Untitled Novella

By: Eric Franzo

Prologue:

Eyelids fluttered to life, lifting the veil from a deep and undisturbed sleep. Where most opened eyes naturally met colourful landscapes and vivid imagery, his met only darkness. It was a hauntingly thick black, the type a child dreads when light escapes a quiet house on a stormy eveningwhen the scrape of a branch becomes the clawing of a beast. His pupils struggled in vain to siphon even a droplet of light from the surrounding darkness. A hushed dripping sound quietly echoed around him, giving the faintest of hints as to where he might be. As he weakly lifted his head, the blackened air crept in to touch his heart, causing it to clench and constrict painfully. Fear was settling in. An instinctual fear of the unknown. Air entered his lungs in forceful bursts and his head, as if gaining a sudden weight, fell back sharply onto what he now discovered to be cold hard stone. He grimaced. A lump was sure to be surfacing on his head soon, but fortunately it didnt appear to be moist. No moistness meant no blood, and for that he felt fortunate. Wiggling slightly, he began to move around, gaining a sense of his body. Small protrusions on the surface of the stone poked at his back, like disembodied fingers whose tips waited patiently for movement. It was a troubling thought. More than that, it was a thought born from the uneasy feeling of another presence in the room. Hello? he said as he sat up slowly. The words rebounded back hollowly in response. His voice felt strange on his tongue, as if it hadnt been used in ages. But this wasnt a merely a lack in practice. He felt a strong disconnect from his voicehe hesitated to even claim it as his own. When something like a burst is heard from a distance, the sound may take some time to greet your ears. So it was with his voice, except the greeting never came. It was like seeing the event but feeling no audible connection to it. This, more than anything since waking, frightened him the most.

He pressed his hand against his lower back. It was a throbbing ache. His whole body was a checkerboard of aches black spots were dull while the red spots remained painful and fierce. A brief moment passed where he sat completely still. It wasnt a stillness of alarm or fright, but one of profound confusion and dismay. This was wrong. This place was wrong. There was a dampness that crawled along his skin and a chill in the air that bit at his cheeks he knew that wherever he was held none of the familiar comforts of a well used home. He let out a breath. Where am I, he thought as a thread of pain sewed up his side. An audible groan escaped his lips, and he began tapping lightly at his surroundings in a steady, almost drum-like rhythm, hoping he might gain some traction as to his whereabouts. He felt closely around himself at first, spreading wider as he went along. Tap, tap. Tap. And then, nothing. His hands met cool naked air. In a situation like this, with eyes as blind as mole, using just his hands seemed somewhat crude in nature. So he carefully clamped his feet together with all the careful grace he could muster. For the shortest of distances they rubbed against the dark surface, only to meet the same fate as his hands. His feet dangled weightlessly over the edge. Had he the means to look at himself, he would have perhaps laughed at the spectacle before him. There he was, a man lying on his side with hands and feet outstretchednot unlike what one might expect of a dead animal on the side of the road. Before he had time take this distant perspective into consideration, a series of thoughts occurred to him, gripping his mind like a clenched fist. What if there was no ground? If he slid off, would he fall to his abrupt death? What if he was some place safe, but had developed a debilitating blindness? Was it a temporary blindness? The last thought at least gave him some semblance of hope, however small and fleeting. Its only natural for the mind to get caught up in the harsh winds of panic. It struggles to stem a fierce, quickly approaching wind, and find truth and reason in any situation. But right before it gives, on the cusp of failure, it unknowingly allows a sneaking fear to enter, like a deceivingly gentle tuft of air brushing lightly against a cheek. It whispers vile thoughts until the storm pounces, twisting and roaring in howling delight.

Before he was lost to the storm, he knew he had to act, and act quickly, however spontaneous or rash in may seem. In retrospect, the bump on his head may have had something to do with the hastening of his actions. It would be nice to say that he calculated his next action with careful deliberation. But this wouldnt be the truth. In fact it would be far from the truth, and in this case, the truth is better than the lie. So he rolled no longer on his stone bed, he tumbled into the awaiting unknown. And the fear loosened its grip. *** It was either a long or short way down depending on how you looked it. Compared to the height of a bed, the drop was considerably farther, but compared to a vast chasm of insurmountable depth, this was like falling into a shallow pond. That isnt to say it wasnt painful. It was profoundly painful. He left shoulder reeled from the impact of a single sharp stone. Rather than seeing the blood fall, he could only feel it slide down his arm and drip slowly onto the ground. The tear was akin to what a fish must feel as its wrongly hooked in the side as a fisherman tugs it along, relishing in his sport. Darkness was his pole, whirling him onward in hope of finding light. He knew if he could find it, then perhaps some hint could be ciphered from his surroundings. And so he began his searchnot like the heros of stories before him, proudly walking into a sea of peril and unknown with a brisk wind hailing mightily at their backbut rather on his hands and knees, crawling like a blind beggar in search of a meager morsel of food. It was an odd sort of beginning, but somehow it fit. And somehow, he would find the answers he desperately needed.