A Peculiar Void...
Beneath two layers of blankets and with a wonderfully warm dog curled against the crook of her legs, she lay in bed, doing her best to get comfortable.
She only had fifty-three minutes to rest before her alarm went off.
The further beneath an hour the clock ticked, the harder it was to relax.
It was impossible not to be acutely aware of the feeling of her own body as she lay there. The sensation of the pillow against her neck as she readjusted. The way her feet wouldn't quite fit perfectly stacked as she wanted them to. The light breeze creeping in from a gap between the blanket and bed, brushing her knee and leaving it just a touch colder than the rest of her body.
But the more she focused on that, the harder it would be to sleep, so she did her best to remain still and quiet.
One calm breath in. One steady breath out.
She knew she wasn't asleep yet, despite the images beginning to play in her mind. Her mind liked to do this. Begin to play out dreams, before she had truly fallen into unconsciousness. It was all par for the course.
Absent-mindedly, she watched the scene play out. She and her cousin walking along, talking about something unimportant. A figure came to stand beside her, reaching out and taking her hand. As he did, her understanding of the world began to shift.
Not the world within the dream. The actual, physical world. The one tied to her body.
In fact, it was the strangeness of the body itself that drew her attention first.
Dissociation was a sensation she knew well. One that accompanied her daily happenings as her headmates controlled the body, going peacefully about their business. But it was rare that she felt it as strongly as she did now.
The body itself had become a layer of static around her. A thick, encompassing layer of insulation between she and the world around her, rather than it feeling as it always did; a living, breathing part of the world. There was a distance that she didn't dare try to shake.
She felt the body shifting. Readjusting. The head came to rest a little more comfortably on the pillow beneath it and her mind's eye was drawn back to the dream.
The figure taking the dreamer's hand shifted and changed before her. Her husband took shape, holding up a hand entwined with what should have been her own...had the dream been from her own perspective.
Without meaning to, her mind began to withdraw from the dream. She found herself viewing a void around her, with a large sheet of static white shifting before her, the remnants of the dream still playing out on it as her focus shifted.
For a moment, she did nothing. She merely observed and tried to make sense of her surroundings.
At the very core, where she sat, was the essence of her being. The understanding of self. Her own field of vision.
Just beyond was that void of black. It seemed to stretch outwards in almost all directions, ending only where it met the confines of the body's static still wrapped around her.
The mindscape.
Was this the mindscape? Had someone else slipped unintentionally into control of the body, and she was simply here, watching them dream?
She called out to the others. Rose in particular. It was the first thought she had. But she heard nothing in return.
Not waiting long for a response, she turned her attention back to the mindscape and tried to draw further into it, trying to pull away from the body. If she could just...stay here. Find a way to find the others.
Her heart soared at the idea. Of actually seeing them. She had always wanted to.
But as she pulled away, as she fought to draw into the void, it seemed to reject her. The body pulled back, that thick layer of insulation quickly fading, replaced by the sensation of blankets laying atop her and the gentle cold breeze on her knee.
The presence of the others in the mind was clear once more.
“Did you guys see that? Could you hear me while I was there?”
No and no.
Just once, just to ensure she wouldn't forget the moment, she regaled the tale of her experience.
She sighed, a gentle smile playing on her lips as she snuggled further into bed, pulling the blanket up to just under her nose.
It was the first time something similar had happened. The first time she had truly sat in the mindscape, in a viewing room similar to the ones her headmates used on a daily basis. It had been so peculiar. So exciting.
As she felt sleep beginning to overtake her, she had just one thought.
“I really hope that happens again.”