Waking up from a long sleep

By: Anreik Posted on: May 21, 2010

The sensation of waking up was interesting, to say the least. It felt like slowly but deliberately rising from the dark depths of some body of water, floating towards the ever nearing light of the surface and gradually experiencing how the pressure from the masses of water diminished. As the pressure grew weaker, it was replaced by an accelerating series of pinprick-like tinglings all over the body. Finally, the surface was near enough to stretch out and touch it, and a moment later, it was breached. The sensation faded away.

This journey from the bottom of an imaginary lake to the very real point of full awakening could have taken years, or fractions of a second. It was difficult to tell. Any concept of time was strangely difficult to grasp. Regularly, one can approximate the hour of the day by the degree of tiredness after waking up, but not now. For all he knew, he could have just woken up from a short nap. A nagging, and very worrying feeling told him he had slept longer, though. Much longer.

He reflexively touched the Mindseye tattoo on his forehead. The motion, done a countless number of times before, felt a bit alien and strained. The fact that his forehead was covered with dust only made his lingering unease more profound. At the magical heightening of his senses, he recognized the familiar Crystal Caverns: seemingly endless, floor and walls covered with unformed crystals, and brimful of giant crystal stalagmites.

Calling upon all four elements, he fashioned an elemental staff. As it appeared out of thin air, he spun it around in his right hand and pointed the silvery, dangerous

end of the runed staff at a pretended foe, while covering as much of himself as possible with the Shield of Absorption held in his left hand. "Yes, the reflexes are still intact", he thought to himself and smiled wryly. For good measure, he reached into the Rift and procured a Kola nut, which he immediately put in his mouth and swallowed. An elemental guardian, made entirely out of quartz crystal and therefore on the verge of invisible against the backdrop of the Crystal Caverns, seemingly eyed him suspiciously, but he shook his head at the elemental and ignored it. Elementals are not in the habit of being suspicious of those they guard, after all.

He resumed the more neutral position in which he had awakened - he did not remember standing up, yet he had been standing - and pondered the situation carefully. After a brief moment of contemplation, he began stretching out with his mind, trying to send a telepathic message. "Why, I haven't heard from you in a while", a voice responded in his head. "Been dead to the world, you've been. Gone from the realms. Must be 15 years now, if not more", the voice continued. He did not answer. As the implication of the statement hit him, he looked down at himself. He was naked. On his body, and in a little heap around his feet, dust had collected. "I suppose that's my clothes, and vials, and everything, in that little pile of dust", he thought absently.

He stared blankly at nothing in particular for a while, and then concluded what he had already suspected:"I've been asleep for years. Many years." When he had last walked these caves, he had not yet been 25. Now he was 40.