Coldness

A Story by Emma

A short story about a girl who wakes in an unfamiliar place.

Coldness.

I awoke with coldness all around me. Coldness from the hard damp surface I lay on. Coldness from the close proximity walls which I sensed in every direction. Coldness from the frozen air, lifeless, unmoving around me and coldness from the darkness which flooded into an endless invisible abyss of nothingness.

A shudder coursed through my tangled body as a million miniature feet, wearing ice carved high heels seemed to walk over my bare skin in the darkness. Damn I needed warmth. I began frantically rubbing my hands up and down my mud covered arms, desperate for the friction to give a flicker of heat on my icy skin.

This new world was mute except for gentle distortion of airflow as something, somewhere moved. The movement was brief, but I felt it. The ripple of air travelled like a wave through the space I was trapped inside, gently lifting a loose strand of hair off my brow, then it evaporated and I was alone.

My eyes flitted around the space questioning where had the light gone? I pulled my knees into my chest and trembled as I tried to remember the light, the light in the woods. I thought of the woods which were so unusually bright and warm that I had been tempted to stroll inside, despite the rapidly falling night. I remembered being drawn by the warm glow which gently pulsated through the tall, black shapes of the pine trees. I remembered stumbling and tripping, the snag of brambles and the trickle of blood down my knee. Then there, in the woods I saw the source, its power, a towering inferno of light reaching the canopy then abruptly stopping to hide its presence from the rest of the world. It felt so warm and inviting, wanting me to touch it. I remember my fingers reaching and feeling its warmth tingling down to the tips of my toes. There was a light before the darkness had taken me, but taken me where?

I could no longer smell the moist earth of the wood floor or the sweet smell of the sticky pine sap, now everything smelt of rust. With the lightest touch I brushed my fingers across the surface of the floor to feel for imperfections, for bubbles, corrosion. For the powdery feel of orange iron in hope of finding the rust, but I didn’t find any of these things, instead I felt something the consistency of jam, a large puddle congealed on the floor near my head. My fingertips followed the trail to my temple. I winced as I touched the cut and had my fears confirmed, the smell was blood, my blood.

Something moved again! I tried desperately to track the movement through the darkness, but as quickly as it came it vanished, leaving behind only the wake of its motion through the air. I had to move before it came back. Tentatively I reached out my fingertips to search for the walls of my cage, but I was surprised to find there was nothing. My instincts were wrong. There were no walls, no bars, but there was something much worse, a void. Where I could feel no edge or limit to, there was nothing to keep me in or it out.

Inch by inch I uncurled my body, pushed myself painfully onto my knees, then while stretching up the twisted fingers of one hand, to check for danger, I rose to my unsteady feet. My body felt vacant, unconnected and uncertain, as if all the blood had seeped out of the gash on my forehead leaving my brain confused by its starvation and my heart pounding in desperation to keep me alive. Everything was cold and numb except for my head, which felt as if someone had placed a large pan on it and now they persisted in repeatedly smacking it with a large metal mallet.

Step by step I turned in an attempt to gain my bearings, searching for any break in the darkness, but no glimmer of light could be seen. How was I to decide which way to go when every way was identical, my mind already confused and doubting itself and did it even matter? Was there a way out? I had to try.

Not daring to make a sound I stretched out my arms and began to walk forward. Raising my foot was easy, it meant I was making progress, moving possibly closer to my escape, but each time I lowered my toes the small internal devils poked their spears into my heart and the hairs all over my body stood to attention. Would one of these steps be my last, a step to close to the edge? Would the darkness ever end or would the wisp of movement in the air return to me?