What’s this, I hear the figment say with mock shock lacing its words, a thing that isn’t a bunch of random gibberish about things and whatevers? By the everlasting I never thought it would come to be. The figment is quite mean, and were it not a figment I would’ve sworn it held a knife... or was that an apple.
A small square flat stone floats rigidly on the surface of a massive bluish purple ocean. Upon it, a woman stands having obviously misplaced her clothes, looking quite confused. Meditate, they had told her, concentrate and peace she would find. How wrong they had been.
A faint wind blows her raven hair as she stands frozen on the rock. Normally she would enjoy the cold, but after a few hours here she definitely would kill for a blanket or two. A shirt too would be grand, as long as it wasn’t green. Even here she had to have some standards.
Instead of the peace she was promised she instead found herself in a world of nightmares. She had always hated the ocean, for reasons she can’t quite know, but this was just beyond what she had ever imagined facing. As the woman looks down she notices that the water goes very, very deep.
From the depths something stares up at her. At least this is what she imagines is happening. That unpleasant feeling where one looks into an abyss and feels it looking back, and expects something to reach out. Luckily for her the rock seems quite stable. In fact the rock hadn’t moved, tilted, or rocked a single time.
The sky, or at least what seems to be a sky, is painted a light hue of pinks and yellows. It’s all rather bright, but a sun, star, or other similar source of light isn’t visible. She had always assumed meditation would be boring, but this is just slightly beyond her expectations.
The pinks in the sky slowly shift to purple as she waits, and the purple in the sea slowly shift to reds. That isn’t creepy in the least, she thinks to herself. Everyone enjoys standing on an unknown ocean with unknown creatures that seem to be colored with blood. She probably isn’t all together serious about that last part.
When a small sliver of courage finally leaps into her, she decides she could at least see if it was water. Carefully kneeling down she reaches out and cups some of the ocean into her hands. This liquid was a lot heavier than it looks, and quite a bit more viscous. A tingle travels through her body as she holds the liquid but she didn’t quite notice the other issue at hand till far later than she should have.
This liquid, as it so happens, had the unfortunate tendency to adhere to certain substances. Skin being a prime example of that type of substance. Her scream promptly signals when she does realize this unwanted feature, but she miraculously maintains her balance upon the rock. She can’t swim, but luckily she now knows it wouldn’t have mattered all that much if she could.
The liquid slowly spills out of her hands, despite her best efforts, and leaves an uneven coat of liquid stuck to her hands and arms. The tingling sensation continues, and heat slowly introduces itself to the feeling. This liquid is going to burn my skin off, the woman thinks to herself incorrectly. Her skin burnt off long ago, but numbness handily blocks pain quite easily. Perhaps it was something in the air.
As if to crescendo her discovery, this is about when everything gets to about as bad as she expected. Lights appear from the liquid that are clearly of biological origin. Large creatures slowly rising from the depths, faint outlines of foreign monstrosities giving her a glimpse of new friends. Friends is the term she uses, but not in a way most people would.
Here is about when a tinge of pain signals what is happening to her arms. Most people would freak out, and in fact she was indeed most people. Most people would also panick, and again that includes her. Most people would not meditate when their limbs were being burned and creatures ascending to ‘greet’ them, but in this singular instance she is not most people.
The world shuts out as she focuses on an inner darkness. Escapism had always been her superpower, and here it shows she is no slouch. At least, not in the group of people escaping reality. When the rock lurches for the first time, she doesn’t notice. Creatures graze against regions no longer protected by skin, and she still doesn’t notice.
She does notice that meditation is indeed a comforting thing. Despite the burning seas, terrifying depths, strange skies, and the weird monsters, there was an underlying comfort to be found somewhere if for a moment. Comfort consumes her as everything fades. Reality snaps back into focus as she wakes up in her bath at home. Had she taken a bath? Seems so long ago now.
With a sigh she lets the water go from its prison, and steps back into her life. A razor blade on the side of the tub is quickly thrown away, and another day awaits. A change she feels throughout. Darkness, the burning liquid, the odd skies, and a new spark within, she feels everything in a very surreal way. She remembers it as she dresses like one would a fond childhood memory. Unbeknownst to her, her orange eyes shift into a bluish purple hue as a strangely viscous, heavy tear rolls down her cheek.
-A series of letters signifying departure
