▇▇▇ had been struggling for a long while in the empty darkness. When ▇▇▇ came to his senses, he had no clue as to where he was. His only functioning sense seemed to be his cognition, for these were the thoughts that he was thinking, and the only external sensation was that of being taken . Try as he might, and he had been trying for a while, he could not seem to orient himself.
Up. Down. What was left? What was right?
Eventually, ▇▇▇ stopped thinking.
▇▇▇ surrendered himself to the forces being acted upon him. He felt the empty void around him thickening and thinning. Pressing and pulling. He felt heavy. He felt light. At times he would feel heat. And then it would leave his side. In that emptiness, permanence seemed like a long forgone dream. There was nothing to get used to, for everything was continually changing.
In that surrender he persisted for a long while, and somehow, somewhen , time had begun to move again. The empty void surrounding him seemed to take shape, and it was rapidly thickening. ▇▇▇ instinctively braced himself, but the impact his spirit drew. The first and last thing he saw was specks of light - and they were the brightest things he since knew.
"James, James wake up!"
▇▇▇ stirred slowly from his slumber. He wanted to move, and it seemed nothing was restricting him, but he could not seem to bring himself to stand. His Journey had obviously taken a toll on him, and he was numb all over. Moreover, he could faintly make out voices calling out at him- but he could not make out what they were saying. It was foreign, and conveyed only agency. Agency that he lacked, agency he could not reciprocate. Before ▇▇▇ could do anything about it, darkness overtook him again.
When ▇▇▇ came to, it was in familiar silence-- eerie, familiar silence. There was no longer the roaring of beach waves in his eardrum.
