Part 7 of 7
One moment there was nothing.
The next, he realizes that he’s cold.
It could have been a century between the two.
X opened his eyes, staring up at the empty black sky. Not the dark, dark, dark blue of nighttime, even with a full cloudy overcast. Solid, unforgiving black. No stars.
He blinks, and sits up despite his spine’s soft creaking in protest.
His breath is warm- too warm- against the insides of his lungs, and the space around him feels thick with it.
Despite all the tiny aches that crawl across his form like bugs, he manages to stand with a bit of effort.
Walking comes slowly, each step a titanic effort that slowly, step by step by step along some unseen path, fades into the background.
The overbearing warm smog still flutters loose from him lungs in waves, shifting around him and clinging to his shoulders and back. It refused to let go, and over time, it too faded into the uncomfortable white noise.
He walks, for long enough that keeping track of time here seems to draw impossibly like a candle draws stray moths. Slowly, painfully, terminally.
There are trees here. Lining the path some, but growing in larger and denser clumps the further one may stray from the path- which continued to evade his sight- until the thicket grew continuous and close enough to constitute a forest.
Their leaves were the same color as the semi-tangible sky here, which left a spine-chilling sensation of a low ceiling, almost ready to cave in and fall, if not for the numerous columns of bark and kindling holding up the darkness- to the point that it had been woven into their very being.
In the distance of the underbrush and deep, lonely fog, he could hear countless footsteps crunching down on the fallen leaves, trudging through the thicket beyond what he could see.
From some of the low-hanging branches, hollow forms without feature were hanged, their nooses sleek, silvery and without blemish. From other branches, strings of the same color hung limp, looping wide and ends dangling into the underbrush.
He found himself unable to look upon those still, limp figures for long, thus he turned his gaze to the path immediately in front of him and trudged onwards.
It was another timeless pilgrimage of turns and hesitant peaks upward before he caught movement from the corner of his eye.
There was someone there.
