Night World : Dark Angel Chapter 2

Everything was freezing confusion. Her head was under water and she was universe tumbled everyplace andover. She couldnt see, couldnt breathe, and she was completely disoriented.Then her head popped up. She automatic on the wholey sucked in a huge gasp of air.Her ordnance were flailing but they seemed tangled in her backpack. The creek was wide here and thecurrent was very strong. She was being sweep imbibestream, and every other second her mouth seemedto be full of water. Reality was provided one desperate, throttling attempt to cut enough air for the next breath.And everything was so cold. A cold that was pain, not just temperature.Im going to die.Her mind realized this with a sort of numb certainty, but her body was stubborn. It fought almost as if ithad a separate brain of its own. It struggled out of her backpack, so that the natural buoyancy of her skijacket helped preserve her head above water. It made her legs kick, trying to stand firm on the bottom.No good. The cree k was wholly five feet deep in the center, but that was salvage an inch higher than Gillianshead. She was in any case small, too bleached, and she couldnt suck any kind of control over where she was going.And the cold was sapping her strength frighteningly fast. With every second her chances of hold outdropped.It was as if the creek were a monster that hated her and would never let her go. It slammed her intorocks and swept her on forrader her detainment could quarter hold of the cold, unagitated surfaces. And in a fewminutes she was going to be too weak to keep her face above water.I go to grab something.Her body was verbalize her that. It was her only chance.There. Up ahead, on the left bank, a projecting spit with tree roots. She had to quarter to it. Kick. Kick.She chance upon and was almost spun past it. But somehow, she was holding on. The roots were thicker than herarms, a huge tangle like slick, north-polar snakes.Gillian thrust an arm through a natural loop o f the roots, anchoring herself. Oh-yes she could breathenow. But her body was still in the creek, being sucked forward by the water.She had to get out-but that was out(predicate). She just barely had the strength to hold on her weakened,numb muscles could never pull her up the bank.At that moment, she was filled with hatred- not for the creek, but for herself. Because she was little andweak and childish and it was going to kill her. She was going to die, and it was all happening right now,and it was real.She could never truly mark what happened next. Her mind let go and thither was nothing but angerand the burning guide to get higher. Her legs kicked and scrambled and some dim dissever of her knew thateach impact against the rocks and roots should have hurt. But all that calculateed was the desperation thatwas somehow, inch by inch, getting her numb, waterlogged body out of the creek.And then she was out. She was lying on roots and snow. Her vision was dim she was gasping,ope n-mouthed, for breath, but she was alive.Gillian lay there for a long time, not really aware of the cold, her entire body echoing with support.I made it Ill be okay now.It was only when she act to get up that she realized how wrong she was.When she tried to stand, her legs almost folded under her. Her muscles felt like jelly.And it was cold. She was already exhausted and nearly frozen, and her soaking clothes felt as heavy as medieval armor. Her gloves were gone, broken inthe creek. Her cap was gone. With every breath, she seemed to get colder, and suddenly she wasracked with waves of violent shivers.Find the road I have to get to the road. But which way is it?Shed landed somewhere downstream-but where? How far away was the road now?Doesnt matter just walk away from the creek, Gillian design slowly. It was difficult to think at all.She felt stiff and ungainly and the shivering made it hard to climb over fallen trees and branches. Her red,swollen fingers couldnt close to get handholds.Im so cold-why cant I stop shivering?Dimly, she knew that she was in serious trouble. If she didnt get to the road- currently-she wasnt going to fail. But it was much and more difficult to call up a whiz of alarm. A strange sort of apathy was orgasm over her. The gnarled forest seemed like something from a fairy tale.Stumbling staggering. She had no idea where she was going. Just now ahead. That was all shecould see anyway, the next dark rock protruding from the snow, the next fallen branch to get over or or so.And then suddenly she was on her face. Shed fallen. It seemed to take immense effort to get up again.Its these clothes theyre too heavy. I should take them off.Again, dimly, she knew that this was wrong. Her brain was being affected she was dazed withhypothermia. But the part of her that knew this was far away, separate from her. She fought to make hernumbed ringers unzip her ski jacket.Okay its off. I can walk get out nowShe couldnt walk better. She kept falli ng. She had been doing this forever, stumbling, falling, getting up.And every time it was a little harder.Her cords felt like slabs of ice on her legs. She looked at them with distant annoyance and saw that theywere covered with adhering snow.Okay-maybe take those off, too?She couldnt remember how to work a zipper. She couldnt think at all anymore. The violent waves ofshivering were interspersed with pauses now, and the pauses were getting longer.I guess thats good. I must not be so coldI just need a little rest.While the faraway part of her brain screamed uselessly in protest, Gillian sat down in the snow.She was in a small clearing. It seemed deserted-not even the footprints of a ground mouse marked thesmooth white carpet around her. Above, overhanging branches formed a clean canopy.It was a very peaceful business office to die.Gillians shivering had stopped.Which meant it was all over now. Her body couldnt warm itself by shivering any longer, and was givingup the fight. Instea d, it was trying to move into hibernation. Shutting itself down, reducing breathing andheart rate, conserving the little warmth that was left. Trying to survive until help could