OtH 1.1 - Painful Revelations

Had some fun writing this chapter. Taking a little work to do the third person correctly, but I think I am getting a good balance. Had to go back and edit a small section where I had unintentionally slipped into first person for a bit.

Hopefully everyone enjoys the chapter.

Aarick is pronounced (uhr rick), with a nice hard k sound to finish at the end.

Aarick was not having a good day.

Admittedly, it hadn’t been too terrible to start with. The cool air of autumn wended its way through the green leaves of the trees; here at the Oregon coast it was never going to get cold enough to change their colors. The blustery wind and the grey clouds were presage to the rain predicted on the forecast. He was looking forward to it; he loved the rain. It was nearing finals and the usual haze of busy studying interspersed with spending time with his friends left him barely enough time to eat and sleep. He still made time to talk to his parents though, he knew they would worry. And after Dolores… well, he wasn’t going to let them worry.

And then something opened up and sucked him through.

Something was about as accurately as he could describe it.

The space that surrounded him was alien. Some part of him understood that it was fundamentally not part of the reality that he had grown up with.

How did you describe the unknowable and unnameable? He was keenly aware of the sensations, though each was contrary to each other.

It was a vast void, endless and infinite, hungry. It was full of life, grotesque and packed into every available inch, nothing but walls of flesh and eyes and mouths, and it was all only the barest fraction of an inch from his skin. It was chains, intensely bright, and weaving through reality, piercing the flesh of the universe to keep it contained, and there, waiting for him, was the lock that kept it that way, if only he would choose to be the key. It was a place of shadows, of light, of unending darkness, of cotton candy mixed with gasoline, of spirals and polka-dots made of ravening locusts. A thousand mirror images of himself spoke to him in a cacophony, each shouting out advice, like “beware the giant squirrels and their magical trees.”

It defied all sense. It was a place without time, without space, where distance had no meaning, where meaning had no meaning. And, as he traveled through it, he could feel a growing sense of comprehension. Surely, if he could stay for just a little longer, it would all start to make sense. All the infinite strangeness, it fit together, didn’t it? He could just reach out and grab it, and it would be clear…

Before he could reach out, the strangeness disappeared replaced with a vague impression of a room. Figures knelt on glowing diagram on the ground in a large room. And then all of that disappeared.

Pain became his whole world. Fire and ice burned at him, no through his his skin. He could feel them tunneling into him like a thousand voracious worms hungry for his flesh. For a brief moment he could feel the fire raise in intensity, and it felt almost holy. Then, the increased power of the fire became just another piece of sensation.

Vaguely, he could feel the rest of his body. It was convulsing and screaming, thrashing in primitive impulse to escape the pain.

The twin burning sensations, one of scorching fire and the other of tunneling ice, continued. Their hunger seemed endless, burrowing into his skin and then moving deeper into his veins, his muscles, his bones. His eyes were full of tears, the water forced out by the pressure of the world wanting in. And as the lava and the icy river continued to flow into him, that was what it felt like.

The pain overwhelmed everything, but even through that, it felt like he could feel the world around him. As though his sense of touch had expanded and he could brush against everything within a few feet. And even more, there was a faint whisper, it felt like the world itself wanted to talk to him. Whatever it was trying to say, it was completely lost to the pain.

And then, suddenly, the pain was over. Everything he was had been scoured away, and the ice and fire had met at his core.

Whatever force had been keeping him awake was suddenly gone, and he could feel his body. It was wracked with a pain that had been so minor as to fall beneath his notice. Now, the wrenching cramps slammed against him mind for attention. His mind, already overdrawn, gave up and blackness claimed its due.

Despite what his body or mind would have liked, eventually Aarick returned to consciousness. The complete lack of pain was both a surprise and considerable relief.

His mind worked as his body struggled to catch up.

Was that a dream?

It was the most logical explanation, even though he really didn’t think it was the case. Even the utter insanity of… wherever he had been, had felt to real.

Finally managing to get his eyes open affirmed that, at least in some way, things were not back to normal.

He didn’t recognize the room he was in, nor the clothes he was wearing.

The room was small. A brief glance around the room revealed a window to his right, it lay behind dual waxed paper screens. They were closed for the moment, only the light shining through revealing the window’s presence. Beyond the foot of the bed, where his feet were hanging over, the doorway was to his left. A small bedside table to his right finished the room.

