Deathdream #11

She hit the ground - rolling, tumbling, sliding. Bouncing to a stop, she thought the experience really ought to hurt more than it actually did. Sitting up, her head spinning, she once more took stock of her surroundings. This time she found herself in a cobbled alley. It was twilight, and everything around her was grey and fuzzy, including the sky. Leaning back against the lumpy stone wall behind her, she regarded those on either side, stretching away into the gloom, trying to catch her breath.


Using the wall behind her to lever herself to a standing position, she dusted herself down, and shook her head to clear it. The walls extended to just above head height, with various bits of other walls and roofs visible above this.

Then it hit her. She had sat up facing in the same direction that she had been travelling, yet she had sat back to rest against a wall behind her. Purly's words returned:

"...Your mind's closing stuff off as you go. You can only go forward. If you go back, they'll have you..."

Cautiously, she leaned towards the wall that closed off the end of the alley, and placed her ear to it. Her eyes widened as she heard those same unsettling sounds she'd heard behind the wall in the room with Purly. They were quieter, sounded further away than they had, but they were still, unmistakeably, there. Straightening up, she began to think.

So. Space seemed to mean little here. She had no idea how far or how long she had travelled through that void to reach this alley. However, she had vague memories of floating there for some time. It had been utterly black, and she'd had no sense of movement, though she had certainly arrived in the alley at some speed. But perhaps there was no air in there to create wind to batter her face and tug at her clothes? She shied away from this thought, however, since that would mean that she had been travelling through a vacuum. Yet she had not suffered the effects of depressurisation. The saliva in her mouth had not boiled, and she had not blacked out. At least, she believed she had not. The blackness in that place, though, was so profound, that she wondered if she would even have been able to tell. But she seemed to recall a coherent chain of thought, even if she could no longer say what any of the links in that chain had been. Perhaps she had only been unconscious and dreaming? But she dismissed that idea, because....

The ground trembled. Just a little, but she felt it. Quickly pressing her ear back to the wall, adrenaline began to flood her system. Her heart rate and breathing increased as her fight or flight instinct kicked in. The sounds were clearer. Closer. Fighting was not an option, certainly not yet. She had no idea what "they" were, but she most certainly did not want to meet "them".

She chose flight.

.