Lost in Time

Volume 4 Part 1: Sickly and Sulky

Volume 4 Part 1: Sickly and Sulky

Nia shifted, turning on the mat. A soft moan spewed from her throat, carrying in the eerie silence. She turned again and whimpered as a dose of harrowing pain shot up her arm. Waves of it twinged through her body, raking through her in rippling twangs. She flicked her eyes open.

Oh Cripes!

A piercing pulse of pain accompanied her wakefulness, throbbing, thrumming. Suddenly alert, eyes of hazel darted to her left arm. It was resting under her breast, tied up with a splint, fabricated from a threadbare faded green cloth. Her shoulder was covered in something sage green, smashed into slick gooey stuff. Two or three points of pain on her thigh and shin drew her gaze. She winced as her eyes traversed the landscape of her aching body to her thighs.

She hissed at the little motion when she hunched over to have a closer look. She felt old. Her body was a wreck. She felt bones crackling, joints resisting motion. She loathed being helpless. Her whole arm was busted, an appendage whose sole job was to serve her with a steady supply of pain.

Perhaps all the years she'd spent cheating time as she sailed amongst stars at FTL speeds, taking advantage of time dilation to stay young, were starting to catch up to her. Last she'd had the luxury of gazing into a reflective surface, she was a fifty-five-year old woman with the skin complexion of an eighteen-year-old, the agility of a twenty-one-year-old and the strength of a thirty-year-old.

Welcome to Earth, where time takes its vengeance, and nature demands penance.

She gently ran her fingers over the disaster that was her left thigh. There were holes in her pants, and in her thigh. Whatever the gooey green medicament was, an assortment of it adorned the wounds on her thigh and her shin.

Clearly, whoever the traditional doctor who had patched her up was, he had not planned for her to be walking about. She glimpsed around the place. There was a lantern hanging on a sconce or something, showering the dark single-room cabin with golden slivers of light. She didn't presume to know the mechanism behind the archaic lighting technology, nor did she really care.

She tried to get up, impossibly. God! She felt the weight of a spoonful of a neutron star pressing down on her, pinning her down. Earth's gravity suddenly felt tenfold its usual pull. She was falling towards the center of the Earth ten times faster. She sat back down, a sudden pain springing from the small of her back.

She palpated the spot with the roll of a fingertip. There was a little round swelling, and it hurt like hell. Her memories reeled back to when the ghastly predator knocked her to the ground. She must have landed on something.

The beast. Fudge. She cursed acidly under her breath. It had done a number on her. Sank its teeth into her collarbone. Shred her flesh, minced it into garnish. It was a wonder she still had an arm. Rueful, she looked around with scouring eyes at the now lit single room. It was deserted, the stench of abandon lay heavy in the stale air.

A quilt of sorts, midnight blue with paisley spots of white forming a checkerboard pattern, was rolled against the wall. A round, leaf hat with a tapering conical top and cotton-white laces dangling below it was draped up a wall next to a sandy brown leather basket. A lopsided, flea-beaten, old, wooden chair was set near a three-stone hearth with a smoldering fire. Three chunks of wood were glowing red, sparks flying around as the silent flames roared in a hiss.

Captain Walter must have found a way to start a fire. He was a man of many talents. And he really was making a habit of not being around whenever she woke up.

A raven-black raincoat was folded in half, hanging on the bending back of the chair. The table was a blocky sassafras, its tempest-swept surface without resin telling a tale of time and tussle. Past it, was a cackle, those three-legged stools Nia didn't really think existed. Made of treated hickory, it was a quaint little invention.