Benjamin

I'm floating off into cool waters just as the heat from the column of white fire gets too toasty for my taste.

I relax and float. Silk blue coolness carries me on invisible currents. I can't feel my body, but for some reason this doesn't bother. It should bother me, I tell myself, but I can't quite scrounge up the emotions for it. I give wiggling my toes a try to test my abilities. Nothing. And I don't care. This is better than pain, any day. There is only me, but no body and my blue pond. Or black sky.

Maybe I'm a white star up with the other stars. What's that fancy word they use for space? Firmament. That's me. A white floaty in the blue-black firmament.

I like this drifting and doing nothing. I could get used to it.

A brighter blue light approaches, surrounding me and I find the strength to propel myself away. I don't want this light, it cuts and freezes. It comes at me faster than I can escape, though. I thrash about, sensing movement along the edges of my consciousness. I panic.

A net of sharp blue traps me and I bump against the strange walls of my prison. I can't say how long it lasts; time has stopped meaning anything.

As I begin to believe that I might be stuck forever, a heavy shadow encircles me instead. An uncaring, unfeeling, unending darkness has me in its power. I am nothing to it and I sense my own light – the tiny flicker of my self being snuffed out by the vast shadows holding me.

I have to escape.

I flit wildly, but there are no walls and there is no exit in this abyss. I am growing tired. Too tired to fight.

*** A very short chapter. What has happened to Ben exactly here? Is there still hope for him? Or has something terrible trapped him? ***