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We followed. I didn’t feel the least bit bad about leaving not-Baz behind, but I worried for the performers he’d captured and everyone else who lived in Nightmare Castle.
Unfortunately, by the time we made it outside, it was clear I had a lot more than just the others to worry about. The wall of nothingness towered over me. The air felt electrified, and my skin tingled as if I were about to be struck by lightning.
“Well, shit,” Dio said.
Geraint wrapped his arm around me.
“Robby, go!” Nic ordered.
The jester vanished, leaving us staring at our doom. I tried to shape a shelter for us like I’d done before, but it was as if the storm had already sucked away all the dream essence, leaving me with nothing to work with. Even the shadows barely responded. I tried to step into them, to take my men with me. The vague danger in the shadow realm was nothing compared to the very real doom in front of me. Belatedly, I realized I should have sent Baz’s essence with Robby. It was too late now.
Dio grabbed my hand, Nic the other, and together the four of us prepared for whatever was on the other side of nothing.
Ember
The wall crashed into us. I expected a wave of sound, an explosion of noise and motion. Instead, there was silence. Silence so absolute that it was almost painfully loud as my brain tried to cope with it. Along with the absolute silence was absolute blackness. I couldn’t even see the remnants of light flickers or other optical illusions eyes and brains gave people in the dark. Which lead me to wonder if I still had a body, and if I didn’t, how was I having thoughts?
Before I could go down that rabbit hole, the explosion I’d originally expected hit me and I felt like I shattered. Flashes of light like shards of glass splintered everywhere, spreading out then spinning into a spiral.
I tried to shut my eyes, but the shards of glass kept spinning, faster and faster, and I couldn’t look away. Finally, they sucked down into nothing, like being sucked into a black hole, then exploded outward, zooming past before just as suddenly freezing in place, all sense of motion gone.
Eternity passed.
At first it was nice to just exist. No responsibilities. No weight of the unconscious world riding on my shoulders. For a while I thought I could get used to this and I settled in to do just that.
Nothing changed.
Finally, I got bored.
I tried to spin, to move, to lift a hand in front of my face so I could see it. There was still nothing in the blackness except the shards of sparkling glass and nothing moved.
Since there was nothing outward, I turned my attention inward. I’d somewhat grown used to the complete silence, but I still wondered how I existed without an obvious body.
Was I dead? Was this what it was like to cease to exist in the mortal world? Were those sparks of glass other souls? Were souls real? My thoughts spiraled out of control like the glass explosion earlier until they simply stopped. There were things I was supposed to remember. People I knew. Places I wanted to visit. To save.
To save?
What even was I? Why was I having thoughts. So much easier just to drift away.
A vague sense of worry followed that idea.
Worry sucked. I didn’t want to worry anymore. The thoughts scattered further away.
My sense of self scattered. A small part of me held on to the concept of “me” but then forgot why that was important and let go.
As the last vague thoughts drifted away, one stood out. More a feeling than a thought. Something so warm, and deeply rooted inside of me, that it wouldn’t drift away like everything else. I grabbed onto that feeling, pulling bits of myself back together so I could examine it.
The feeling had a name. Geraint.
Why was that so important?
There were other related feelings to the one named Geraint. They also had names.
Nic. Dio. Ash. Robby. Casey. Others. The feelings varied in strength, none so strong as the one named Geraint, though Nic and Dio were close. What was a name? Why did these feelings pull at me? What was me?
Ember.
I was Ember. A spark to my knight’s fire. A princess trying to save a realm. A human trying to navigate a crazy world. A human caught in a nothingness storm.
