Time, in a place without sunsets or seasons, was a concept that soon lost its meaning. It became a substance she moved through, not a metric she tracked. Years slipped by, marked only by the slow, patient wandering during her waking hours and the deep, restorative quiet of her sleep.
The compulsion to dream eventually released her. She had walked every corridor of her childhood, touched every relic of that simpler time, and a quiet contentment had settled in its wake. The past was no longer a place she needed to visit. Her curiosity, once turned entirely inward, began to slowly seep out into the world around her.
On one such aimless day, she decided to follow the canal outward. The landscape remained perpetually serene, a tapestry of glowing flora and a silent space above.
Her attention drifted to the vessel carrying immense knowledge. 'This body.' It never complained. It never grew weary, never begged for food or water. The cold of the perpetual night was a mere sensation on her skin, with no shivering to follow. When she decided to rest, sleep was an instant, seamless transition. The control was absolute.
A memory surfaced from a few years ago, months after the start of the period of dreaming. A butterfly, its wingspan as wide as her height, glowing with intricate patterns of liquid gold, had fluttered close. On a whim, she had given chase. The resulting burst of motion had been startling. She'd covered ground in leaps that felt less like running and more like a sustained, low-altitude flight. Her movements were precise, her balance perfect, her reflexes operating on a level her old self would have found incomprehensible. And right now, with nothing but uncleared space ahead, she decided to test its limits. She ran.
The world became a blur of indigo trees and streaks of silver light. The wind of her own passage whipped through her hair, a roar in her ears. She was the air itself, a dart shot across the face of a silent world.
And yet, she knew. This was nothing. A tiny fraction of what he had been capable of. She remembered the feeling of cutting through clouds, of crossing oceans in a single thought.
This was just a very, very fast sprint.
It prompted the old, theoretical question. What was this body? It wore her face, her form, but it was clearly a fabrication. Her original flesh and bone couldn't have survived the passage between worlds. Had his power simply built a new container in her image? Or had it used a pre-existing foundation?
The grim possibility of the dissected body, the preserved parts of his own child, floated to the surface. The thought was disturbing, but clinically so, like considering an unusual archaeological find. It was also just as likely to be something else entirely. She ran until the novelty wore off, then settled back into a walk, continuing her journey for days.
It was the smell that hit her first—a faint, metallic tang that cut through the clean air. Then she saw it. A dark, irregular splash against the luminous moss covering a fallen log. She knelt. Her fingers touched the substance. It was thick, cool, and sticky. She rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger, bringing it to her nose. The iron scent was unmistakable.
Blood.
A part of her knew she should feel a jolt of alarm, a spike of fear or disgust. But the feeling simply didn't come. Right now, it was just data. A biological substance, out of place. The countless oceans of blood spilled in the memories she housed had, it seemed, somewhat desensitized the signal. This small, ruddy streak felt insignificant, not in a callous way, but in a factual one, like a single dot of water compared to a rainfall she had witnessed a thousand times over.
As she pondered it, a sharp, sudden pain lanced through her temple. She winced, pressing her fingers there. It was gone as quickly as it came, leaving behind only a phantom echo and a sense of confusion.
This body didn't get headaches.
She stood after wiping her hand on the moss. The creatures here, the butterflies and the faint, shimmering things she saw in the trees, seemed to be made of light and condensed energy. This was different. This suggested something more visceral, more mortal. And it seemed relatively
recent.
She had been walking for years with no destination. Now, for the first time, she had a point of interest. She looked from the streak to the dense, shadowy line of trees. She had nothing but time, and now, a question.
.
.
.
The forest began to thin. The luminous mosses and glowing fungi that clung to barks grew sparse, their light guttering out like dying embers. The air, once thick with the scent of alien pollen, now carried a different weight—a stale, metallic flatness.
The first streak had been an anomaly. Now, they were a trail. Dark, congealing splashes became wider puddles, then shallow pools that forced her to step around them. The vibrant violet of the river beside her began to change, too. Streaks of a rust colour bloomed in its current, swirling and expanding until the entire waterway ran a dull, ugly maroon. It no longer glowed. It merely flowed, thick and slow.