Elsewhere
There was a body, ravaged, on the tile floor. There was another hanging in her burlap coffin from the bannister on the stairs. There were casualties, yes, but there was also the sun in the sky. William let out an exhausted breath and felt himself drop. It wasn’t unpleasant.
Yes, the light was overwhelming, but it had been gone for so long you can almost forget what it feels like, save for in the parts of you that crave this. For all William Holmes stands at the edge of some great unknowable Nothingness, he is a creature of light things- his purpose is to stand at that edge and insist it come no further.
Eventually, things become too bright, he closes his eyes and something, again, slips-
Earthbound
He opens his eyes and it takes a moment for him to focus. The world around him is different- very different. There was still the smell of ozone and the feeling that something had happened here but that was a familiar feeling. He’d been gone forever (He’d been gone for hours, but it was an eternity elsewhere- even if it was just a day.) And that’s when it comes back, in haze but in chunks.
His head is on Kiara’s lap and he’s smelling frosting and cake from across the room that has a texture so amazing it couldn’t possibly be from anything other than the gods or a German Chocolate thinktank and he can taste blood even though it isn’t quite there. It’s in his hair, though, possibly staining him strawberry blonde for a day or two-
(Then, of course, came sounds. Sounds of things that didn’t have the good sense to not follow him back. Sounds that he heard on the periphery, things that were either too defiant or too stupid to leave him be. Things that were waiting for him to slip up so they could take their moment and push back. It started, of course, with a scratching behind the walls, a scuttling. Laid atop the indistinct murmur of conversation that he could easily attribute to-)
The young man looked at Kiara’s face, his own gaze distant and exhausted but present none the less, “Auntie Em, Auntie Em!”
William closed his eyes again, if he didn’t have to deal with visual input he could parse through the sounds around him and focus on the ones he knew were from real, live, living people. He didn't have the energy for that. “Who’s here?”
There was a body, ravaged, on the tile floor. There was another hanging in her burlap coffin from the bannister on the stairs. There were casualties, yes, but there was also the sun in the sky. William let out an exhausted breath and felt himself drop. It wasn’t unpleasant.
Yes, the light was overwhelming, but it had been gone for so long you can almost forget what it feels like, save for in the parts of you that crave this. For all William Holmes stands at the edge of some great unknowable Nothingness, he is a creature of light things- his purpose is to stand at that edge and insist it come no further.
Eventually, things become too bright, he closes his eyes and something, again, slips-
Earthbound
He opens his eyes and it takes a moment for him to focus. The world around him is different- very different. There was still the smell of ozone and the feeling that something had happened here but that was a familiar feeling. He’d been gone forever (He’d been gone for hours, but it was an eternity elsewhere- even if it was just a day.) And that’s when it comes back, in haze but in chunks.
His head is on Kiara’s lap and he’s smelling frosting and cake from across the room that has a texture so amazing it couldn’t possibly be from anything other than the gods or a German Chocolate thinktank and he can taste blood even though it isn’t quite there. It’s in his hair, though, possibly staining him strawberry blonde for a day or two-
(Then, of course, came sounds. Sounds of things that didn’t have the good sense to not follow him back. Sounds that he heard on the periphery, things that were either too defiant or too stupid to leave him be. Things that were waiting for him to slip up so they could take their moment and push back. It started, of course, with a scratching behind the walls, a scuttling. Laid atop the indistinct murmur of conversation that he could easily attribute to-)
The young man looked at Kiara’s face, his own gaze distant and exhausted but present none the less, “Auntie Em, Auntie Em!”
William closed his eyes again, if he didn’t have to deal with visual input he could parse through the sounds around him and focus on the ones he knew were from real, live, living people. He didn't have the energy for that. “Who’s here?”