Walking With Darkness

Chapter 10

The ground shook as I struggled to form coherent thoughts. Images were constantly flooding into my mind..... A van, on a road, a girl lying asleep on the van. She looked like she had been stripped of most of her clothing. She didn't look like she'd eaten the past few days, the dark circles hugging her eyes. The view shifted to the front of the van.
Silhouettes of men sat in the front, behind darkened glass. They sat in silence. My sights went back to the girl in the van,  who rolled over.
My vision became blurry. Suddenly everything was getting darker. Harder to differentiate. I could now only see in twi dimensions, as the world continued to dim around me.

Soon I couldn't see anything at all.

I woke up in complete and utter darkness.
Again.
It was the fourth or fifth time, and most times it was because of a jolt in the road. Or at least, I think it's a road. At first I thought Tattoo just left me unguarded in the cell with the lights off but no such luck. As soon as I stood up to go to the bars, I was violently thrown right back to the floor by what I first assumed was my lack of balance. Then, after a while I realised there were multiple jolts. This and the fact that I could not find the cell bars, accompanied with my impressive deductive abilities led me to believe that I was being transported in a box of some sort.

And also there was the constant sound of an engine. But more or less there were no clues.

My first instinct was to try shadow hop and get saved of my own merit. There was no one to injure me this time (thank God)  so it was a viable plan. I sat up, put myself in a meditation position for some reason, and gathered the feeling. It was easier this time. Almost too easy. I gathered it in my gut (I was hungry, it seemed fitting) and spread it outwards. It was an amazing feeling. I let it over take me. And once it was in my entire body,

It fizzled out.

I don't even remotely understand why this happened or how.

Do you understand anything about shadow hopping?

I see you have returned to torment me, with my own sarcasm infused comments.

What do you mean "returned"?
I'm you, I didn't go anywhere.

I sighed.
At least my mental state was getting better.
Or worse, I'm not really sure if that's a good thing.

Anyway, this new development brightened my mood a little bit. Maybe things wouldn't be that bad. And as soon as I did this, there was a flash.
Nay, twas more than that. A flash in those conditions would've blinded me. It was more like someone inserted the image of whatever I was supposed to see into my mind. Like the lights had been turned on for a split second.
And in that split second,

I could see.

I jumped up with excitement. I wasn't sure why but I had a feeling this was a good thing. Something to distract me from the constant growl of my stomach. The flash of vision. But that could've also been a trick of my imagination. Wasn't really sure. So, against my better judgement, I sat against one the walls I was thrown into after my jump of excitement and waited. I stared into the nothingness, hoping to see a clear image, even just a snippet, once more.

But it didn't come.

And given my short attention span, I fell asleep. And against the cold hard wall no less. I was disappointed in my choice of resting place but I was not going to fight it. I needed to conserve energy. My eyes closed (or at least I think they did, couldn't really tell the difference) and I drifted off.

CRRRRAAASHHH!!!!

It was still dark but I woke to the smell of smoke. I could feel wind on my face as I was picked up and rushed somewhere by something I could not see. It felt like I was being thrown over a shoulder as I the sound of the engine was replaced with the sound of swift footsteps.
Something landed on my forehead and there was another flash of vision, longer this time.

I had time so look around and see a deserted city, and I noticed I was being sped across it.

I had time to notice that not all things were in colour, somethings were solid black.

There was time to realise that I was in the shadow-zone version of Paris because we passed the Louvre.

There was time to look up and see a woman smiling, with her right arm curled around me to put her in description finger on my forehead.

There was time to realise it was my mother.