The Revelation of the Vine: Graft

Chapter 35: Slipping Through the Void

  I swirled in the darkness again, in the place where the syllables lived. "How did I get here," I wondered. "Where is the Mender?" My thoughts formed little vibrations of color in the darkness around me. The syllables were coming to greet me. I could see them in the distance and hear the faint echoes of their sound. They danced around, creating colors as they approached, like children frolicking down a black hallway with buckets of paint, splashing the walls with vibrant colors. As they danced and played and drew closer, and I listened to them in the darkness where I was nothing, and there was nothing, I noticed that some of the syllables were missing. The syllables reached me, and colors began to swirl around me. The colors began to pull me through the tunnel that the syllables had made in the darkness, and a small speck of light appeared in the farthest depths of it. I remembered this tunnel, but this time nothing felt strange, and as I listened to the syllables that spoke around me, they turned into the words. The words swirled around as I slid through the colors. Feeling myself once again in that body that felt strange but now felt comfortable and real. New syllables began to appear as I sped through the tunnel, and I felt something new as I heard them for the first time, like a prick in the back of my consciousness. I saw the light at the end of the tunnel get brighter and then wash over me, as I was bathed in light, and the sounds of people's voices echoed around me. A strange sensation washed over me, as I heard them calling, "V, you need to get up," and then the voices and the light slowly faded away, replaced by a faint beep that echoed in the background of darkness. I was alive. I didn't know how, but I was alive.