Falling Skyward

Chapter Eleven: A Desert of Diamond

When Lana next opened her eyes, the blackness was replaced by a searing white. Its intensity bored into her mind, sharpening the groggy throb inside her skull until it felt as though her brain were being filleted open. Lana clenched her eyes shut, but the light still managed to percolate through the soft skin of her eyelids. From the nape of her neck to the balls of her feet, Lana's body ached—not the piercing pain of broken bone and skin, but the slow, deep ache of muscles rebuilding. A spongy, granular substance cradled Lana's body—a substance unlike anything she had ever felt. It was a little like moss with its springy, damp texture, yet not so firm, absorbing her movements like the shifting of fine sand.

The air moved with a subtle whisper, tasting tangy and sweet. Lana pried her eyelids apart gradually, looking through the filtered shadows of her eyelashes. The light still burned with its heat and intensity, but Lana could make out the sparkling outline of her surroundings.

The white substance Lana lay upon looked like tiny crystals that rolled and mounded in all directions, like drifts of snow. Occasionally the wind would whisk a spire of crystals into the air. Light fractured and danced off this vortex, making the world appear like a giant prism.

Lana hoisted herself up, gingerly standing on raw feet. From a higher perspective, the world of white only stretched farther in every direction. Unable to grasp her surroundings, her situation, or a solution to either, Lana began walking in the direction she now faced.

She had hoped that the rhythmic motion would quiet the questions pestering her mind, but the repetition only allowed them to root deeper into her subconscious. The gypsy woman's shriveled body, screams from the camp, a swaying corpse, and mouthless faces reentered Lana's mind, forcing her to circle the unanswerable. Then there was her uncle reading his sacred texts, Vanessa in her blue lace wedding dress, Talen riding his horse, Katalia bent over crooked cross-stitching, and Gailen clinging to Lana's hand. The haunting questions asked: Where were they? What happened to them?

And what had happened to her? Had Lana died? Was this heaven? Lana hadn't agreed with all her uncle's preaching, but she had felt there was something more—a beyond to this life. She hadn't imagined this.

Could the dead feel such pain, worry, and trepidation? Were these pangs of hunger lingering habits of a soul so long tethered to a body?

The town blacksmith often talked of the terrible pains he felt in his leg, a leg that had been amputated years ago to save him from the infection festering within. Even when looking at the vacant space where his leg had once been, the man had told Lana he could still feel the limb. Would consciousness outside of a body still cling to its former way of existence?

Lana didn't know—she couldn't know. So she walked, her feet blistering on the luminous sands.

The light blazed strangely overhead, concentrated and impossibly intense. This must be the sun the gypsy woman spoke of, Lana thought, suddenly wishing to have never experienced it. With her eyes only half-open, Lana walked into the uninterrupted white until the crystals beneath her feet turned fierce with fiery heat.

Then the sky cooled and dimmed into twilight. Lana walked beneath streams of stars more brilliant than anything she had experienced, save in her dreams. They looked so close Lana wanted to run her fingers through them and feel them shift and shiver like the sand underfoot. After night fully descended, a new light appeared in the sky—silver, soft, and watery. The moon, Lana thought in awe. Having only heard of such things in fairytales, Lana felt trapped in a dream, the ethereal, fantastical light overhead only deepening her disbelief. Minutes later, another light peaked above the horizon, its light tinged with deep violet. Lana drifted across the sands, her awe deepening when a third moon rose, this one small and tinged with scarlet.

Lana walked through the velvety purple of dawn into the opaque white of another day, her mind numb to sensation. The sting of light and hunger and heat and thirst all melted into a vague hum singing to the rhythm of her feet. Occasionally color would stir in the distance, but the image always proved to be light playing upon the crystalline sand. Smatters of green began appearing on the horizon, then splotches of blue. Lana closed her eyes for fear her sight was giving out beneath the intense glare.

Lana walked for most of the day, only stopping when her feet splashed into something wet. Opening her eyes, she found herself in the shade of a cluster of trees. The leaves of the tree were orange, veined and fringed with a soft pink. Water from a small stream trickled around Lana's feet, soothing her burned skin. Lana collapsed to her knees, putting her sun-cracked lips to the water, drinking until her stomach and body seemed to be made of the cool, clear substance. Then Lana toppled into the water, allowing the element and sleep to claim her entirely.