Nyssa:

There was so much noise. No, not noise, something else. It felt the same as a roaring crowd; oppressive and overwhelming and alive. But a sucking silence pulled the life out of the air around me, draining the space around my ears like I was in a vacuum.

A pounding ache echoed behind my ribs, somewhere in the vicinity of my heart. It seethed and festered and throbbed with every beat. I felt ill. The tight ball in my chest made my stomach drop and a savage ache crept up behind my eyes like I had spent hours crying.

There was so much … something.

Not noise. Not feelings. At least, not my own. Sensation.

There were so many sensations.

My stomach dipped again and my hands shook. I was vaguely aware that I was crying, or screaming.

The full silence faded, morphing into white noise. The kind you don’t notice at first. It is so low that is buzzes just beneath your range of hearing but then suddenly it’s deafening, whining with a high-pitched urgency.

I was running. No, walking.

The screeching in my ears scratched at my brain like feedback. It was so loud that at first, I didn’t notice how my leg was on fire. Pain lanced through my thigh, sending electric jolts up my spine every time I stepped. Blood covered my leg, so much that I couldn’t see where it was coming from. Still, I limped along. My leg dragged uselessly beneath me. My muscles didn’t respond as they should. I clutched at the wound, trying to stop the bleeding or pull the cut wider. I couldn’t tell.

Blood, thick and warm stained my hands, settling into the cracks and creases of my palms. I wanted to shove my fingers inside my wound; to poke as the damaged bits within me and pull at the muscle fibers winding around the bone.

I was walking. Sometime I would stop for a rest. Maybe after the next rise, for I now realised I was climbing. Funny how I didn’t notice that before. The soreness in my chest made itself known again. It was like I had swallowed a lifetime of loneliness and shoved it down next to my hollow hurt and empty passions.

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I did not know one person could ache so fiercely.

A paper moon rose in the sky, looming over me. It was so huge that blocked out the stars and filled the inky blackness of the night sky. I could almost touch it. I was trailing blood everywhere. The red turning grey as it left my body, handprints smeared across every surface I brushed up against. Everything I touched was stained by blood from my wound.

Someone was walking beside me. A tall woman with dark hair and luminously pale skin. Her eyes slid shut so only a crescent shaped sliver of white was visible. She was terrified. I didn’t know how I knew that. She didn’t look scared. Actually, she looked as if she were sleepwalking. As we walked, she seemed to wane. Her skin no longer glowed with an inner light. Her hair turned limp and her eyes opened wide and terrified.

We faced each other. The woman offered me her hands. Her fingers were long a slim, like a pianist’s. I help up my hands, palm up, mirroring the woman. My nails were bitten short, her’s were long and graceful. My skin was a deep olive, hers as perfect and pale as a porcelain doll. Yet, our hands were the same. Blood had dried in the creases of our palms and under our nails. I knew that we could not wash this blood away, not really.

For a long moment, we stared at each other. Her eyes held so much pain, my heart echoed her cry. I was used to listening in on other people’s emotions, but to feel them as they did was overwhelming. I felt so full like I could burst at any moment.

I closed my eyes against the onslaught. It was too much.

When I opened my eyes there was a flash of yellow. The tall woman wore a stained yellow sundress. Blood ran from her nose and through the creases of her lips, staining it an awful red.

I cried out but made no noise. I stumbled back, my arms still outstretched. Then it was gone. She looked the same as before; sad and terrified and full of old pain, her hands held palm upward as if all she had to offer was blood and hurt.

The paper moon set behind her. The night was darkening. The only thing that was visible was the bright orbs that were the whites of her eyes reflecting the starlight back to me.

I was empty and full and terrified and numb all at the same time.

I was drifting.

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Ta da. So there it is, my favorite part of the whole book. I wrote this while pretty drunk and on cold and flu meds so that explains some things... This actually wasn't in the original draft, Nyssa just went unconscious and that was it. Then I got a cold and got drunk and got creative. This was the result.

Any guesses at who the woman is or why she is important? Any guesses at anything? As I said in the last chapter, this part is very important, everything means something. See if you can guess where I'm going with the story =)