Portrait of Shade by Ford Benjamin

Author:Ford, Benjamin [Ford, Benjamin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2014-02-16T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Eudora kept her eyes shut tight, feeling dizzy and disoriented, and the rumbling in her stomach made her seriously queasy. Possessed by a curious sense of weightlessness and a strange belief that she was floating in mid air, she could feel nothing substantial beneath her feet. Her feet in turn felt as though they were somewhere above her head, twisted somehow in a mind- and body-bending contortion. She was neither hot nor cold, but rather pleasantly comfortable. Wherever she was, the air was crisp and clean, and she perceived no discernible aroma.

Then she smelled the unmistakable scent of rosewood, and a hint of freshly applied paint – the smell peculiar to newly painted canvas. However, she was familiar with the smells of paints, and these were neither oils nor acrylics nor watercolours, but rather something altogether different. Something she had not encountered before… yet oddly familiar. The mixture of paint and rosewood filled the whole of her mind, infiltrating her entire being.

It was gone in an instant, and the smell of nothingness returned.

She wanted to open her eyes, to see where she was, but she was too terrified to do so. It was more palpable than any fear she had known. It consumed her.

Could this be what is termed an out of body experience, she wondered? Whatever it was, she was convinced she was dead and that should she open her eyes she would see her own body lying before her, or worse still, witness her death itself.

Eudora struggled against the tide of tangible terror, unable to recall exactly what had happened. All she could recall was that Izzy and Gaia were dead. Their fate must also have befallen her. She had a sense of others close to her being killed too, but could form no cohesive thoughts, and so could not recall who might be dead.

Experimentally she moved her arms. At least she supposed she moved them. With her eyes still tightly shut, she lacked coordination, and in her apparently weightless environment could feel nothing, aware only that she had successfully moved her arms when she hit herself in the face.

‘Ouch!’ she exclaimed, leaving her hand where it was to rub her jaw. In spite of her fear, she marvelled at the acoustics of her environment. Her voice echoed three times, and then silence returned.

Her tongue had not been ripped out, which was a blessing. ‘Perhaps I’m not dead after all!’

‘Of course you are not dead!’

The sudden resonant masculine voice would have startled her had it not been such a warm and friendly, welcoming voice. It was as strangely comforting as the embrace of a best friend.

Slowly she opened her eyes.

And instantly closed them again. ‘My God, it’s so bright!’

Through her eyelids, she became aware of the light receding, and the redness she perceived dissipated into ochre.

She slowly opened her eyes again.

Swirling multi-colours of light hurled themselves all around her like a light storm of pure radiant energy. It was like the firework display of kaleidoscopic pinprick flashes

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