seemed to have the lung capacity of a professional free diver floating along in the oxygen-deprived void of the Ginnungagap or traveling via Yggdrasil.

Angrboda needed her for something. There was no way she would let her die. It will end any second, Kaida reassured herself. She will almost be done, and with burning lungs, she would be dropped back into an oxygenated environment.

She wasn't and time was up.

Kaida thrashed around trying to escape until she gave an involuntary gasp, sucking in what tasted like a bitter cough syrup Jell-O shooter. She gagged but found that even though her body was panicking, she wasn't losing consciousness. Kaida was breathing. But it was rough, and she could feel the slime moving in and back out through her protesting lungs. But whatever she was breathing in, it was sustaining her.

Kaida settled into a rhythm, but panic lurked in the background, waiting for that to change. Every breath held led to her feeling like she was going to drown. Every breath in felt like she was choking. Her brain screamed at her she was going to die. When she listened and panicked, her rhythm would be thrown off and led to quicker breaths. This was unpleasant and motivating enough to convince her to stop listening to her survival instincts and do the opposite. She continued on by breathing only when necessary to avoid the unnerving experience.

The rest of the trip involved her cycling through the discomfort of not breathing at all and actively breathing in the substance while her mind told her she was dying. This fight continued until she was dropped, slimy and steaming, into a frozen snowbank.

She vomited and coughed out a congealed reddish-brown slime. Kaida looked down and was coated with the same goo. A wave of disgust hit her and she began trying to scrape it off. Until she felt movement, like bugs crawling underneath her clothes.

Kaida lifted her shirt and saw the goo clotting together and not moving as gravity had intended. Whatever it was, she wanted it off of her. She started taking her clothes off, but Angrboda stopped digging in the snow and asked, "What are you doing?" She shook her and rolled her eyes. "Stop it." Then returned to digging and muttering something about Midgard and coddling children too stupid to survive.