The Goblin's Heir

Chapter Thirty Eight: In Dreams

Falling.

Falling and falling. The distance was never-ending, the bottom of that black pit non-existent. Everything was black. The grinding of goblin teeth, the cries of the devoured, ceased. There was no sound. Even the roaring had ceased. 

It should've been a comfort to me, the end of sound and pain. It was not. 

I kept waiting to hit something, to feel claws rip into my body. I kept waiting for The End to come and devour me but he never came. 

I tried to move, to lift up my hand before my face, or something. I wasn't even entirely sure my eyes were open. 

Am I dead? 

It was a frightening and relieving thought.

I tried to move, but nothing happened. I was oddly numb. 

Is this death? No. The darkness where here is familiar. I've been here before. 

There was a pinpoint of light above me. One star amid nothing. It was familiar too. 

I didn't understand how I could've gotten there, but there is no mistaking it. I had fallen somehow into The Void. Mab's old prison and the thing from which The Hollow and its siblings spawned. The darkness clung to me, held me like a family member welcoming me home.

I felt myself at last stop my endless plummet as the darkness cradled me. My body stilled though I felt no limbs touch anything solid. My vision turned as if I were standing. My feet felt nothing beneath them. I couldn't feel my feet. 

A sound startled me. It was stunningly loud after such a long silent fall. It was a voice, small and frightened. It sounded like a young child. They're humming a tune I know well, one I hadn't heard in too long. 

My vision turned again as if I'd twirled in place. Ahead of me, pale grey against the unbroken black, I saw the form of a tiny child. From the distance between us, I couldn't tell much about its face, but I could see a mop of dark grey hair and a frail body swallowed up by a nightshirt that was entirely too big. It hung nearly to the child's feet and the sleeves had been rolled up several times. 

"Mama." The child whimpered and sobbed, doing that thing little children do where they cry so hard they forget to breathe. "Mama."It called again. It picked at its own hand anxiously, spinning in helpless circles as it searched for someone that wasn't there. 

It can't be, I thought. I tried to say it aloud but I didn't seem to possess a mouth anymore. I was merely a pair of eyes looking out from the darkness. As apart of it as it had always been part of me.

Suddenly, the child was right before me though I do not think either of us moved. Young Knut trembled before me. I was at his level, staring straight into his face. He looked straight through me, unknowing of my presence. There was a haunted look in his eyes. They were round and overflowing with tears. He continued to pick at the back of his hand. He had made little cuts there with his claws, which quickly scabbed over and healed. His nightshirt was in tatters, the collar torn and hanging off a boney shoulder, attesting to a recent struggle he no longer bore the wounds from. His skin was filthy beneath it. 

Knut's tiny chest expanded with rapid small breaths. He looked like a terrified rabbit caught in a snare, his heart beating so hard he might well faint at any moment. He tilted his head back toward the pinpoint of light high up in the heavens. That mousey hair fell away from his tear-streaked cheeks. "Father!" He shouted, his voice rising above a whimper for the first time since I'd found him. Father. He called to Frode with the same detachment my boys had grown to have toward their father later in life as their coronation grew nearer. It seemed Knut and Frode's relationship had never been anything else. "Father!" He cried again and still, he got no answer. He sank down onto the invisible floor of Mab's prison where black bled into black. He drew his knees up to his chest and looped his arms around them, rocking in place while he continued to shutter and whimper. He sniffled into his legs and softly began to hum again.