storageee

[ninazu]

BURN
BRIGHT

// takes place 8 hours after the conclusion to this thread

Cold, not the painful cold of freezing temperatures, not the chill of a harsh breeze, but a numb cold, a pervasive shiver hooked into the skin. The numb traversed down to the bone, the heart, the brain. If she even had any of those; her senses had died in a haze of bloodloss, and they remained dark. No, not dark, for dark implied light, color, vision.

In the void, there was no darkness, no grey, no color. The bleak monotone slipped over everything, from the tastelessness to the toneless not-sound. A soupy concoction one part void, three parts directionless, and a dash of disorientation mixed in as your soul spins aimlessly down the spiral to oblivion. The lack of sensory input canceled the hallucination known as “time.”

Thoughts drifted in and out of focus. These gradually lost their shape and color as the eternity and not-eternity wore on Ninazu’s psyche. Ninazu? She grabbed the name. Held it tight. Repeated the word in her mind over and over and over, until the word lost its meaning and she relearned its significance over and over and over.

Abruptly, the cold ended and she dissolved, like boiling water thrown on a nightmare. She breathed hot air, body convulsing, and thrashed. But the thrashing translated to twitchy toes and blinking eyelids to her lioness body, as her mind screamed and writhed. The comfort of the numb, where was her cold, how could she be she?

Ninazu gasped and wheezed, sitting up all too suddenly and yet slow as molasses, her jaw working around an object until copper taste drowned out the staleness of her gums. Her tongue, she chewed on her tongue. Her golden eyes opened, blinking rapidly, until she remembered how to see and the world focused.

Home. Her soul managed to navigate home, in the hut she shared with Stryker. How? Her memories blanked after Roxanne killed her serval body. Even the memories in the void faded and blurred to an uncomfortable grey. She chewed on her tongue and shivered, golden eyes closing, swaying on her paws.

Her fire licked down her neck with its comforting warmth. Green and yellow reflected in her golden eyes, and she stared, uncomprehending, at her pawpads beyond the flaming haze.

The fire’s warmth cradled her body. But the cold nestled in her chest and refused to thaw.

© MADI