Home?

The heavy silence surrounding them was loud enough to rouse them from their slumber. Their eyes fluttered open. They blinked, but its only proof was the meeting of their bottom and top eyelids. The darkness beyond their lids was just as potent as the darkness beneath them.

They stood up and looked around, but utter darkness surrounded them. There were no boundaries; no dimensions. Emptiness as far as the mind could imagine. They rubbed their arms and huddled into a foetal position.

They tried to recall where they could be, or who they were, but their mind was also as vacant as the surrounding space. No matter how quickly their thoughts spun, they only wound up in circles, and before long the emptiness of slumber embraced them.

~~~

When their eyes opened again, they discovered they were in the midst of some bodily movement. They froze and closed their eyes. They introspected every inch of their body and realised they were in a posture of… dance. An intense urge to follow up this motion with another filled them, and they obeyed.

One foot crossed over the other, and a hand reached for the heavens. Their heels lifted from the floor, and their body weight rested upon their fragile toes, but there was no discomfort. It was as though… they were already used to this motion.

So they stretched out their arms and danced to the music of silence. They let their feet take them to the ends of nothingness and back, and with every twirl, bliss filled their very bones. They jumped, and for a moment felt like they could remain suspended for an eternity.

They landed on the floor like a swallow, then ceased movement. They could feel a place calling for them when they danced, but they knew not how to reach it. That calling weakened when they were still, so the humanoid figure picked up their feet again and danced until they lost all external sensation.

Suddenly, a gust of wind blew past, and their eyes snapped open. Countless beautiful flowers surrounded them, and a clear blue sky curved over their head. Butterflies fluttered this way and that, and the ocean of flowers cooked up a scent far too marvelous to describe. A curious butterfly fluttered towards them, and they stretched out a finger.

It hovered atop the outstretched finger for a while before landing. The moment its spindly little legs kissed their fingertips, the human fell, and they cried out. This fall seemed to last for a moment, yet it was an eternity before they could feel their feet.

Darkness swallowed them once again.

A guttural cry tore out of their throat, but in this place even sound was swallowed up by the darkness. They crumpled to the floor, and wept.

~~~

In such emptiness, time was a mere figment of the imagination. When they woke up again, that place seemed like a distant dream. With every passing moment, the images, sounds, and smells they witnessed faded from memory. 

They wiped the crustiness from their eyes and swept their gaze across the space, but it was as void as ever. They knew that place was important. It felt like home. Perhaps, they would reach that place if they danced again.

So they sucked in a deep breath and perched up on their toes. They closed their eyes. A foot swept out, and their neck fell back. A series of movements bubbled up from the very depths of their being, and they twirled, jumped, and reached for the skies.

But with every movement, a sense of loss washed over them. It built up from every nook and cranny of their being, and the surrounding space pressed into them.

An eternity later, they came to a stop, breathless. They clutched their chest. It was a feeble attempt to staunch the emptiness that swept towards them and tried to swallow them whole.

They plopped to the floor and hugged their knees close.

They fixed their eyes on the space beneath them and sunk into deep thought. Soon, drowsiness gripped them in its tight clutches, and sleep came shortly after. Beneath them, tiny hair-like projections began to spread out into the vast space, until the dark void was no longer empty.

Brilliant streaks of red pierced the void and bloomed into a vibrant network of veins.

When next they awoke, the innumerable tracks surrounding them pulsed and flowed to some rhythm. They rose from the floor, mouth agape. Now, they could determine the boundaries of this space, but it was still enormous. They doubted they could dance across every inch of this space in a short amount of time.

But that couldn’t deter them from making an attempt.

So once again, the dark shadow twirled, sometimes moving along the patterns, and other times flitting across them like a mischevious elf. They marveled at the beauty of a thing unknown to them; they laughed; they sang a mystical tune. They thought, perhaps this is home.

~~~

Sure enough, they only needed a bit of time and effort to tread every nook and cranny around them. They could trace every twist and turn of these webs; they knew its every beat and rhythm. 

Some days, they would sit and stare at the winding maze of red veins. Other days, they would jump and dance to its beat. Occasionally, they could even wield a few threads of this red web, and the way it fluttered around with every wave of their hand never failed to send them into a trance, and they would twist around for a lengthier time.

One day, they heard a sound. It was muffled and distant, but it was something other than the rhythm they had grown to know and love.

They went still and listened, but the sound was too distant to make out. After some time, the noises ceased, but they still kept an ear out for more. As time passed, the sounds grew more frequent, and they could often make out what it was. Sometimes it was a voice, but more often it was a song. One song that would play over and over again, and they would dance for all its worth.

They got used to this pattern of existence, but every now and then they would feel this terrible sense of foreboding, like something was about to happen. No matter how much they wished for this premonition to be untrue, that day came. 

First, the rhythm of the space quickened. The numerous veins trembled and writhed in a frenzy, and they could only huddle up in a corner and pray for it all to end. But it only got worse.

Their home trembled, and they felt something clutch it in a vice-like grip. This state of unrest lasted for a long time before they sensed a bit of relief. It felt like escaping a place of entrapment, and they couldn’t understand what was going on.

All of a sudden, that menacing grasp lightened, and they once again fell into a state of nothingness. The red veins they danced and communed with disappeared, and the memory of that experience faded like a distant dream.

An intense feeling of loss swept over them once again, and they belted out a cry full of grievances. A dim light filtered through their eyelids, and amidst this kaleidoscope of emotions, a strange voice rang out close by.

“Congratulations, madam. It's a beautiful baby girl!”