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It was cold.
That was the first thing Tsugumi noticed about her situation. It was cold. But not your run of the mill, winter-in-Japan kind of chilly. No, this was something different. A deep, icy cold. The kind of cold that makes your nerves short circuit, like when you plunge head-first into a frozen lake.
Tsugumi opened her eyes, ready to see the world around her that she had woken into. But… she didn’t. Around her was nothing but darkness. A vast, eternal darkness. One that moved so fast around her, that she could feel it whipping her skin, but at the same time, frozen. Eternally frozen. Nothing here moved, nothing here spoke. Nothing here even dared to breathe.
She couldn’t breathe.
Tiny fingers wrapped themselves around Tsugumi’s throat, clawing at the darkness that enveloped her. She knew where her hands were, but was unable to see them. She opened her mouth to scream, to gasp, to cry— but nothing escaped. If anything, the darkness plunged into her, squeezing her from the inside out, wringing her dry of any air that may have been left in her lungs,
And then it was gone.
The light was blinding. The darkness had pulled back, fast, too fast, and had thrown Tsugumi out of it, into the light, into the world, into the moment. She stumbled, trying to catch her breath. Someone stood in front of her, and they turned to see what had happened, but before her eyes and ears could adjust to being again, it disappeared.
She couldn’t tell you how long it was between each blip of existence. It felt like eternities would pass in seconds, and that mere minutes took lifetimes to tick by. All the while, Tsugumi lay ravaged by a cold that seeped into her bones, her DNA, her very atoms, and oxygen deprivation that only seemed to be worsened by each breath she managed to take in the brief interim between Nothings. She never stopped moving, never able to stay still, but would always find herself in the same spot, no matter how different it looked each time she emerged from the dark. She could always tell.
It was the footprints.
Every time she fell from the Nothing, into the Something, there was always one thing that stayed the same. Beneath her feet, a set of inky black footprints. No matter what she was standing on— concrete, dirt, tile, hardwood— every time she emerged, her feet were right on the footprints. They stayed in the same place through everything. Even if she moved, wherever she would emerge next would have the same thing.
A small, child-sized set of black footprints, marked where she would come into existence, even before time itself knew where she was.
And this fact didn’t change when the place the Nothing spit her up into was completely different than it was last time. And this fact didn’t change when she launched forward into the office, gasping and coughing for air. And this fact didn’t change when she knocked against a cupboard, sending its contents crashing to the floor. And this fact didn’t change when the Nothing reached out its icy black hand for her throat. And this fact didn’t change when her feet left the floor, too late as the door flung open.
And this fact didn’t change when she found herself back there again, after another eternity, another timeless, nerve-killing swim through the freezing Nothing.
But it did change when a man with black hair and tired eyes grabbed her by the arm, his hair flying up around him in a gust of wind unseen by others, but felt by the pair. When his glare met her soul, Tsugumi finally felt as if she could breathe again.
She could breathe again.
She could breathe again.
Tsugumi couldn’t feel the tears as they rolled down her cheeks, nor when they froze in place due to the icy temperature of her skin. But she could feel her lungs expand, way further than they used to.
And then it was gone.