The Obelisk

You are broken.

Inky wells of darkness creep around, clinging and squirming to my skin. Or maybe I am the only thing animated in this decrepit blindness. Each breath begs absolution-not that I am deserving. Inhale. Guilty. Release never comes.

How long has it been? I don't believe myself to be impatient, but it is hard to parse with no comparative stimuli. A minute? Hours? Days? It might as well be an eternity.

I can't feel my fingers, but I swear I am moving them. I reach out to the stretch of darkness, grasping at the infinite nothing in hopes of feeling something. To my surprise, I feel it. Cold, smooth, inviting of further scrutiny. A cylinder? No. Something angular, stout, and flawless, from what my hand can discern. An obelisk.

It's so simple, but in such an impalpable obscurity, it's tantamount to gospel. I stare in the direction I believe it to be, though, I cannot see it. My fingers course over the smooth object, and each icy sting of its surface yet explored serve to ground my disembodied senses-if but for fleeting moments. And with each resonating memory the prickling unearthed from within, it receded into the shores of uncertainty. My fingers go numb in their expedition.

Soon, I couldn't even tell if I was still holding the object or not, but I clench my fingers irrespective of such skepticism. My strength was fathomless in its sole, adamant quest. Tighter and tighter. I'm certain that if I were still holding it, it was dust by now.

I can't be human.

Why am I not insane? Devoid of anything that can be quantifiable or corporeal. There is an essence about myself that I can't conjure to logic. Am I but a corruption in the matrix? Unresolved, forever held within a limbo as overlords debate my paradox?

Inhale. Right. I forgot to breathe. It won't absolve me of my... sins? My crimes against whatever deity that stuck me here? Who's to say? Not me-obviously.

In my sundered mind, the spark that subjects my limbs to the tyranny of my brain relinquishes control. The object falls from my grip. I couldn't feel it before my grasp surrendered anyway, but I somehow just knew.

It's here.

I feel a constriction, rousing me from the slumber my body was in. I exhale, defying all laws that were established prior. A deep exhaustion overtakes me, but I open my eyes and see it. Large, lumbering fingers that wrap around me, yet refrain from crushing my minuscule existence. Perhaps if it did, I would submerge within the darkness again, but this time, ignorant of all it entails. That wouldn't be so bad, I think.

But as precarious as my position seems, it was impossibly serene. Looming in the distance, glimmering amber hues emanate in the darkness. Eyes double the size of my head. They were devoid of malice, inviting of a rich curiosity. These eyes watch me as intently as I watch them, but they don't acknowledge me. They do not see me. They see at me. Vaguely in my direction, they scan as if looking for something-anything.

I dare not squirm in its grasp. To do such could invite malice. I can't help but feel diminutive in its hold. No. In its presence. It's funny, actually. Within the expanses of its eyes, I discern something akin to sentience, but not quite. Sapience is out of the question for sure.

Scorching hot, its fingers run along me, and I go stiff. As petrified as I was before, I writhe and squirm now, but it notices not. This thing clings to me, searching for anything and everything: validation. It exists, and it is terrifying that it hardly realizes it.

Its fingers seize, holding onto me in silence, the world itself frozen. Inhale. Have I been spared? I pray this thing has realized it is holding me, an indubitable, irrefutable effigy of something alive and wishing to remain that way.

Inhale. Inhale. Inhale.

Am I in Hell? I must be, for no matter how I try to draw breath, no matter the deposition my lungs offer in their futile debate, the arbiter denies them their request. I am granted no such mercy as the world around me resolves to crush my existence into dust. My legs crumble beneath its grip, turning to dust. I am doomed, and Death's arms reach for me, holding an invitation. Heeding the call of the void, I cease my efforts to breathe, and the darkness once again swallows me.

However, before oblivion can kiss me, I am liberated from the constraints of my executioner. But I am not free. The plunge into the unknown entangles my essence, and an anchor drags me into the obsidian depths, with which there is no end to liberate me.

Those oblivious amber eyes fix on the hand that released me while I plunge, and the abyss consumes them slowly, snaking inch by inch until no light exists.

I scarce exist. Perhaps death by the being's hand would have been preferable to the undefined void that I am becoming. My body unravels into shadow, and my mind obscures in the darkness from which it originated. The being that is I-no more.

The obelisk fades.

You are broken.