The Anima [completed]

11.

11.

Time is a strange thing. No one truly knows if it even exists. It is only a concept, a thing which makes what happens to us plausible, explainable. Without the concept of time, we cease to exist. For what are we without it? What is our purpose without time? The truth is we don't have a true purpose without time, and that is why we have created it. There is nothing more meaningless than timelessness. If we just simply lived and died without a simple explanation as to why life ends, we wouldn't be able to mentally process the outcomes without falling into insanity.

And that was exactly what I was doing. Falling. Maybe not into insanity, but into something. Because time in my mind has ceased to exist. There were flashes of light behind my eyelids, the only indication that I wasn't dreaming being that I could smell and taste things too. Strange things. Lemon and saffron, dirt and juice, wet dog and fried beans. It was all making my stomach churn as I laid paralysed, eyes refusing to open, on some kind of bed or soft surface. I wanted to scream that I was awake, but there was something in my mouth, keeping my lips open. Not only had I lost time, slipping through my limp fingers like a falling glass, I had lost control.

Humans are nothing without control. Losing it means losing everything, losing life itself. Within our lives, we found ourselves constantly battling others and ourselves for control. It may be control over money, control over decisions, control over our formal selfs, but it is always control. And in some shape or form, it is always control over death we seek.

And there it is. Death. It all circles back.

The knowledge that hangs over us all like a swinging gutted goat. We can hear it, smell it, scene and feel it, right above us. Sometimes, we may even be touched by it, or by drops of falling blood, only to shake it off and continue on with our lives, ignoring the cold and lifeless thought that hangs above us all.

But in this world, there was only life.

I started up with a jolt, a cough, and then something flew from my throat and I was breathing-gasping for air.

A blaring white light forced my eyelids to squint and I covered my eyes with my hands. The bed dropped at my side, the thin blanket on my legs shifting, and a warmth spread through one of my arms.

"You're okay, you're okay. I'm here." Alvar's voice was soft and gentle, his hand moving up and down my arm in an attempt to sooth me. I blinked rapidly and slowly the room came into focus.

The white walls of an infirmary shone back at me. It was smaller than the one the Fae treated Lucius in, only enough room for the single bed I laid on and a few cabinets in the corner. Alvar's hair was a wild mess of curls around his eyes and behind his ears and a deep line was drawn between his eye brows. He leaned back and sighed as I finally brought my gaze back to him.

"What happened?" I scared myself with the sound of my voice, which was scratchy and deep, like  a cat had scratched a long claw down the length of my throat.

But as I spoke the question, every thing came back to me. The Shadow horse, the performance, the man at the table, and the dream. I didn't even know if that is what I should have called it, but something inside me told me not to ask Alvar about any of it. Not the horse, not the dream and not the blackout.

"You passed out after your performance. You hit your head pretty hard, you've been unconscious for a few hours." He answered briefly, pulling his hand away from me.

I shifted in the bed, and realised I had been undressed and cleaned; the makeup and glitter dress gone, replaced with a loose white dress.

"Did you...?"