Are you falling, floating? No, you're dragging yourself across a rocky pathway, belching thin dark liquid that runs down your chin and is wicked away to nothing. Your slippery skin turns cool and dry in the muted air.
Your legs gain weight and plop down behind you. Startled, you scramble forward on all fours until you stumble upright into the center of a strange copse.
More diluted dark liquid spills from your nose and coasts off your philtrum like a ramp. It drizzles soundlessly into your cupped hands, where it whicks away like butane. Golden refracted light flitters around you, but the sky above you is cloudless. It fades to a dark horizon that hugs a strangely artificial fog, more akin to a white flame than mist. A farce of canopy domes the copse. Cartoonish leaves cast hard edged swaying shadows that glow blue on their fringes. Cross sections of meadow grass bobs on either side of the path that cuts through the opening. A darkened trail behind you slick with that strange liquid fizzles back into the dark beyond.
Your head begins to hurt as you realize the totally silent forest now roars tremendously with deep wind. You hear some chittering creature beyond the fog's edge and back into the total center of the strange passage for safety. It's warm here, unlike the rest of the clearing that has a temperature so mild you can't even feel it.
The frightening sounds never truly stop, despite how long you wait. You slouch in your own frame and stand motionless, hypnotized in disquietude. Minutes feel like seconds, and uneasy hours give way to days. Better play it safe and bide until something else changes. Your feet grow heavier. Your joints harden to concrete. Waiting in this fake little world, nothing has changed. Nothing can change… But what if you moved, and couldn't get back to the warm spot? Better play it safe and bide-…
You're shot with a bolt of terror at the dark delusional track of thought. You stand up straight and feel a crystalline shell shatter off your back and shoulders. How long have you been coated with all of this weight? You pluck your feet from the ground with a satisfying shatter, and walk forward down the path.
The edge is water, you walk into it and start floating up helplessly. You scramble back to safety, but this isn't safe.
Prepare to plunge.