discern.Except that no help was coming.No one knew where she was. It would be hours before her dad got plate or her mother wasawake. And even then they wouldnt be alarmed that Gillian wasnt there. Theyd assume she was withAmy. By the time anyone thought of looking for her it would be far too late.The faraway part of Gillians mind knew all this, but it didnt matter. She had reached her fleshly limits-she couldnt save herself now even if she could have thought of a plan.Her hands werent red anymore. They were blue-white. Her muscles were becoming rigid.At least she no longer felt cold. There was only a vast sense of relief at not having to move. She was sotiredHer body had begun the process of dying.White mist filled her mind. She had no sense of time passing. Her metabolism was slowing to a stop. Shewas be coming a creature of ice, no contrasting from any stump or rock in the frozen wilderness.Im in trouble someone somebody pleaseMom Her last thought was, its just like going to sleep.And then, all at once, there was no rigidity, no discomfort. She felt light and calm and free-and she wasfloating up near the canopy of snowy boughs.How wonderful to be warm again Really warm, as if she were filled with sunshine. Gillian laughed inpleasure.But where am I? Didnt something just happen-something bad?On the ground below her there was a huddled figure. Gillian looked at it curiously.A small girl. Almost hidden by her long fed up(p) hair, the strands already covered in fine ice. The girls facewas delicate. Pretty bone structure. But the skin was a terrible flat white-dead looking.The look were shut, the lashes frosty. Underneath, Gillian knew somehow, the eyes were deep violet.I get it. I remember. Thats me.The realization didnt bother her. Gillian felt no inter-group communication to the huddled thing in the snow. She didntbelong to it anymore.With a mental shrug, she turned away--and she was in a tunnel.A huge dark place, with the lookinging of being vastly complicated somehow. As if space here were foldedor twisted-and maybe time, too.She was rushing through it, flying. Points of light were whizzing by-who could tell how far away in thedarkness?Oh, God, Gillian thought. Its the tunnel. This is happening. responsibility now. To me.Im really dead.And going at warp speed.Weirder than being dead was being dead with a sense of humor.Contradictions this felt so real, more real than anything that had ever happened while she was alive.But at the same time, she had a strange sense of unreality. The edges of her self were blurred, as ifsomehow she were a part of the tunnel and the lights and the motion. She didnt have a distinct bodyanymore.Could this all be happening in my head?With that, for the first time, she felt frightened. Things in her head could be scary. What if she raninto her nightmares, the very things that her subconscious knew terrified her most?That was when she realized she had no control over where she was going.And the tunnel had changed. There was a smart light up ahead.It wasnt blue-white, as she would have expected from movies. It was pale gold, blurred as if she wereseeing it through frosty glass, but still unbelievably brilliant.Isnt it supposed to feel like love or something?What it felt like-what it made her feel-was awe. The light was so big, so powerful and so Just PlainBright. It was like looking at the beginning of the universe. And she was rushing toward it so fast-it wasfilling her vision. She was in it.The light encompassed her, surrounded her. Seemed to shine through her. She was flying upwardthrough radiance like a swimmer surfacing.Then the feeling of motion faded. The light was getting less bright-or maybe her eyes were adapting to it.Shapes coagulate around her.She was in a meadow. The grass was amazing- not ju st green, but a sort of impossible ultra green. As iflit up from inside. The sky was the same kind of impossible blue. She was wearing a thin summer dressthat billowed around her.The false color made it seem like a dream. Not to mention the white columns rising at intervals from thegrass, supporting nothing.So this is what happens when you die. And now now, somebody should come meet me. GrandpaTrevor? Id like to see him walking again.But no one came. The landscape was beautiful, peaceful, unearthly-and absolutely deserted.Gillian felt anxiety twisting again inside her. Wait, what if this place wasnt-the good place? After all, shehadnt been especially good in her life. What if this were actually hell?Or limbo?Like the place all those pot liquor who talked to mediums must be from. Creatures from heaven wouldntsay such silly things.What if she were left here, alone, forever?As soon as she finished the thought, she wished she hadnt. This seemed to be the kind of place wherethoughts-o r fears-could influence reality.Wasnt that something rancid she smelled?And-werent those voices? Fragments of sentences that seemed to come from the air around her? Thekind of nonsense said by people in dreams.So white you cant seeA time and a halfIf only I could, girlGillian turned around and around, trying to drive more. Trying to figure out whether or not she was reallyhearing the words. She had the sudden gut-trembling feeling that the viewer around her could easily comeapart at the seams.Oh, God, let me think good thoughts. Please. I wish I hadnt watched so many horror movies. I dontwant to see anything terrible-like the ground splitting and hands reaching for me.And I dont want anyone to meet me-looking like something rotting with bones exposed-after all.She was in trouble. Even thought process about not thinking brought up pictures. And now fear was gallopinginside her, and in her mind the bright meadow was turning into a nightmare of darkness and stink andpressure and gib bering mindless things. She was terrified that at any moment she might see a change-And then she did see one. Something unmistakable. A few feet away from her, above the grass, was asort of mist of light. It hadnt been there a moment ago. But now it seemed to get brighter as shewatched, and to stretch from very far away. And there was a shape in it, coming toward her.