Part 1: The Fringe
This is not a journal, and cannot be accessed by others IC. This is purely for me to write out something for Anairith.
This is not a journal, and cannot be accessed by others IC. This is purely for me to write out something for Anairith.
When she regained her senses, she expected nothing but darkness. Too many times had she visited this space and there was nothing - not a light nor shape, not a gasp or breeze. Each venture was its own experiment and, perhaps, a silent plea - to return back to that place where experience had truly began. The shape of reality had never been clearer than when she saw it for the first time, and all it took...
All it would take, every time - was to flirt with death.
She'd been shown the way once before, and sought to pave the path on her own many times since. Just a handful of words had changed everything about how she viewed life, or how the Dark Side tasted when she immersed herself in it fully. Some say that desperation and fear of death are the points in which one finds the greatest, most surreal of strength in the Force. No... There was no desperation here. No fear. Just a blurred line between life, death... and Death.
Where was this place, exactly? This emptiness, where sensation is absent and time has stopped?
The borderland, where your last breath is still dying in your chest and your heart has stopped screaming. Where fear has died, but acceptance has not yet sank its claws in fully. She'd no intention of dying here, and she was in control - this was a calculated experiment, and one she'd performed all too many times before. Perhaps the control was to blame for the failure of her past experiments. The absence of desperation and fear had perhaps softened her too much, taken away her edge... an edge that she might still need to-...
Sensation.
In this liminal space, she could feel her 'eyes' open, at last. Even so, she could see very little. Only a limitless expanse of darkness that stretched in every direction, and the rippling surface beneath her - like water. A cold feeling settled in her gut for a moment as she became acutely aware with all of her senses where she was, and she braced herself quietly against the water surface on which she was perched. That surface stretched and strained as the surface tension threatened to rip beneath her.
So far, so good. A cold plunge could prove quite deadly - and that's where her precious control would keep her safe. It'd been a while since she got even this far, and still... it wasn't far enough. Not even close.
Her gaze directed itself upward, as if seeking something in the darkness that stretched endlessly above and around her. There used to be stars here. Glimpses of light that flickered far away, carrying ethereal threads that she could touch. Feel. Tug.
She could remember vividly how it felt to hold them, the last time she managed to get here, to this space outside of reality, the borderlands between life and oblivion. Where the past, present and future can meet... Can. The last time she'd seen those threads, she'd been drowning. Perhaps it's a strange thing to celebrate, but when she'd been pulled out of the icy waters that time... she'd been jubilant, as soon as she came to.
To reach and to touch something not meant to be touched - it's unlike anything she could describe. Yet, now, she'd only clawed her way as far as the threshold. There were no threads to reach out to and touch, only the thin film beneath her that prevented her plunge into Death itself. The pull of oblivion was stronger than she dared to challenge, and so - she was careful, and remained carefully perched on its surface.
She knew well enough that she couldn't stay here long. Her time was already running out, judging by the tension that built in her chest. Still... this was progress. She'd have to evaluate her thoughts again - her measured approach, and the control she insisted on having. Perhaps she'd been too careful, and that's why she'd not reached any further in all her experiments of late.
Well... this'd have to do, for now.
Her eyes closed again. It didn't make much difference - from darkness to darkness, though she knew that she'd wake with a start soon. It'd hurt. Resuscitation always did.