A Quest;looking for gods

She was agony.

All she was , was a symphony of pain.

High notes,climbing like every abscessed tooth, every chipped and broken tooth as air invades the enamel to hum glacial in nerves stretched taught like violin strings.

Low notes, sinking into her bones and flesh, weighing her down with fever, deep aching bass notes weighing down on her chest.

Appergios of stomach cramps like hot lead rippling along the bowels.

Up and down the scales the shallow cuts on skin, abrasions and bruises, every stubbed toe and banged elbow.

There was no escape.

She had no awareness of anything beyond the insult her excruciating existence had become.

Slowly, like a swamp mud bubbling in a high summer heat, she roped the aches and pains into a ball that writhed like a serpent in her grip.

Smaller and smaller, it shrunk against the pressure of her desperate need to end ,end , end this. But the smaller it became the more intense it was; like a flame burning so hot it disappeares from the visual spectrum, the pain became so intense she stopped feeling it. Sort of.

She was aware of it still, but now it was like gravity, light, the air around her. It was real and inescapable, felt it settle deep within he body. It felt like a seed, pressing against every atom of her body so small and hard and cold blazing in a slow revolution centered somewhere in her abdomen.

It felt like it was in her abdomen, she was too aware of the acids sloshing in her empty stomach, the ebb and flow of blood through the large veins and arteries stuttered and slowed before rushing on as it passed the space around her umbilicus. Her belly was tensed in apprehension of pain, the sensation of the painless orb of agony she had turned all that pain into felt like a cool sunlight radiating outwards to permiate every fiber of her being with the memory of pain.

She dragged a ragged breath before coughing violently while laying naked on rough,cool stone.

She must have fallen she thought as she tried to get more air before she started vomiting. Bile rose in her sore throught and she shuddered as she held her breath, willing the nausea down.

Her jaw ached as though she had clenched her teeth too hard for too long. The air passed raw down her oesophagus, she must have been screaming in the senseless agony she had become.

How long had that lasted?

She shifted with a groan into a semi sitting position, her whole body felt bruised, she must have been trashing against the floor in the fit of pain.

She looked around slowly, the source less light was the same, the ontouched walls remained without an egress. The room was empty of strange mirrors. The only sounds were the harsh mouth breathing and occasional moan from her battered body.

After some thought she stiffly got to her feet and looked around her again. Nothing changed.

She could not cry. She wanted to.

Her face was dry, even when she was unconscious of her body, even as it twisted and screamed as she was lost in torment the tears had not come.

She sighed roughly and sat on the floor, her bare bottom protesting the abrasive surface uselessly.

She was back in this living body, from what she had seen of it so far, it was very much like the body she had lately so assiduously discorporated herself from.

Her soul felt heavy, her spirit and her mind were always things she thought were interchangeable but now her mind was distinctly aware of her spirit.

It felt like an infinity river that meandered in a serpentine circle within the cage of her torso. It shone like moonlight glinting off of still dark water. It smelled like green things growing in damp earth in bright sunlight. It tasted coppery and coldly sharp as though she had been chewing on mint leaves and the insides of her cheeks at the same time.

And it weighted as much as she did. It felt like she was carring a mass inside of her and it moved like water in a closed circuit conduit, it formed an uneven figure eight with the smaller cicrcle twisted around the seed of torture in her abdomen. The water that was her spirit flow moved faster in that area. The whole thing moved in a clockwise direction.

She sighed again, wondering if it was the memories that made her so aware of herself now.

Would it fade when she was reborn? The sentinel in her cruelty regretted that the memories themselves would dissipate into her subconscious, but she said nothing of this.

She had said nothing of when or how the affliction accompanying her past lives being unloaded would end. Had she made a mistake in what she had done to free herself from pain?

This level of consciousness looked like it would be burdensome and intolerable, had she done it to herself?

Unbidden, the memories shuffled for attention in her mind's eye and she remembered.

The first time she became aware of her soul mate. It was late in the long shadows of early evening when a warmth pressed against her, it felt like dawn's first light....