Something in the Nothingness
...what...
What was this?
...
...Where was... where was he?
...
It’s cold. Everything around him is dark, murky.
Or at least he thinks it is...
What’s left of his senses and conscious mind is muffled with thick swaths of cotton stuffing his brain. He can’t move, but isn’t exactly scared. The helplessness is oddly soothing. Any panic that might’ve tried to come from such a usually terrifying realization was outweighed by extreme confusion.
He feels weightless... almost floaty, in a weirdly heavy way.
Was this death? Was this how it felt to die? Was this... was this what Rosie had felt when she... she...
He hoped so.
It was almost nice, in a strange way. Suspended frozen in a void without any suffering or pain, any duties or tasks to fulfill. No more voices twisting his mind around like a pretzel or trying to shove it in a metaphorical blender.
If he stopped thinking for long enough, just sat and listened to the nothingness for the first time in... well... longer than he could remember... he could almost imagine that he was moving. Traveling steadily in the endless nothingness...
But... hold on...
That wasn’t his imagination, was it?
No, no... he was moving. Somewhere, somehow, and through no volition of his own. Through the fog clouding his awareness was a distinct feeling that he was moving.
Where on Earth was he going?
In all honesty, maybe that was the point: he wasn’t going anywhere on Earth. He’d been on the brink of death before and it’d almost felt like this. Although that time he mostly just felt incredibly weak and heavy for the relatively short time it spanned...
This felt different.
Yes, there was a weight in whichever unidentifiable direction he was going which seemed to shift the longer he paid attention, but he didn’t think he was as heavy as before.
Which way was he going?
Was he sinking?
He had been doing that with his machine before blacking out however long ago it was, after all. Maybe this was just his final scraps of awareness he was being granted before shoving off this mortal coil for good.
That probably might’ve confused him a little had his mind not sluggishly started drifting again.
He’d have to hit the bottom eventually, right? Wherever he was headed through the thick haze he was definitely moving quickly.
Distant sensation washed over his face in a way that was neither gentle nor painful. Something in the middle but definitely leaning toward a softer feeling. An odd tugging pulled at his back. Any attempt to move went unheeded by his body.
Some metal scaffold caught in his coat or on the actuators?
His body was being subtly tugged side to side in constant motion, but it was distinctly non-violent – at least he wasn’t aware of any pain from it. Sometimes it smoothed out into a straight line of motion. Other times it followed a more vigorous back-and-forth and felt faster. The longer he watched the more of a pattern is formed. Following each other in endless repeats.
It was almost soothing. Back-and-forth, and back-and-forth like a slow-swinging pendulum.
...
Now that he thought about it, where was his machine?
The almost blistering heat from the mini-star he’d drowned with was strangely absent at his back. If anything, some faraway piece of him was aware of being numb with cold. What dim warmth he could sense was directly beneath him.
What the hell was moving him?
Where was he going?
~*~~*~~~*~~~*~~*~
All movement ceased almost abruptly with lurching slides and his world spun intensely for a beat.
Did he fall somewhere? It didn’t feel very far...
Puffs of unnatural air faintly pass over his head in warm huffs, contrasting with the cool sensation from his hair. Low sounds bumped their way through the muffling in his ears along with the distinct feel of solid ground beneath his side.
Was this is the afterlife? Was that where he was being taken?
But why couldn’t he see or feel much of anything? Was this his fate: destined to be trapped within his mind with all the strange, distant sensations of life just beyond his fingertips?
Had he been more aware or able to move at all, he might’ve laughed at the irony behind such a fitting end. Though... the voices normally filling his head with their constant murmuring echoes were strangely silent.
Maybe the universe decided to gift him a small mercy after everything he’d done. To free him from the machine he’d built with his own two hands in the hope to live a dream...
His dream that’d become a nightmare...
Heaviness dragged at his back and brought his mind to the present, the twinges along his spine feeling far away and almost painless. He might’ve made noise, might not. But all sensations and stimuli paused for a long, long moment.
Or was it just the pure and simple lack of anything else that made it seem so long? Hell if he knew...
Regardless, nothing else came except the barely-audible sound of lurching scrapes that quickly silenced. Leaving him alone in the dark once more.
Though this darkness was heavier, somehow warmer too. Still a little floaty, but a lot more aware than he was in the first resting spot. He wasn’t sure why, but he liked this spot more than the first.
It felt... clear.
Open, somehow, over the constricting void from before...
Exhaustion pulled at what was left of his mind to earn a small inward sigh, ready and waiting for some rest. The darkness loomed over and around him, slowly moving to swallow him in its gaping maw.
In only a few moments he blacked out...
Calm, at peace, and unquestioning of the strange events having just transpired only moments ago.