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She’s back. That vicious, repeated haunting that wound itself around her and squeezes tighter every time it returns. Imogen blinks in a desperate attempt to stop the swirling sand from grating against her dry eyes. The howling of the storm is loud. Louder than she’s ever heard, than she can handle. Her hands press against her ears but the roaring thunder jars her chest and forces the air from her body.
She can’t breathe. The wind is trying to pry her lungs from her body and it’s going to succeed. Imogen collapses in on herself, hugging her chest to prevent their escape. She gasps and sobs and writhes.
“Mama?” She cries, “Mama, where are you?!”
She brings her knees up to her chest and doesn’t realize she’s brought them off the ground until she’s rising above the storm. Her first breath almost brings too much air, a shockwave that makes her choke. The storm still rages below her as something compels her to look forward. A looming, shapeless form as large as the horizon stands before her. It speaks no words, but she knows.
Predathos.
There’s a churning in her stomach. The form seems to reach out, to pull a visible crimson string attached to Imogen’s chest. She can’t move and it pulls and her chest jolts forward, and she screams. Her throat is raw and filling with something thick but she screams. All air has left her body and her vision is blurring but she screams.
It projects into her mind as her consciousness wanes, promises her that this will all end. Its form grows larger, crawling towards her. Smoke crawls from the storm below and merges with the form and wraps in her a terrifying – warm? – embrace. Something is dripping down her chin, sticky and hot. The smoke obscures her vision as she receives vows of a release, caressing the edges of her mind. Pins and needles slither up and down her limbs and her mind empties.
She knows this is her purpose. The reason for her creation. What her mother kept her from, wanted to save her from. Why would her mother keep her from something so beautiful? She smiles, her teeth glued together with caking crimson. Her eyes fall close.
“Imogen!”
She knows that voice. She does. The memory prods at her mind, begging her to recall it, to lean into it. But there’s a warmth in her chest that’s been absent for a long time. No voices grate against her ears, her head doesn’t pound with every twinge of her muscle.
“Darling, please!”
Laudna. The name slips through the cracks and her chest stutters. The voice is shaky but shrill, muffled as it tries to penetrate the engulfing presence. Her Laudna.
That thread is pulled again, commanding her attention. Her eyes snap open as a scream tears from her, gasping desperately through waves of agony that overtake not only her body but her very soul, as if it's being ripped from its earth-bound form.
“Laud..” She chokes.
“You’re my tether, Laudna. Sometimes I feel like I’m about to float away, but as long as you’re there..”
“I called you my anchor, my tether. We’re that for each other.”
“That tether goes beyond this realm, this life.”
That tether pulls taut, frays. She sees it. A twisting of purple and black that lowers back into that raging storm. Thinner than the one that tethers her to Predathos, slowly growing more strained. She brings up a shaky hand to wrap around it, closes her eyes. Thinks of Laudna, of the way her lips felt against her own. Imagines that cold hand moving sweaty strands of hair from her face.
“..not working! HELP HER!”
Imogen shutters. Grabs the other tether and tries to pull it. She succeeds in nothing but sending another jolt through her. Both tethers are disappearing in the shadow. Fear sinks its icy claws into her chest and scrambles to take ahold of one tether, holding it between both her hands tightly. The red glows the same color as her scars, the color climbing up her arms and down her legs.
“I’m not ready to die.” She whimpers, “I can’t leave her.”
She pulls, and pulls, and pulls. Blinding, searing pain envelops her, and her vision goes black.
There’s something on her chest. Something different than the tether, not trying to rip at her. It’s weighing her down, and the feeling is comforting. Her scars itch and burn like they never have before, and her throat feels as if it’s been skinned from the inside. But the weight on her chest grounds her.
The room is silent, but not absent. It’s heavy, oppressing, silence that she’s felt before. Her brows furrow as she remembers. When Laudna..
“Imogen?” A small, scared voice cuts through the silence like a knife. Fearne.
“She’s moving!” Chetney.
“Holy shit.” Ashton. Orym. FCG.
Voices begin to swirl in the air and her eyes flutter open. Above her, Laudna, face twisted in a grief and sorrow that had never graced her features before. Inky tears stain her pale cheeks and her entire body trembles as she reaches a hand up to cup Imogen’s cheek. It’s as cold as Imogen imagined it to be, and she sinks into it.
“You’re okay,” Laudna sobs, “you were gone, truly gone. Your heart stopped and–.. I..”
“Laudna,” Imogen whispers, “you brought me back. Our tether.”
She brings their clasped hands to her chest, where her heart beats, where the purple and black tether emerged from in her dream. “I heard you, I did. And I fought.”
“My strong girl..” A shaky breath emits from the woman above her. “I love you. So much.”
“I love you too, Laud. Truly.”
“Okay, enough lovebirds, leave some Imogen for the rest of us.” Fearne’s voice is void of the usual teasing it holds, a lingering shakiness in it. Imogen looks to the rest of their friends. They’re in various states of distress, and Imogen feels a regret deep in her gut as if it's her fault. And it is, she supposes.
The rest of Bells Hells comes over, and she finds it surreal that they had been grieving her, that she died. That thought rolls through her body violently, and she nearly gags. Her throat still tastes like copper. She accepts their love and affection but can’t bring herself to match it, her thoughts running a mile a minute. She nearly died. She did die. In Laudna’s arms. The woman probably held her as she took her last breath, felt her heart stop.
Imogen bursts into tears.
“Oh, darling.” Arms are around her instantly, several pairs. And she cries.
She’ll never sleep again.