Worlds of Waves and Shadows

One

5:47 pm

21st December 2053,

Gujarat, India.


Voices.

Distorted. Intangible.

They swirled around within the darkness she floated in, bleeding into one another until they became one.

One voice. One force. One command, slicing through the haze like a knife::

'Wake up.'

Her consciousness stirred, a fragile thing caught in the undertow of oblivion. The command reverberated through her–insistent, unyielding–pulling her out of the sweet, painless abyss. She wanted to resist, to sink back into the nothingness where the pain couldn't touch her, but the voice wouldn't let her go.

And just like that the tides shifted.

The darkness exploded, light–shattering the numbing sea of nothingness, erupting into a tsunami of daunting reality. The void trembled, its walls collapsing like a frail house of cards, each piece falling away to reveal a world that grasped her with cold, unforgiving hands. In an instant, the darkness that cocooned her turned hostile, and reality crashed back in, bringing with it pain. Violent, all-consuming, pulsed through her body, ripping through every nerve, searing its way into her bones until there was nothing left but agony. She gasped, choking on the intensity of it, every breath like swallowing glass.

The pain was a living thing, writhing beneath her skin, clawing at her nerves. It snatched away all coherent thought, leaving only a single, raw truth: It hurt. She hurt.

She wanted to scream, to thrash, to fight the torment that consumed her. But her body wouldn't respond. She was trapped, caught between consciousness and whatever hell this was, a prisoner in her own skin.

'What had happened? Where was I?'

She tried to move her arms—no response. She strained, pushed harder, but her limbs hung uselessly, dangling like a marionette. The first slither of panic emerged then, from the depths of her mind–like the blades of Kelp–hovering just beneath the surface.

Just how did I get here?

A rhythm.

Up, down.

Up, down.

Her head lolled, bobbing against it something firm, steady—an arm.

Moving. She was moving.

Not walking. Someone was carrying her.

A chill raced down her spine. The darkness tried to pull her back under, but awareness came in jagged flashes—each one worse than the last. Her legs dangled, bumping against one another with every step, sending bolts of white-hot pain straight up her spine. The agony pulsed in time with her heartbeat, a cruel reminder that she was still very much alive. Still here. Still trapped in whatever nightmare this was.

Her eyes cracked open, fighting against the blinding light. She blinked, vision swimming, until she saw them—him. There was no mistaking the sharp cut of his jaw, the grim set of his mouth and the size of his hands around her body. Her possible captor was a man.

Her heart lurched. Was he taking her to a hospital? Or somewhere far worse? Her instincts were on high alert, an invisible alarm blaring in the back of her head–screaming danger–or maybe it was the splitting headache.

Her pulse pounded in her ears, faster and faster, matching the wild rhythm of her thoughts. Her vision was blurry, her senses muddled, but the one thing that remained crystal clear was the overwhelming sense of danger.