Amortal Song

5. Down, down, down

Calypso

The wind pulled the scream out of my open mouth, the ice-cold stinging against my face like thousands of jabs with needles burrowing into my skin, my hair whipping around me so fast as we tumbled downwards.

Down.

Down.

Down.

Panic was coursing through me and I had lost feeling of my hands from the col, not being able to feel my clammy hand still clutching Arden.

Arden.

The name whispered in my mind and I looked at him, making sure he was suffering through this nightmare with me, that I wasn't alone in this.

He wasn't there.

I frantically gazed down at my right hand, the one that he had been holding in his at the beginning of this fall, and let out a sigh of relief that was sucked from my mouth- he was still there, or at least the outline of his arm, his hand clutched in mine just as fiercely with his thumb running over my frozen knuckles.

I couldn't see his face, only a dark shadow that was almost impossible to see in the infinite darkness and I had to squint to even make out where his head was, but I could sense the same tense energy I knew I was holding coursing through him. Together we were linked in this, anxiety and panic, the nervousness of what was to come, and the hope that maybe we would get out of this darkness.

I didn't need to see him or hear his voice to know that.

Swallowing the growing urge to hurl as the air seemed to grow thinner as we hurtled further into the abyss, I forced my fingers to move and squeeze his hand, wondering how his hand could be so warm even in the dropping temperatures. My mouth felt dry and hoarse, the contents of my dinner rising into my throat and filling it with a sickening feeling.

When would this be over?

I was putting my chances of survival in the hands...of someone, I didn't really know or trust to get me out of it.

Am I really that stupid? The voice echoing in my mind asked and I used it as a grateful distraction from the emptiness that surrounded our falling bodies, the sudden whispers that seemed to rouse as we fell deeper into the heart of the realm like nightmares abounding, the things lurking in the shadows playing their dirty mind-tricks on me and striking a feeling of doom down to my shaken core.

To say I was scared was an understatement.

I was petrified with fear.

The wind whistled in my ears and I swore something grabbed my frozen ankle, raking nails down my leg but I couldn't feel the feeling of blood draw if there was any. Another hand seemed to claw at my back, horror-like demons seeming to attack me. I could only suck in the icy air and close my eyes, praying silently for the nightmare to be over.

I gripped Arden's hand tighter as black spots danced in my vision, the air grievingly thin as if we were at the bottom of a swimming pool, much like the one in another life. My ears popped, the wind stinging them, but I kept holding on, praying for it to be over.

Maybe if I prayed hard enough the gods, the cruel deities that Arden spoke highly of, would listen and stop it, stop everything.

When would this end?

Soon, a voice, not my own whispered.

And then, I collapsed onto a cold floor.

*

*

*

"Wake up," a voice hissed in my ear, shaking my body.