Persephone Incarnate [Wattpad Prize 2014] | ✔️

{15} Alexander

The world was still spinning around him when he opened his eyes.

Alexander squinted at his surroundings, not because it was bright, but rather because there was no light. It was just dark all around, and he felt blind and a little terrified. Last he remembered, he was in free-fall with a mad kid genius, three girls, and two horses. Oh, did he mention the chariot?

As far as he knew, he was in a totally strange and unknown place, and since he couldn’t see, he couldn’t really locate anyone or anything or any animal. He tried to get up, but felt unsteady as he stood up. He felt like a wind could just blow him away, and it was a disturbing, insecure feeling as he just stood there, trying to orient himself. He felt like toppling.

So he slowly lowed himself down onto his knees, then placed him hands, palm down on the ground, so he was on all fours, instead of on two feet. He crawled forward slowly, trying not to feel weird or ashamed. There was no one here to see him – rather, they couldn’t see him. His eyes has yet to adjust to his surroundings, which lead him to believe that either there was nothing around him so there was nothing to see, or he was someplace dark, probably with black walls as well. He wondered, for a second, if it was possible to see the color black in a totally dark room.

After a while, his knees started to hurt. He hadn’t noticed previously, so preoccupied with where he was and trying to focus his senses, but the ground was hard and cold underneath him. It was smooth, like tile, but there were bumps and grooves in a few places, so it could be some kind of stone tile. He got up, dusted off his knees and palms, then slowly sat down again. It seemed useless to search around – it would bring him nowhere. The room was undoubtedly huge, and he couldn’t see, on top of that.

But weren’t his hearing and touch supposed to get better or something like that? He remembered reading it somewhere before – maybe a magazine or some website for a school project. So he closed his eyes and strained to hear something – anything. He heard a hollow thunk somewhere, but it was just a one-time thing. Some shuffling, maybe breathing – he couldn’t be sure. He felt pretty helpless without his sight, and he suddenly understood how those blind people felt. Except, when they opened their eyes, they wouldn’t be able to see color or people or sky or sun or anything ever again. Whereas, he could – if he ever got out here.

“Hello?” he called out. It felt idiotic – it was like in those horror movies, where the lead character would walk into a haunted house and ask if anyone was there – like the murder was actually going to say, “Yes, I’m in the kitchen with a butcher knife!”

The idea made him laugh, though it was rather morbid.

He closed his eyes again, to focus his hearing. Nothing.

Some shuffling, some scuttling – probably a rat or a spider.

He tried again, with the same result.

After a third time, with nothing happening, he decided just to sit and wait. Wait for what, he wasn’t sure. But he wasn’t about to waste his voice or time on some hopeless pursuit. Hopefully someone would come for him soon.

Very soon, or else, if Ava was right, it would be too late to rescue Sophie. If she was in her trial trance for more than 6 hours, there was no way to pull her out prematurely. She was stuck there for the whole 24 hours, or whenever she was able to get out. Even worse – if she didn’t come out after twenty-four hours, she would have failed the trial and automatically be stuck in the trance state.

Not forever – there was no need to be melodramatic, but still for a quite a while. Possibly the whole seven months she was supposed to be there. But Anna had explicitly told him that winter was almost over, and it would only be two months and seventeen days left. She’d even told him how many hours and minutes were left, and had offered to tell him how many seconds, milliseconds, and jiffies were left. He’d refused, not wanting to get that obsessively specific. It would only make him panic more, thinking that every second he was spending talking, walking, falling, thinking – it was another second wasted. Six hours could easily past – especially if you were either in danger or falling down a very long way.