Moonchild

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I tried opening my eyes, but I was unable to succeed. If I had succeeded then I wouldn't feel so alone. It seemed as though my loneliness was my only company. It felt as if I had forgotten how to breathe, and sure enough I felt my body drowning in the peach-black void again. The realisation that this wasn't a nightmare like other times helped me suck in some strength to remember the steps in situations like these.

    'One deep breath.'

    I began doing so, but then froze in what seemed like a moment, when I realised that a whispering voice said the three words. My eyes roamed my surroundings but, as I saw nothing but the thick veil of blackness, I breathed in slowly, and exhaled.

    I felt the pressure of gravity pulling me towards the groundless planet of my thoughts. With terrible effort I managed to count to three – something I used to do whenever I had a breakdown or a panic attack.

    One.

    Two.

    Three.

    'One more breath, Lucas.'

    Again, I started doing so but froze when I realised that it was the whispering voice talking. Before I had a chance to breathe, I began to wonder if the voice I just heard was in fact a voice in my mind, or rather a sick joke my mind conjured for messing with me. Confused as I was, I pressed my thoughts down and breathed in again, and out anyway.

    'Breath again, Lucas,' the voice sounded terrified now, 'come on, now. Slowly.'

    The thoughts, that always found a way to sneak up on me during my nightmares, found a way once more. Questions were casted in my mind's starless galaxy, questions that I had no answers to. I started to breathe in as if responding to the voice's instruction in doing so, although I was pretty sure the voice was in a higher pitch than previous times – in other situations where I had panic attacks, I would think of the usual steps in coming back to reality or I would hear a deep calm voice, similar to mine, that would also help me snap back to reality. Who's there? I wanted to whisper, but I breathed in and out again before doing so.

    'Focus, Lucas,' the disembodied voice said, 'one more breath.'

    The moment I started to breathe again everything seemed to come rushing back to me: I saw the crow. I still felt the way my body crumbled and froze, and right after my temperature almost thawed out it had dropped towards an iceberg's temperature again. I remembered that instantly, and now the tip of my nose began to freeze. My heart pounded in my chest, cold sweat was dripping from my forehead, and the hair rose at the back of my neck. The crow had my half-moon keyring, dangling from its beak.

    'Lucas?' the whispering voice said.

    The moment I heard my name again, my heart dropped instantly. I heard it say my name again a few times before, but now the voice sounded even more familiar.

    With my eyes closed, I let the voice to guide me.

    I remembered I felt my whole face turning cold, but not the rest of my body. And even though I refused to walk away from what I saw, I could feel a soft warmth somewhere behind me. Someone was standing behind me, protecting me or blocking me. My eyes were locked on the half-moon keyring dangling, and with every swing it did in the crow's beak, in a sort of hypnotic way of a rhythm, I felt myself falling into the black void, while two rushing objects were grabbing each of my weight from my armpits and I came to rest softly on the ground.

    'Lucas,' the voice said in a whisper, 'can you hear me?'

    Pani spoke in my ear in calm and warm tones that I knew not possible for a human being to use. I felt the weight of the world on my eyes and I couldn't open them.