Page 16 of A Rising Hope (The Freckled Fate #3)

16

FINNLEAH

A little drop of black fell into the obscure waters. The distant splash echoed around me.

I was empty of any feelings, floating in the pitch-black liquid.

My mind was there, and yet it wasn’t.

I existed, yet I didn’t.

I tried to move to look around, but the black, glassy waters didn’t sway. Only an occasional drip falling from the murky, undistinguishable ceiling above me. The sound reverberated long into nothingness.

It was neither warm nor cold here. And I floated mindlessly with no direction.

Bit by bit, little snippets of memories began to return, silver threads being woven into existence.

A wave of sudden panic rolled through me, and I remembered the pain.

I remembered intense agony.

But there was none here.

Relief lulled me to sleep, and I slept.

Time didn’t matter in this place.

Neither thirst nor hunger.

I guess it only made sense considering I didn’t have a body here, or at least I didn’t feel it. There were no feelings all together. Just me, floating in the black, suave liquid that matched the abyss of darkness above me.

The occasional splashes of tiny drops from above disrupted the smooth glass-like surface. The sound was so harsh against the complete silence in between.

Drip.

Drop.

Drip.

It splashed a few times more than before.

Odd.

Perhaps if I knew how to care, I would have thought more about it.

But I just slept instead.

There were a few more drops today.

I stared at the ripples they created through the flat surface. Perhaps they were larger today, or maybe I was imagining it all. Perhaps they were heavier, stronger. The ripples rocked my consciousness on their waves. The splashing sounds became loud, abrasive, disrupting my peace.

I closed my eyes, trying to sleep. But the droplets didn’t stop, no matter how hard I tried to float away, they followed me. The tiny ripples across the liquid turned into full size waves as the droplets no longer were the size of raindrops, but rather large heavy boulders, vociferously crashing into the waters.

One of them was falling straight at me. I tried to swim but couldn’t.

I couldn’t do anything but float. The onyx waters didn’t take me anywhere as waves dragged me into a whirlpool, keeping me right in the boulder’s path.

A moment and I’d be underwater.

I should do something. I knew that.

But my thoughts weren’t with me. Plans and ideas were foreign, and instincts nonexistent.

The boulder reached me at last, and the black waters swallowed me whole as I sunk far down deep below the surface.

Intense golden light blinded me.

“What the actual fuck?” The words escaped my lips before I could think twice.

Wait . . . I can think .

I could remember.

I could feel.

And in that moment, pain and pure anguish filled my body. I screamed, air like sharp claws tearing at my lungs.

At last, my consciousness slipped away from me once more.