The bed itself was comfortable, plain, and quite short. The sheets were white, clean, and smelled vaguely of flowers. The comforter over the top was sinfully soft, and dyed a pale green. He thought that it was stuffed with feathers of some kind.

As for himself, Aarick was definitely not in his normal clothes. He was wearing something like robes. The upper portion wrapped around his chest, the main color a deep black with shimmering blue trimming at the edges. A wide cloth belt of the same blue color was wrapped around his waist, keeping the robe firmly in place. The sleeves were full length; they started form fitting and then widened slightly around his wrist. The bottom portion was something between very loose pants and a dress. It was divided down the middle, forming individual pant legs, but each one started quite loose at the waist and became a tiny bit wider as it headed for his ankles. If he stood with his feet together, it would look like he was wearing a long skirt. The bottom edge was, again, hemmed with the same navy blue.

Honestly, his clothes felt vaguely Chinese, but the divided skirts felt more Western and modern. A little more investigation revealed the pants and upper portion were actually a single garment, joined at the back, and then the shirt’s loose portions would get wrapped around. The belt was the only separate piece, and the pants buttoned onto the interior portion, keeping everything in place. The clothes were fairly comfortable, all things considered. The accompanying underwear most closely resembled a pair of silk briefs, which were tied from the front.

He struggled up, the pillows and bed resisting his attempts to escape their fluffy grasp.

He felt… odd, surprisingly good for how much pain he remembered, but there was still a lingering sensation from before. He had a vague sense of the world near him. It was akin to touch, but not quite. As though the objects nearby were telling him that they were close, but not touching, a sense of proximity. As he reached out toward the small wooden table he was aware of its hardness, the faint feel of polished wood, all this before he actually touched it. The same was true of the comforter, the sheets, and his robe. He was aware of what they felt like from the outside, the change in texture as they changed from seams to blank expanses of cloth.

Well, I am guessing I am not on Earth anymore. Unless it was aliens, of course, but this doesn’t feel like aliens…

He snorted. How the hell would he know? Maybe aliens were big fans of fantasy period dramas and abducted people to fill roles in their plays. It seemed just as probable as aliens being really fond of anal probing.

His new extrasensory perception… that demanded a fantastical explanation. Exceptional claims might require exceptional evidence, but exceptional evidence of something impossible also demanded an equally amazing explanation. Honestly, the most likely explanation was that he was imagining it. That it was some lingering effect from whatever had caused him so much pain. Surely it was some kind of neural echo, where his sight and proprioception were creating the illusion of feeling something before he touched it.

Well… he could test that.

He closed my eyes.

He could still feel it. And he could sense the contours of his own body. He knew, even more than heever had, exactly where every single inch of himwas located. And he could still feel the table, at least some of it. Hereached out, turning hishand and pinched the corner of the table between histhumb and index finger. Hegrabbed it perfectly, or so it felt. Heopened hiseyes, hehad grabbed it exactly where hewas trying. That… could be chance, but it was less likely.

Herepeated thetests, hiseyes closed as heperfectly manipulated the world around him. Hisproprioception had always been good, but never this good. And certainly hehad never had perfect awareness of the objects around him. Unless this was all some strange hallucination, then…

Well, hedidn’t really know, did he?

It was past time that he found out what he could.

Hewalked around the bed, the stone underfoot chill, but not actually cold. The doorway didn’t actually have a door, just curtains which had been withdrawn beyond hisoriginal sight. Hehad just assumed it was an open door.

There sitting on a chair, was a man in clothing that resembled hisown, though the colors were a dark golden yellow with dark gray highlights.

Some part of me had been expecting him to look Chinese, or at least Asian, but he looked… vaguely Caucasian. There were hints of something else too. His nose was squatter and wider, reminding himof some Africans hehad met at college. Also, he was short. Aarickwas about a foot taller than the man was, even with his slippered feet. The faint green shimmer to his almost black hair added to the sense of unreality.

Aarick waved feebly, his smile the best he could manage, though he could feel it wavering.

“Uh, hello.” He said, not really sure what to say.

The man stood and then bowed, his movements flowing with precise grace.

“Ulurac ta,” he said, as he straightened his body.

He gestured with one hand, forming a beckoning gesture and then turned and started to walk away.

Right. Fuck. Of course they don’t speak English. Aw man, this is going to suck. It’s going to take ages to learn anything.

His shoulders slumped slightly. He sighed and then started to follow. It wasn’t like he could do anything else.