ASUNDER (I) : tmr newt

01: I'm Scared

I am awake.

My bones creak and moan as I peel myself off of the hard ground. Skin sticks to harsh metal, almost like it has been pressed against it so hard that every part of me is broken. As if I have been flattened by a steamroller, or a rolling pin. Not only am I force to lift myself with muscles I'm not sure exist, but with bones as sturdy as leaves on a tree in late autumn.

I don't know where I am.

It's cold in here, so much so that I can feel my arms tingling beneath the fabric of my shirt. Hair standing on end, under harsh and scratchy material. My fingers wrap around the ground below me, and I realize it is the bars of a cage. Both sharp and heavy, they surround me. I squeeze them, until I can feel the blood trickling down the palms of my hands, and I back away.

In this room, there is a large whir going about. Tuned out to the sound at the beginning, now it ensnares me and presses me tighter down inside this metal trap. The sound echoes in my heart, thumping over and over, speeding up again and again, until it feels like my heart is moving in rhythm with it. Racing and climbing mountains and heights, until I can no longer think about anything besides the panic. The sound strangles the air in my lungs, leaving my lip twitching and my arms tensing.

The last thing I notice, which now I realize is the most important thing involved in the current situation I am in, is that I am skyrocketing upwards. Leaving behind everything inside me, from my thoughts and feelings, to my intestines as the cage climbs higher and higher in the sky. Maybe this is the sky, but it is an all-encompassing darkness, so Hell is much more accurate.

I was wrong, terrifying is not the right word; this experience is petrifying.

After the situation settles in, I realize I am surrounded by the most infinite of darkness's I have ever seen. Blinking a few times, I realize my eyes are actually open, though there is nothing I can see. It's so dark that I can't even describe this as a blackness, but as an emptiness. There is even, seemingly, a lack of air in this room to accompany the black hole I have managed to get myself sucked into. Though I can feel the cage beneath me, and hear the sound of the machine behind me, it feels as though there is nothing there.

The only way to find out what there is beyond these metal walls is to reach forward and search for something, but my hands are glued to the cold wires that surround me, and as much as I want to let go I can't.

"What is this?" A voice shouts out. It fills the nothing, grabbing me and shaking me awake.

My hands let go of the platform I sit on, and my back is against the wall, and I am panting. Her voice is low and heavy and strong, and she breathes fire that shoots into the cage wall and up into my hands. She is full of rage, and destruction.

I search for words, but my voice has left my body, and probably shot into the air as we started to move up.

"Who's there?" Another girl speaks, and her voice is much softer, but laced with a threat, and she has a funny accent.

The other girl doesn't answer, and I wonder if the first girl is talking to me. Obviously she isn't, she can't see me, unless I am blind and that is why I see darkness. Going blind doesn't seem like something I'd forget, but now it doesn't seem like something I know for sure.

What do I remember?

I attempt to find the voice inside me, but I feel nothing there. Am I mute?

"We've got bigger things to worry about." The first girl, with the fiery tongue and the breath that heats this cool room says. "Where are we?"

"You think I know?" Behind her funny accent is a soft and melodic voice, one that I can imagine painting a picture of a sunset, and teaching people how to dance, even though she seems annoyed.