The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 250

Chapter 250

Chapter 250: Hello Darkness

Darkness. Complete darkness.

I was floating, hovering in an utter reflectionless black. Whether I was drifting along or suspended in place, I couldn’t tell.

All knew was that there was nothing else—no sound, taste, smell, or touch in this sea of perpetual darkness.

It was peaceful at first. I felt like I was both nothing and everything at the same time. I felt like a tiny spec in a vast universe, yet I also felt like nothing else existed aside from myself.

However, as time passed, I recalled more of what I was. I was a human...with hands, feet, and a body.

Yet, I couldn’t feel anything. I tried curling my fingers and toes. I tried flaring my nostrils, opening my mouth. I couldn’t feel anything. I couldn’t even feel myself breathe.

Fear took hold quickly. It didn’t come in any physiological signs that I was accustomed to. No thumping of my heart, no quickening of my breath, no trembling of my body.

Hell, I wished I could feel it—anything to verify that something more than just my consciousness existed. But I was stuck here as time passed by with no way to keep track.

I tried everything to stay sane. I screamed, yet no sound came out. I tried biting off my own tongue yet there was no sensation.

I simply existed.

And I grew more and more mad with each subjective second that passed.

Insanity effervesced, spreading and covering every corner of my consciousness. However, the hallucinations that I expected, hoped for—wished for—never came. None of the symptoms of insanity could be materialized in a world with literally nothing else and a body that I wasn’t even sure I had, let alone felt.

I soon grew bored of the incessant fear, anxiety, dread, and paranoia that gripped at my insides...if I even had insides. Memories that felt like they were on the tip of my hypothetical tongue were never within reach for me to truly recollect.

Time passed but in a state of nothingness, it was hard to even guess whether it was going by fast or slow.

It was only when I felt a slight prickle on my...arm—yes, my arm—that I jolted out of my stupor.

I had felt something for the first time. A few moments later, I felt another prickle, this time one that spread across my chest. Those prickles soon escalated into sharp piercing pains but I didn’t care. Even pain was verifiable proof that I existed outside of my consciousness.

I waited for the next bout of pain. The feeling of scalding needles digging into each and every one of my pores would have driven me insane from the torment they caused but after the subjective eons of literal nothingness, I welcomed each and every increasingly agonizing round of burning, piercing pain across every millimeter of my body.

More excitingly, my vision began brightening until the void I was in turned lighter and lighter.

It might’ve been from the sheer pain I was in but as the white overtook more and more of my vision, I felt like I had experienced this once before.

That’s when it clicked.

No. No. Please don’t tell me I’m reincarnating again.

A wave of panic overtook me as I approached the hazy clouds of white.

My eyes shot open to see that my blurry gaze was level with the ground, my cheek pressed flat against a smooth, hard floor.

Immediately, I tried to move, trying to reassure myself that I was once again not a newborn. I couldn’t start over again, not now. There was too much left to do, so many people I had to protect. My mother, my sister, Virion, Tess, Sylvie.

Sylvie!

I struggled to even lift my head, the piercing surges of pain still encompassing all of my body.

This wasn’t a good sign.

My body felt foreign to me, heavy and stiff like wearing a suit of armor designed for a different—much larger—species.

I pried open my lips and forced a note from my throat. “Ah...Ahhh.”

The familiar clear baritone voice rang in my ear, filling me with some semblance of relief.

I gritted my teeth, and swallowed, sending a burning sting down my esophagus.

Teeth! I have teeth!

No longer fearing the possibility that I was once more an infant, I worked on trying to get myself off the ground.

Trying to lift my arms was the first major roadblock to my goal. I might as well have been trying to uproot one of the centuries-old trees in the Elshire Forest because my body wouldn’t budge. Instead, I was met with another wave of piercing pain across my entire body like someone was trying to massage me with a spiked mace that had been lit on fire.

After several attempts trying to—god forbid—lift my own body, and passing out several times from the pain that came after, I gave up.

Still, I was somewhat relieved by the pain. Not in a masochistic sort of way, but the fact that I could feel pain meant that my body might just be injured rather than completely paralyzed. And after all that time spent in everlasting darkness, the limited field of view I had in the room I was in was still a sight for sore eyes.

By the curved walls that ran across my field of vision, it seemed like I was in a large circular room. Smooth white pillars without a trace of decay held the ceiling up. A warm ethereal light glowed brightly from the sconces that lined up along the walls, spaced out evenly every few feet while familiar but indecipherable runes were etched in between them.

I pried my gaze away from the tantalizing lights and focused on the ground—or more specifically, what was on the ground.

Blood. Lots of it.

But the blood was dried brown and caked on the corners where the floor met the walls. It was hard to tell how long the walls and floors had been bloodied but as more and more areas of dried blood pools became visible the more carefully I looked, it seemed like this was some sort of grounds for injured people...or injured beasts.

I couldn’t tell how much time I had spent wallowing in grief and self-pity but I was abruptly jolted by the sensation of pinpricks running up my entire body. It was jarring, as if millions of insects were crawling all over me, beneath my skin. _{ƒreewebηoveℓ.com}