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I could feel every atom of my being stripping off, slowly being ripped apart by very power that I'd created. I hadn't felt anything physical in a year but for a brief moment, I felt it all again. Once again trapped in my own skin, radiation eating away at my organs, my skin wet from the blood, every breath agony, despite the drugs that Janet dared to give me. I felt human again, for an incandescent instant. Then I collapsed in on myself, every part of me shaking and shifting together, smaller and smaller, until I was nothing. I was empty and bare, hanging in a void. Time lost all meaning as I waited in the emptiness for anything to change. Where I waited, there was no sound, no whisper of breath. No light and no trick of light behind eyelids that I no longer had. No smells and nothing under or around me. No sensations, not even as much of a breeze. No feelings and no true awareness. Nothing but the knowledge that eventually They would come. The Others. It was an eternity before they came, and when they did, nothing changed. The void surrounded me still, and I had no proof of their presence but the knowledge of it. Another eternity passed and I was aware of a choice that had been made. Oma was there and a flicker of awareness ran through me. She had chosen to let me go, have me live again, unmarred and unmarked by my time among them. In this choice, she was admitting... defeat, and I could feel her soul howl at the losses she would suffer from this. Sensation sank around me, and I was aware again of having a body. Dirt and wind against flesh. My mouth was dry and though my eyes were closed, I could see light. I shifted slightly, and feelings burned into my skin. Shivers overtook my body and I could smell the strong, rich scent of the earth that I lay on. I took a breath, oxygen hitting my lungs, jumpstarting my systems. I felt my heart start to beat and realized that I was naked. I opened my eyes, and my memory started to slip from my mind, escaping as quickly as grains of sand from an overeager fist. Soon, all I knew was that I was Daniel Jackson. Then I blinked, and knew nothing at all.
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