Evelyn Earth Part 27

It wasn’t at all like the first time. The first time I had fallen into the thick mass of pitch black, I had been embraced by it like a long lost daughter. This time it felt as if I were forcing myself into its heart. As I ran, my steps began to take on a lethargic quality until I was wading through the mist, exerting more and more energy until I felt drained. I decided I had come far enough and so I stopped.

Everything around me moved and shifted, but it didn’t induce dizziness, but rather made me feel at peace. I was in a dark cocoon, which I had to now figure out how to absorb. I spread my arms out to my sides and let my fingers feel the almost liquid mass at it slipped in an out of my reach. I took a deep breath and watched as tendrils of the darkness were inhaled into my mouth. This wasn’t the way though, I couldn’t stand here and try to breathe in such a large force of power, I needed it to rush into my body quickly and surely.

Sebastian would know what to do, I thought to myself, maybe he was already in here with me trying to steal the power out from under me. I creased my brow and concentrated, there was no way in hell that I would let him beat me to it.

I closed my eyes and awakened the Mother’s vengeance that was already inside me. It uncoiled from the base of my stomach and like a curious serpent wound its way around my body tasting the thick black mass around me. I felt it within my bones, the moment when the two powers recognised each other. The energy I had come to understand surged into my open palms and utilised them as an anchor whilst it sped out from within me to shepherd in the new power.

My muscles groaned under the strain of such sheer force. I was at once being replenished and ripped apart and I couldn’t stand to be silent. I let out the wildest screams that I had ever heard come out of anyone’s mouth. They went on and on for too long, long enough for my mouth to go dry and my voice to turn hoarse.

 My eyes had been forced open by the potency of the darkness and they acted as another source of entry for the energy. My mind reeled with the sensory overload, but throughout all the pain I heard once more the voice that had spoken to me the very first time I had come in contact with the Mother’s liquid vengeance. It whispered in my ear; “Aahlioo…deehandi roh oh oh. Seehmp ehmp ehmp oohri teh eh eh…”

I struggled to make sense of what it meant, but having to try and focus my mind at the same time as enduring this physical onslaught of pain proved to be impossible. As the last of the power rushed into me my mind went numb and with the last whispered words I fell down, senseless and helpless.

I heard voices they were coming from far off, but close enough for me to understand that they were arguing. I struggled to open my eyes, but they were heavier than I remembered and it took a lot of effort just to crack them apart. Light seeped into my retinas, hurting me. I had to close my eyes again. This time red, orange and yellow bruises bloomed on the inside of my eyelids—the effects of bright light.

The voices rose in decibels, higher and higher. I moved my fingers to test if their weight had also been magnified. In fact, my whole body felt like granite. I was a frozen statue, unable to move only able to think. Now that I concentrated on the workings of my mind I found that that too had changed.

I felt…older.

I thought…older.

In that moment if I had the ability to control my voice I knew that I would sound different…older.

This unnerved my slightly and when I felt this way I instinctively probed inside me to caress the darkness that lurked within; to reassure myself that everything was still the same.

“Mmhaaaaa” I inhaled loudly as my chest heaved in convulsions that sent my whole body into spasms. I had touched on something I didn’t recognise, something that hadn’t fully melded with me. I could feel as it seeped out into my nervous system, into my muscle fibre; coating every molecule and painting it black. It was a foreign darkness that I simply couldn’t control and as I lay on the ground heaving for air I knew that this was it. I had taken on too much and it was going to destroy me.

“There! She’s over here!” a male voice yelled. Footsteps pounded on the ground as shadows converged around me. I was wheezing and choking at the same time, my hands tried to dig into the ground around me, but all they met was solid concrete. I tried to cry out in pain, but my voice had been swallowed up by the darkness. With the Mother’s power I had once been able to seize breathing, to breathe solely her energy and now it was suffocating me. The power was thicker than air and it was clogging up every fibre of my being.  

“Fuck, what’s happening to her!”

“I don’t know I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“Should we do something?”

“Oh God that’s disgusting, she looks like she’s been dipped in ink”

“It’s all the power you imbecile, she can’t contain it.”
        “Don’t call me a fucking imbecile. She’s the idiot who ran into a huge power overload. I thought you people were supposed to know your limits?”

“Get out of the fucking way Sloan I’m going to try something.” Every word was fired off in rapid succession, overlapping and intensifying. I could feel the power within me intensifying as well and suddenly with crystal clear clarity I knew what would happen and I stopped struggling.  

 I felt a heavy weight saddle onto me and cool hands grip the sides of my face.

“Okay Evs try and breathe it out into me” Sebastian’s voice hovered above my face. No, I thought, no I couldn’t breathe it out I wanted it all inside me! His lips closed over mine and his hands gripped my head tightly. I felt his miasma of power, so familiar now, wash over my face. He delved into my mind and caught the thread of my thoughts, sending his own panicked response back into me. Relinquish it, it said, relinquish it now...now…now! My mind writhed in response, trying to fight my body’s natural inclination to stay alive, but it was no use.

I exhaled into him.

 The tightness in my chest began to ease and after a moment I could open my eyes. His ebony irises glinted back at me, his eyebrows drawn together and forehead creased in pain. He was feeling a small extent of what I had just gone through. I forced my mind to send neural impulses to my hands. My fingers twitched. I summoned up as much of my physical strength as possible and pushed him off me.

“Enough!” I gasped. I had given over enough power to allow me to breathe and that was all I was willing to part with. I struggled to keep the rest under control and found that with intense inward concentration I could supress my newfound darkness. Where my initial power had taken the form of a serpent, fast precise and deadly this new power was in the form of a dragon—angry, volatile and monstrously large. Together they coiled around each other hissing and spitting fire until I calmed my own heart and they felt more at peace.

Sebastian was leaning back on his arms in a reclined position also catching his breath. Unlike me he wasn’t completely immersed in darkness, patches of his skin still shone through—only his eyes stayed black.

“That’s not a very nice way to treat the man who saved your life” he said while wiping his gravel grazed palms on his thighs.

“You only did it to save yourself” I hissed back at him.