Serous

I should have known. When you use other sight and defocus yourself enough to see beyond the realm that everyone else sees ... you step just that much closer to other things. Things that go bump in the night ... things that eat your soul and leave your skin walking around empty. Things that I know well enough to give them names .. but not well enough I get too close. I am not stupid.

But that night I was careless. I was so interested in the outcome of the battle that I forgot where I was. I think I remember leaving the fire. I remember T'zuri being ill .. I think Falon was taking care of her. I remember a moment of remorse wondering if my dabbling in the arts had caused it .. I hoped she was all right. I think ... it all could have been part of the dream though .. really ... I do not know.

What I do know was that as I left the fires .. or at least I think I left the fires .... the grass turned to liquid and I felt a grip close on my ankle and I was pulled through into dark blue water. Not water like the Thassa .. the Thassa is green. Dark blue like the late evening Sky .. only water not air. The cold water burned away all my clothes but I did not mind that I was naked .. it felt natural. Deeper I fell like a rock until I began to worry that I might not be able to get back to the surface before I needed a breath .. in fact it became startlingly clear I could not because the need to breathe was raging through my lungs like a plain's fire. I became frantic ... convulsing in a panic and then seizing as my chest attempted to implode or explode or simply tear itself apart from the inside out ... desperate for air. Blind now with the fight not to open my mouth .. to survive just one more moment ... but not able to stop it. It came .. that inhale I struggled to avoid.

But instead of death the liquid filled my lungs like thick amniotic fluid .. heavy but comfortable. Breathing was felt more .. but not difficult ... like I was using new muscles to do so. The liquid filled my nose .. my mouth ... my lungs. It felt like my heart was beating in the ebb and flow of it. Suspended animation .... a state of bliss.... where had I heard that before?

And then I began to sink further .. and further. Pulled under by the clawed grasp on my ankle .. a claw belonging to a creature I could not see. What I could see though was vast horizons opening up below me .. spreading plains far and wide with thick green grass waving in the current. Spidery webs of blue veins fed the thick grass with a heavier liquid than I fell through .. some of them even flowing against the current. An under water landscape .. a Tuchuk paradise of green grass as far as the eye could reach.

But I was falling too fast. I was going to hit the ground too hard. My breathing increased and I spread out my arms to brace myself and as the impact struck me I broke through the surface of the stream and gasped for air .. choking and gagging as water ejected from my mouth until I thought my stomach muscles would crush my spine. And then I just sat there .. in the stream ... and I gasped for breath as I let the water flow around me and I did not question how I got there.

I knew.

And I was just thankful I had not been wearing my favored boots.