Intertwined

Chapter Twenty-One

And then, I was everything.

My ears rang, like the sound after an explosion. I wasn't sure if it was that of my own making, from the scream I could barely remember, or if it was from the silence that follows after a burst of that magnitude. All that was apparent was the absence of everything that I'd once known. Like my body had fanned-out, becoming more than what I was. I felt wrong and above all, I felt disorientated.

I could feel the wind as it rippled through the trees, as if I were the leaves themselves. I could smell the earth as if I'd been submerged in it. And I could see. The entirety of the world was alight in blues and purples, not the inky black I'd been fighting through moments ago. The world was alive and bursting with color. It was as if I was watching the forest with aqua-tinted glasses in the middle of the day.

I was different. I felt light on my feet and strong. Power rested beneath my fingers and toes, like electricity waiting to find something to discharge on. Real and mesmerizing. I lost my train of thought as the ringing continued to rage on and on. I couldn't find a distinct connection to who I was moments before. I turned into something entirely new, and entirely frightening. For a second, I wondered if my scream had killed me, if I were a ghost now. I searched the ground below me for the body I once inhabited, but there was nothing. I comforted myself with the sight of my jeans and shoes. I wasn't dead. Not yet.

I stagnated with my thoughts. Waiting for something, anything to happen. The ringing that was peeking in my ears started to shift. Almost like what happens when you're turning up a stereo. The silent babble, the indiscreet conversation between two radio hosts becoming more and more legible the louder it went. The ringing turned to a buzz, before landing into the sounds of an inaudible whisper. The sound came from everywhere, it wasn't only in my head. It came from the outside, from the trees.

"What are you saying?" I said. I took a step back, my voice scaring me.

The sound of it wasn't there. I didn't hear myself speak, but felt it. The words were not real, not external, but rang deep inside my consciousness, like the ending of an echo, when the energy can't bounce from wall to wall anymore.

I shook my head, trying to focus on the trees again. A faint brushing, the wind that once was cold, caressed against my ear, feeling warm. And I heard the name. The name that brought everything back. The reason I was in the forest, the reason I drew, the reason I screamed.

"Lyall," The wind told me, "Lyall."

The warmth took over if only for a second. The feeling of its emptying was all I could register, like adding lighter fluid to a fire, my body was consumed, before lowering into a dim ember.

Directions meant nothing in this new body. The memories of my life, the people in it, were back, I could see Lyall's face in front of me, almost transparent. I could see Rosie, I could see Mason and Marie. I was able to picture the parts of my life that were real and existed for me, but where I was didn't. I wasn't in the same form, so the flame that pulled me toward Lyall took over all of me. I wasn't a body, I didn't have one it seemed like, so the warmth couldn't show me the path to him. I couldn't feel my arms and legs, though I knew they were there. I begged for my body to tell me. Begged for anything to show me the way. And another scream tore from my mouth, involuntarily and unexpectedly. The trees bowed to it, arching away as if hurricane winds blew at them once again. The scream faded into an echo, a sensation pulled me to Lyall. And I knew it was Lyall because the trees were no longer whispering his name, but shouting it.

I moved with such speed and stability that I couldn't have been using my legs. The trees were all a blur, while at the exact same moment, they were separate entities. The wind that brushed across my skin was warm and flowed through me rather than around.