when i wake up, there is a small pool of light on the floor by my face. my eyes shift upward. a shaft of light falls through a crack in the rubble. it impales the blackness, illuminates the swimming dust. how tenuous, how tentatively it sifts through the clogged air; i fasten my gaze upon it, fearing its disappearance.
dazed, my sluggish brain forms a single thought — he has found me.
hunger scrapes the insides of my stomach. my vision is blurred; and yet i see each photon quivering before my eyes. the grains of dust float as asteroids do in space . . . cosmic pebbles . . . holy light from a foreign star. air passes through my lungs in a jagged rhythm. is the air toxic? it tastes like smoke and metal on my tongue. dust is in my lungs; i am afraid to inhale.
the world has disintegrated into stardust and shadows, but somehow light puzzles back the broken pieces again. the light . . . i lift a trembling hand, fighting gravity, which has become a hundred times stronger overnight— or so it seems. how many days have i been unconscious? i hold my palm up, my arm screams with the effort; but the light — the light!— it vibrates on my skin, a warm whisper. it stirs something inside me, something i have forgotten, a sensation awakened by the tendril of grey light. the sun must be rising right now; out there, the universe is still in motion. but the clocks have stopped running hours ago. finally tired. everything dead but for one girl stuck alive in a tomb. everything silent but for the sound of one heart drumming. everything still but for the little piece of light travelling millions of miles to touch my hand, shattering the darkness into a thousand pieces.
- excerpt
