Bright light was shining on her face, she could tell even through her closed eyelids.
How comfortable.
How warm.
A gentle voice called for her, enticed her to open her eyes and look who it was, uttering her name in such loving fashion.
"My most beautiful child. You glow just like the moon", hummed they.
A woman.
A smiling mouth.
A sweet, homely scent.
Where was this? It seemed strangely familiar, and yet so far away, like a memory from a different life.
"You are the most precious thing I possess", continued the voice, but grew weaker and weaker with every word.
And with it went the warmth, died away the light.
An unforgiving darkness swallowed all but her own conscious, and soon the last flashes of light that had bravely slashed their way through it were gone as well. Within but a moment, a black nothing engulfed her world, both besetting her with a feeling of suffocating tightness and an ever-expanding vastness reaching into forever, into wherever, pulling to all sides.
Nothing but silence.
Much, much too long.
Until the loneliness was unbearable.
And then, a scream echoed through this realm of noiseless shadows.
Agitated whispering emerged –far away at first, but quickly enclosing. They stood in a circle. Looming over her body. She wanted to speak, to enquire who was there, but her mouth would not form a single intelligible word.
Too tired, her body.
Too diffuse, her mind.
Among all these strangers, however, one voice seemed familiar.
One among those closest to her.
The gentle voice from before!
She turned her head towards the point in the black from where it resounded, and lifted her trembling hands to see if she could touch them. Maybe she would find some security in this foreign world where there was neither light nor form.
"No." A single word uttered, and Iris froze.
The same voice that had once been filled with nothing but love and caring now struck fear in her very soul.
"My daughter is dead."
Skin, blood and bone – all warmth drained from her body, she trembled with fear, shaken to her very core by this voice suddenly devoid of any emotion.
"My daughter has betrayed and left me. This is but an empty, squirming, repulsive thing."
No pain.
No sadness.
No fiery anger or blind fury that would have unsettled their heart and upset the tone of their voice.
Just a cold, absolute hatred too immediately instilled, too deep and uncompromising to allow for any glimmer of compassion – neither now, nor ever.
"Take it out of my sight."
Iris gasped, her hands pushing her away from the mattress with such might, her head started spinning.
She grabbed her own shoulders, traced a strand of hair to see how long it was, tried to feel her face. No doubt, this was the real world.
"What was that? What did I--", she stammered, her jittery fingers on her temples. Had this been a dream? But the memory of it only became stronger the wider awake her mind grew. A vision? Her breathing did not feel restricted, and there had been no pain. In fact, she was developing a headache right now that she had returned to reality. A throbbing pain took root, pulsing through her veins. A few deep breaths later, she had managed to push it back enough to expand her perception beyond her own body.
YOU ARE READING
Without Words, Without Sight
Fantasia"And in the distance between these eyes that did not see, and this voice that did not resound, he put the flowers and fruit he had picked to describe the scent she had to him. As he put them all into her arms, she understood with a graceful smile. P...
