That cold tightening that you feel inside when you're younger, when you're a kid and you don't have it all set straight. That pulling and twisting where your chest feels too huge to hold all thats inside, when your heart gets weak and doesn't seem to pump right. Where it hurts to live. That kind of pain. The internal pain, the ones you deny, but make it hard to walk.
Yeah...That one...
Where was I and what happened? I could move my fingertips but sight felt wrong. Seeing was wrong, part of the wrong place, the wrong part of the brain. The total inability to place it in the right area. Sort it out, make it into something understandable. I felt ice cold, frozen solid. Where was I? What happened? I couldn't place the eyes or the memory in their correct slots. Maybe they were mixed up, backwards, pegs that fit into eachothers holes but left gaps that just weren't right. No, no way...I could feel my skin, exploring inch over inch with my mind. I was all here. But the cold wasn't right. The blindness didn't feel right...
I needed to control this somehow...place it into order. I couldn't concentrate too hard on it. It was like the whispering Mako left in the corners of your mind. Try to work on it too hard and escape it and it tightened, like a fingertrap. Think. But not down that way. Don't think about controlling. Just get the knowns. Like the first time.
I am Zachery Knightblade. Soldier first class. I know that. People called me Zack. I know that. Things have to go slow when you're floating down these tubes, the lights flashing white and black around you like you've been dropped too fast down a waterslide. The stomach lurching up into your mouth is natural. The twitching you feel along your bones, under your muscles that pulls at them and scratches. You want it to shut up, you want to throw yourself across the room and scream and panic. Beating inside the too-large chest like the heart of a bird. Flighty. Calm down, you can't listen to that. Let it keep twitching like that or else it's going to break out and you won't be able to find your way back.
Feel the sitting ghost? It holds you down and extends over any part you feel ready to move. You think you can call out and then it drops down on your throat too, and all that's left is inside you. That's where you have to go to get out of this. Inside. You have to keep thoughts from running astray.
Alright...pain...I dug my nails into my shoulder and didn't know. When I took them out, they stung and sent shivers up my spine. Alright...Alright...What was the first thing they told us before, during the first time we went through this. To hold onto what you know, and pull yourself out that way. Hold onto the rope you can see in front of you and pull yourself forward. Gradual. When you open your eyes you won't be where you were before. Just keep remembering and knowing. You know where you are. You know where you are. You know who you are.
Where am I? It's time to look around, because the more you wait, no matter how much you want the pegs to rearange themselves, they won't.
It's cold, nails digging into my eyes. I didn't expect that, christ, I started screaming and a stream of bubbles shot out around the corners of my mouth. This didn't happen before. This wasn't before, was it? It might have been. DAMN! Stop thinking that way or we'll be stuck like this. I. Not we. I. Remember! There's something around my face. Move a hand and lines through the water...it's not water...they start moving too. Faceplate. Don't move it, there's a hose leading upwards. This must be giving air. It's the glow that throws it all off, the glow and the cold...they've got IVs running in and feeds running out. Do I even want to know who they are?
It must feel like there's holes in my head...
I can see my hands, now, glowing in the green. I know they must be mine because I'm alone here. I know this, add it to the list of things. Another thing I know. I'm not always like this. It's these situations that bring it out. Uncertainty isn't what I do. Deffinitly not.
It's like walking on a sprained ankle. You bear the pain or else you may as well have it for the rest of your life, it inhibits so much. Yeah, I remember before. But they didn't leave us in this cold place. No, before it was one shot and you spent the day in a hospital bed. People were there to help. I brush hands out around slowly, I don't want to tear at these strings and wires. It could cause problems. To me or anything else. Just be careful for now, be careful. Find out something to know for certain. My fingertips brushed the edges and that's now a certainty. I'm held inside, and the area's small. Moving slowly still. Press the palms of both hands against the surface and move closer. It's warmer towards the edge, there must be something outside that doesn't freeze so...
It's murky but the surface is concave. It's like judging someone sneaking up behind you from the reflection in a dirty spoon. Hard to see through and this isn't helping. Put a name to it, make it known. Make it a known, stop unknowing. Mako. This is Mako, this is what it feels like to have it washing through you. You don't have mako inside you, Mako plays with your insides. You belong to it. Not the other way around. You never control it, it just settles down and gets bored with you. Crunched feelings inside the chest. Thrashing, thumping, I grab at the pain but it doesn't go away. Not remotely. Through the frosty surface the twisted area outside takes an almost-shape. I feel sick trying to make sense of it all.
I see another glow, I feel another glow too. Not far at all. Suspended like snakes coming from a ceiling, underwater snakes, a seaweed net of metalics all holding up a body that arched with hands in front and feet bent behind like a downward fall in slow motion. iI know that body./i Hands around my face tilt it back at an angle that hurts until I'm looking up into a faceless void that remembers. Remembers the feeling of him against my back and him asking for help. It feels like fingerbones reaching down my throat and I don't throw up, not outside, but the world inside starts expanding. Too many memories, ones that aren't mine.
There's a clear spot in the glass around the silver mist they're trying to entwine me in. I swipe at it franticly and the snakes wrap and bite tighter and make the stream of bubbles shoot upwards again. Struck by the soundless screams the faceless one lets go and I drop. It's so cold. Through the clear spot the mist tries to close but I ignore the snakes and the cold and wave again. Wind starts knocking me about now. I'm stronger than that. Hands against the barrier, hands against the ice glacier I lock eyes with the floating shape.
In the far off green ice, frozen and clasped in wire hands, there's a movement of blonde waves backwards in the Mako blood. Between the branches of silver a light blue locks into me. I can feel the sounds of it inside rushing across the space and conjoining. We were supposed to avoid contact with others...
Others, what others? This is training, isn't it?
No, training was nothing like this, the memories start to clutter back into the small area below my throat and expand making the bird-heart pound faster and the river spiral with sadistic glee. I can see...
The training course was rough, but if we make sense of it, we can run it together, can't we?
This isn't supposed to happen, we were supposed to know how to avoid this, this is the biggest danger of it...Yeah, if we're careful though, we'll make it through. I've done it before, I'll guide you around. No problem, right? Hey, I promised to keep an eye on you and I will. No hard feelings.
Thanks...say...iWh/io ia/ire yiou/i?
Extending hands you can feel flesh to flesh, alive and warm. iI/i'm ZaiC/icilou/ikid/i. Nice to meet you. Have you ever seen the leaves like this before, this time of year?
No...Not many trees in the mountain. Nice though. I like fall.
Better hurry, or we'll be late for training.