Feb 16 2018, 03:00 PM
It was like waking up underwater. It was like having a big old rock settle across your chest that didn't want to budge. A petrifying state of sleep paralysis, but worse, because it was the only thing you'd ever known and that made you intrinsically okay with it. Until that rock split, the pressure lifted, and the open air engulfed you with chill.
The child spilled forth from the crystal case with a splash. The smallest cracks had let in some of the ferrous bog water, and when you fell face-first in to it, that was the first taste of life that you were bestowed. A film of silver foam that tasted too metallic for your precious new tongue - how grand, this awakening. How welcoming, this new dark world. But the water felt soothing to your skin; this skin which has never touched anything but the pressure of its birthing shell, waking to the frigidity of the marsh's unforgiving heart.
But all would be well. You sputter, you spasm, but your eyes open and you see the darkness for what it is - a shelter. The smallest of squeals erupts from your flat face as you yawn, stretch, search - but you are alone, for now. There is no fear to be had when you were this new to the world, this innocent. So you gawk at the descending mist and turn your head at every tiny sound throughout the marsh, eager to tuck those legs beneath your slicked body and begin rooting through the soil for clues.
The child spilled forth from the crystal case with a splash. The smallest cracks had let in some of the ferrous bog water, and when you fell face-first in to it, that was the first taste of life that you were bestowed. A film of silver foam that tasted too metallic for your precious new tongue - how grand, this awakening. How welcoming, this new dark world. But the water felt soothing to your skin; this skin which has never touched anything but the pressure of its birthing shell, waking to the frigidity of the marsh's unforgiving heart.
But all would be well. You sputter, you spasm, but your eyes open and you see the darkness for what it is - a shelter. The smallest of squeals erupts from your flat face as you yawn, stretch, search - but you are alone, for now. There is no fear to be had when you were this new to the world, this innocent. So you gawk at the descending mist and turn your head at every tiny sound throughout the marsh, eager to tuck those legs beneath your slicked body and begin rooting through the soil for clues.