Into Ashes: Act II

Eyes open. Halfway. Head pounding like a drum. Can’t move. The horizon, still orange and sideways, shudders. The side rails of a wooden cart blocks my view. Everything shakes and rumbles as a cart, with my corporeal self aboard, trundles across the ground. I can’t see what pulls the cart. I can't see where the cart is going. I can’t see who or even what else has become cargo. All I know is the horizon, sweeping from left to right. I can’t tell if it’s morning or evening.

Fade to black.

Eyes open halfway. A dark sky of stone above. No energy. No feeling. Only a splitting pain in my head, coldness in my legs. My body lay on its back. The stone sky rumbles overhead. Dark.. Moist.. A drop of water falls from the ceiling and lands on my forehead. A solitary glow lights the way ahead.

Fade to black.

Eyes open again. Blurry. Head, continuing to pound. No energy to move. Only fogged vision and muffled ambiance.

My body is tossed into a dark and stony alcove. Voices chatter, figures move about as my body rolls to a stop, head facing towards a wide open entrance. Two orange figures of Equines approach. Their voices grow louder but no less distorted as the distance closes. One of them lowers a grate of metal bars down over the entrance. Slam! Latch, latch! The figures walk away, the sound of metal jiggling fades with them as they leave my sight. Their voices are heard. Both male, speaking to one another. I fight the urge to fade again into the returning black. My eyelids waver up and down as I combat the heavy pull of exhaustion. But just as before, I eventually fail and once again succumb to the welcoming, painless embrace of the dark.