*****
Sarah shut out the sounds around her. She focused on the memory of being pulled into Eryx’s mind. But instead of pulling as the centaur had done, this time she pushed. And whimpered in pain. It felt like pushing through shards of glass. The sensation scraped her mind and heart with vicious talons. She ignored the pain, panting with effort, and concentrated.
Her body was snatched away, left behind, and only the ‘other’ part of her was there. Where ever ‘there’ was, it was dark. It pulsed around her in shades of red and purple and black. She felt the pain of it, the throbbing agony. Uncertain, she tried to find the source.
In the dark world, her mind searched desperately. As she moved in the pulsing darklight, Sarah felt it sticking to her. Black and red, tried to ooze its way into her being. Scared, she tried to push it away. Sarah was relieved when the stuff caked off her like dried mud. It didn’t stop it from trying to cling to her again, but when she focused, it was easy to remove.
Wading through the sludge, Sarah saw a faint light in the distance. It wasn’t bright or white, but gray and trembling like the fluttering heartbeat of a stone hummingbird. She headed for the light and the muck around began to pull at her feet. It was trying to suck her down like quicksand. She pushed it away again, but it came back faster, reaching out tendrils of throbbing purple and red trying to grasp at her.
Sarah’s concentration went into keeping the darklight at bay. She tried to surround herself with light and warmth, combating the dark and cold trying to seep into her soul. The effort was intense, making Sarah feel weak and ineffectual. When she finally reached the small light, she was faint with exhaustion. She pushed the tiredness away along with the darklight and examined the small fragment of whispering brightness.
It was like a wounded animal, curled in on itself and shivering in pain. It was fear and disappointment and anger. It was sorrow and hate. It was Benji. The part of Benji she had come to find, the part that needed healing.
The palpitations of black, purple, and red were swarming it, but a ring of white kept them at bay, though it was shrinking rapidly. Red tendrils of darklight tried to grasp it and were shocked away by the whiteness. When Sarah placed herself within the ring, she no longer felt like she was trudging through mud. The darklight stopped its dragging and tugging.
Thankful, Sarah examined the shape of light in front of her. It was the center of the wound. The darklight was spreading around it like an infection, a poison, waiting to consume it. The gray light flickered and the circle of white inched closer. The darklight surged, sending out fresh tentacles of black and purple.
Sarah covered the shivering essence, trying to shield it from the encroaching darklight. She tried to hold it and infuse it with warmth and strength, but it resisted and shrank away. Sarah was beyond understanding. How could she do this? How did she heal such darkness? The essence itself was a darkling thing, not bright but sodden and shadowed.
Sarah thought back to Eryx. When he healed her heart he gave her love. Sarah tried again. This time she pushed out compassion and love, happiness and hope. She poured it into the essence like medicine and tried to sooth it when it shuddered in distaste. It glowed brighter. The light relaxed into a trembling yellow beam, then to a patch of white. The darklight shuddered away, dissipating like steam when the shining essence touched it.
Sarah pressed more positive feeling and emotion into it, watching it expand and fold out with a sigh. She was tired, but the glow was brilliant and whole again. She drifted back with a frown. The darklight still persisted. It was sharded glass now, a broken mirror scattered everywhere, waiting for a misstep.
Sarah reached for it, but it burned her when she touched it, fire lanced through her. She tried for another piece, but this time held on despite the pain. The darklight shard sizzled, melting away into vapor. She grabbed another piece, tensing at the burn, but didn’t let go. Then she reached for another and another, working her way through the dark glass until only white and light remained.
When she picked up the last fragment, it hissed and popped like a threat, but vanished with the rest. The essence exploded wide. A shining blindness engulfed Sarah, dragging her beneath it. She struggled, pushing it away, scrambling for purchase, but she was so weak. She still felt the burning pain from the darklight remnants and she was exhausted. Her thrashing became weaker. She was so tired, so very tired. She couldn’t hold herself together anymore. Sarah sank into the light. She let it burst through her and around her. It burned radiance and she gave herself up to whitening pain.