Gerad had wiped down my hands, feet and face with a wet cloth before leaving me to bathe. I was still out of sorts. I had a headache that kept pulsing under my eyes, every time I moved. I couldn't even sit on the edge of the bath, so I had no choice but to sit in the cold water. It was preferred, the shock would hopefully bring me back to myself. It took a bit of adjusting to, but it soon became warm enough. I washed myself down, struggling with the blood under my nails. It didn't feel clean, not at all. I tried to scrub with all I could, but it never got rid of that sickly feeling of blood just out of sight. I tried to do it to my face, but I could always just smell and taste it. It was maddening, and I had to stop at risk of breaking the skin.
I didn't know when I began crying, but became aware of it when I saw the blurriness again, and the drops fell into the water. I couldn't remember anything during the vision, only those images. I don't know what I said, only a report of what I did. Something came, took over and left me a shambling mess of a person, a host. I hugged myself, looking down into the water and hoping it would go away soon. I hoped that I could sleep it off, if I could sleep. Nothing was waiting for me here, so I got up from the bath and patted myself down with a rag. I could here the songs in the distance. The festival continued on despite the sudden occurrence.
I grabbed a nightshirt from the basket and slipped it own, falling onto the bed. It creaked at the sudden fall. It wasn't long before the adrenaline wore off, and the memories of the events. When it faded, I was left exhausted, crying and hungry. It was just out of touch. I could feel all the sensations, but not process them. It was as though they were behind a pane of glass. I pulled the blanket over me, tightening it around me in hopes of warding away the cold air.
Sleep eventually came but it was dreamless. It was like floating in a void, away from everything and even myself.
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I woke up cold, feeling something sharp pressing into my side. I shifted uncomfortably, reaching for the blanket but it wasn't there. I felt the dampness of the floor underneath me, and the sharpness still stabbing at me. The smell was different too, absolutely nothing was the same as it was. Finally opening my eyes, I wasn't in the room, nor in the town itself. I was on the edge of the forest. My clothes and feet soiled by the wet dirt, my hair strewn with leaves, sand and all sorts of things. It was still evening but the moon looked like she was inching closer to the horizon.
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It was hard to believe that I had sleepwalked all this way without being noticed. It was even harder to believe that I had sleepwalked at all. The first thought was that the vision may have disturbed me more than I thought, changing the way I function. That thought was enough to throw me down into a rabbit hole of all sorts of thoughts. Most of them were against myself, feeling that nothing would be the same, and that I was lost entirely to something beyond my control.
A twig snapping broke me out of my daze and when I looked up, I saw eyes staring at me from behind a bush. Dark in colour, but they were still very noticeable. The figure that had the was tall, almost at the height of the lower branches of the tree. The smell of iron followed him and it made me retch as memories of the blood on my hands resurfaced. He didn't say anything, simply staring from his vantage point.
"Who are you?' I demanded, now entering back into that panic that had followed me from the prayers. He was taken aback, but didn't answer. Instead, he just turned out and left, the smell of iron leaving with him. I could only repeat my question, trailing off as I broke down into tears again. I was a shaking mess, eventually brought back into myself by a hand of one Elder Sandsen who had found me. He dragged me back to my home, cursing under his breath as he did so. He practically threw me into the room, bellowing at others to 'guard the door'.
All of this was the effect of one single trance. I knew it was not the end of it, but by all Hell did I want it to be. I wanted it all to stop: the panicking, the vision, the fear of the people around me and that stupid smell that followed me. I needed to take another bath, but I couldn't care right now. I just wanted to sleep for things to go back to the way they were.
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I had apparently fallen asleep on the floor. Two older ladies were in the room with me, the first shaking me awake. The second was carrying clothes, and a few other items to tidy me up.
"They're awake," the lady sighed happily, "we're going to prepare you to go to the temple. The priests want to speak with you."
"I don't want to," I responded, pushing her hand away from me.
"It's not a matter of wanting to, it's a matter of needing to."
That was all she said, pressing her finger against my mouth when I wanted to protest before she picked me up by the arm and led me to the tub. She had set down two jugs near it, pouring the first into the tub and helping me out of the nightshirt. Feeling the sensation of her knotted fingers against my skin sent a shudder down my body. She helped me into the bath, scraping away at my feet and hands. The other lady, otherwise a simple observer, seated herself behind the bath and had begun the laborious process of brushing my hair. I whimpered when she pulled on the knots roughly. She grunted in response, carrying on with her work. The last jug was poured over me, the cold water making me gasp and grip onto the side of the tub.
"Come on then, it's time to get dressed."