The Pressing

It happens within a realm between realms; a purgatory of sorts. When the parts that make up your natural state are still coming back together and are out of sync. Lead sinkers are attached to your wrists, ankles, and it feels as if Mjolnir sits on your chest making movement impossible in the physical sense. Eyes open, the room around you is familiar but doused in a haze of gray; disorienting you. Shadows linger and loom just at the edge of your vision. Static fills your ears, drowning out the low murmurs you think you hear in the background. Two thoughts triumph in your mind: you are not alone; you are not welcome.

The phantom part of you thrashes about trapped within the flesh; mode set to panic. Sometimes, he breaks free of his paralyzed prison and on colt legs heads for the door; there is always a door. As he reaches for the knob vulnerability washes over him. He doesn’t belong here, in the unknown, without his shell for protection and so he returns sinking deep beneath skin and bone.

Most times, he just continues to whip and roll within his tomb. Fists pounding the slick walls hoping to wake his inert companion. Urgency beats within his heart. Silent lips utter bootless prayers to an invisible deity until, at last, that sweet silken sheet of darkness over takes them both and they awaken in their rightful realm.