Transcend Read Online Free Page B
scene. The air clings to me, tethering me to a life I want to escape. Ash and soot choke the oxygen from my lungs. Everywhere there is nothing but darkness—an endless oblivion that envelops me and blocks out everything but an agony too real to ignore.
My thoughts are quiet, but not calm. There is a terror on the edge of the silence, a terror fed by my burning flesh and the stench of death.
Time races by in a haze. Nothing exists but the raw emotions I can’t escape, battering me against the shores of unconsciousness. I toss against my thoughts, reliving moments best left forgotten. Every feeling, every dream, every nightmare, displayed around me, strangling me. Choking any remaining life from my lungs.
Until, impossibly, the silence is broken.
“Ien, I’m here…I’m here.”
The voice raises a familiar longing that pushes through the mess in my mind.
“Please, Ien. You can’t leave me. Not now.”
Kiera.
Her voice fills the void inside, willing me back to existence. I fight the heavy emptiness bearing down on me as I concentrate only on my lungs, forcing them to respond. Every gulp of air I manage to take sets me aflame while wave upon wave of misery tears pieces of flesh from my body.
The floating feeling resumes and I attempt to push open my eyes. Nothing. Again I try, but they are too heavy to respond. I settle my thoughts and try again.
Over and over.
Wrestling with my body and mind, I will myself to surface from the abyss around me. A glimmer of light wedges itself into the dark expanse. At first, it’s nothing more than a meager speck, a taste of hope I try to embrace. The light grows as reds and oranges replace the inky blackness. I feel the landscape move and change around me.
“That’s right Ien, wake up. Come back to me.” The voice is softer than before, more distant. Desperately I grasp at the words, refusing to let them slip away.
My eyes open wider. Flames invade my senses and I feel my skin catch fire. The scream that erupts from my throat suffocates any hope of waking and I’m thrown into darkness once more, complete in its emptiness.
Meaningless time clicks by one agonizing moment at a time. No more sounds awaken me. No more voices prod me to consciousness.
Are you there, Kiera? Were you ever there?
Pain ebbs and flows until I’m too tired, too spent, to care anymore. Images stream past my eyes like a series of photographs, a record of my life. Some parts move quickly—early memories of my home, my first year at Chadwick Academy, meeting James. Others move with more deliberation, allowing me time to focus on the minutest of details—the way the stage lights shimmer across Kiera’s hair, the taste of her lips when she breathes ‘yes’, the exact color of her eyes when we said goodbye. I want to lose myself in the film playing out in front of me, let the thoughts of Kiera become my reality.
Until the pictures morph and change, turning my world bleak—Mother’s sharp tones carve into me as she yells my disappointments one syllable at a time, the quivering vein in her neck when she attempts to contain her fury, the look in her eyes when she commands me to leave Kiera. These memories linger too long, bringing with them a fresh wave of torment.
The landscape shakes and rolls as my thoughts of Mother intertwine with those of Kiera. Everything bends at odd angles, throwing me off balance. I am in the world around me, but not part of it.
I wrestle with the images, willing them into order. But no order comes. Only the constant rush of emotions meant to undo me woven with pictures I mean to escape. It’s all too much. Too real.
I shut my mind to everything, only to have my emptiness rise up and engulf me. And in this moment, a simple truth is revealed. This must
be
death…
5.
“There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.”
~Herman Melville (Moby Dick)
~
The eerie black silence broke as
My thoughts are quiet, but not calm. There is a terror on the edge of the silence, a terror fed by my burning flesh and the stench of death.
Time races by in a haze. Nothing exists but the raw emotions I can’t escape, battering me against the shores of unconsciousness. I toss against my thoughts, reliving moments best left forgotten. Every feeling, every dream, every nightmare, displayed around me, strangling me. Choking any remaining life from my lungs.
Until, impossibly, the silence is broken.
“Ien, I’m here…I’m here.”
The voice raises a familiar longing that pushes through the mess in my mind.
“Please, Ien. You can’t leave me. Not now.”
Kiera.
Her voice fills the void inside, willing me back to existence. I fight the heavy emptiness bearing down on me as I concentrate only on my lungs, forcing them to respond. Every gulp of air I manage to take sets me aflame while wave upon wave of misery tears pieces of flesh from my body.
The floating feeling resumes and I attempt to push open my eyes. Nothing. Again I try, but they are too heavy to respond. I settle my thoughts and try again.
Over and over.
Wrestling with my body and mind, I will myself to surface from the abyss around me. A glimmer of light wedges itself into the dark expanse. At first, it’s nothing more than a meager speck, a taste of hope I try to embrace. The light grows as reds and oranges replace the inky blackness. I feel the landscape move and change around me.
“That’s right Ien, wake up. Come back to me.” The voice is softer than before, more distant. Desperately I grasp at the words, refusing to let them slip away.
My eyes open wider. Flames invade my senses and I feel my skin catch fire. The scream that erupts from my throat suffocates any hope of waking and I’m thrown into darkness once more, complete in its emptiness.
Meaningless time clicks by one agonizing moment at a time. No more sounds awaken me. No more voices prod me to consciousness.
Are you there, Kiera? Were you ever there?
Pain ebbs and flows until I’m too tired, too spent, to care anymore. Images stream past my eyes like a series of photographs, a record of my life. Some parts move quickly—early memories of my home, my first year at Chadwick Academy, meeting James. Others move with more deliberation, allowing me time to focus on the minutest of details—the way the stage lights shimmer across Kiera’s hair, the taste of her lips when she breathes ‘yes’, the exact color of her eyes when we said goodbye. I want to lose myself in the film playing out in front of me, let the thoughts of Kiera become my reality.
Until the pictures morph and change, turning my world bleak—Mother’s sharp tones carve into me as she yells my disappointments one syllable at a time, the quivering vein in her neck when she attempts to contain her fury, the look in her eyes when she commands me to leave Kiera. These memories linger too long, bringing with them a fresh wave of torment.
The landscape shakes and rolls as my thoughts of Mother intertwine with those of Kiera. Everything bends at odd angles, throwing me off balance. I am in the world around me, but not part of it.
I wrestle with the images, willing them into order. But no order comes. Only the constant rush of emotions meant to undo me woven with pictures I mean to escape. It’s all too much. Too real.
I shut my mind to everything, only to have my emptiness rise up and engulf me. And in this moment, a simple truth is revealed. This must
be
death…
5.
“There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.”
~Herman Melville (Moby Dick)
~
The eerie black silence broke as
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