I feel something unpleasant, like a slurping of the soul. A hollow sadness, but it's not fully achieved. A slow aching slurp of whatever I want to be, sucked out through a bendy straw. I don't know who or what is on the other end of the sucking, but I fear it's nothing at all. I'd prefer a source, an antagonist, a villain, anything other than the fear I'm the one draining myself.
It's like the blood pumping through my veins isn't blood at all, but rather some kind of inadequate water solution. Glucose can't replace the red ones. I watched the Olympians slurp it down, lap after lap, but they drank what is was I'm trying to dispel.
There's no sly wisdom bubbling underneath the surface, it's just a still reflecting pool manifesting an empty sky. To transfix oneself upon a light beam, knowing the light is there, but being unable to experience, believe in, verify it.
So empty as to not even ache.
