LIGHT!!!

Someone was screaming.

Nur heard it from beyond sleep: a voice stretched thin with terror, rising above others until she could scarcely distinguish them.

“RUN!”

“It’s on me—get it off—”

“Don’t let it—”

Another scream swallowed the rest.

She tried to open her eyes. Her body resisted, heavy and distant, as though she were lying at the bottom of deep water. Beneath the shouting she could feel something hard against her cheek. There was warmth on her eyelids.

Someone was crying now.

Nur struggled towards the sound.

“Please,” a voice said.

So close it might have been beside her.

Her eyes opened.

Silence.

She lay still, waiting for the next scream.

Nothing followed.

A strand of pale hair rested across her mouth. She drew a shallow breath through it and listened to her own breathing. The voices had stopped so completely that she could almost believe she had imagined them.

Almost.

Beneath her cheek lay a white marble tile, its polished surface threaded with fine grey veins. Beyond it was a black tile, then another white one. The pattern extended away from her in long, straight rows.

Warm golden light shone across the floor.

Beyond the light, she could see nothing.

Nur lifted her head.

Nausea rolled through her. She caught herself on her forearms and waited, eyes squeezed shut, until it eased.

“Am I…”

Her voice sounded small. She swallowed.

“Dreaming?”

She pressed her palm flat against the marble. It was smooth, cool beneath the warmth on its surface. When she shifted her weight, the heel of her hand hurt.

She concentrated on that discomfort.

A dream would change. She would wake, or the floor would become something else, or someone would come through a door she had somehow failed to notice.

She looked for the door.

Nur turned her head slowly, following the edge of the illuminated floor. Everywhere she looked, the tiles receded into blackness. There were no windows, no distant strip of light beneath a door. Above her, there was no visible ceiling.

She pushed herself upright.

“Oh, no…”

She sat with one hand braced behind her, the other pressed against her unsettled stomach.

She noticed her clothes.

A white bodysuit covered her from her neck to her ankles. She ran her fingertips over one sleeve, then looked down at her bare feet.

She could not remember putting it on.

She tried to recall what had come before. There ought to have been something immediately before the floor: a room, a journey, the ordinary act of lying down and closing her eyes. The harder she reached for it, the more her thoughts scattered.

The screams returned to her instead.

Nur looked over her shoulder.

“Hello?”

She had meant to call out. The word barely travelled beyond her lips.

She waited, then tried again.

“Is someone there?”

There was no answer, and no echo she could hear.

She looked upwards.

A small sun hung above her.

She stared.

Its centre was a brilliant golden disc, surrounded by curved tongues of light that resembled the petals of some impossible flower. Within it, a brighter shape burned like a four-pointed star. Nothing held it in place.

It simply hung in the dark.

Nur raised a hand to shade her eyes, although looking at it did not hurt as much as she expected. Gold caught along her fingers. When she moved her hand, its shadow moved across her face.

Something about that ordinary response steadied her.

Light. A floor. Her own body.

She could begin with those.

She drew her knees beneath her and stood carefully. Her legs trembled, but they held. Pale hair slipped over her shoulders as she straightened.

Then she looked out again.

Standing had revealed nothing.

The darkness remained level with her eyes, vast and without detail. She could not tell whether she was inside a room too large to comprehend or standing somewhere that had never possessed walls at all.

Someone has to know I’m here.

She held on to the thought.

Perhaps the people she had heard were looking for her. Perhaps they had moved away while she was unconscious. If she called loudly enough—

She remembered the way the last voice had begged.

Nur closed her mouth.

One hand rose to her cheek. With the other, she gathered a small fold of white fabric against her chest.

Above her, the little sun burned steadily.

“Is this…” she whispered.

The question seemed childish while it remained inside her head. Spoken aloud, it might become something worse.

She looked once more at the place where the marble vanished.

“Hell?”

The silence gave her nothing back.

Part Two

Nur

At first, she stayed directly beneath the sun.

It seemed sensible to remain where someone had left her, though she could not imagine why they had abandoned her.

She listened for footsteps.

After a while, she began to walk.

She followed a line between two rows of tiles, stopping often to listen, as though a reply might be waiting just beyond the sound of her footsteps.

None came.

Near the edge of the light, she crouched.

The floor continued. She could see a white tile becoming grey, then disappearing before its far edge was visible. There was no visible drop. Nothing prevented her from continuing.

Nur extended her hand.

Her fingertips lost their colour first. Farther out, the shape of her hand grew indistinct.

She pulled it back.

Her skin was unchanged.

“See?” she whispered.

She was not sure whom she was trying to reassure.

The next time, she reached farther. She spread her fingers and turned her palm, searching the darkness for the motion.

Then she stood and put one foot forward.

The marble felt exactly the same.

She remained like that for several breaths, her weight held back. She could take another step. There might be a wall just beyond sight, or another light, or someone as frightened as she was.

She leaned forward.

One of the screams returned to her with such clarity that she jerked backwards, stumbling into the brighter part of the circle.

Nur pressed a hand over her mouth.

She listened.

Nothing.

Only the memory of it.

She lowered her hand and looked at the dark with a sudden, helpless resentment.

She could not stand here forever.

For another half hour, she made small journeys across the illuminated floor.

She chose a direction, approached the boundary, and found a reason to return. Once she decided she would follow a seam between the tiles so she could trace it back. Another time she promised herself only three steps beyond the light.

She managed none.

Between attempts, she searched the floor for anything useful: a mark, an object, some sign that another person had stood there. She found only the natural veins in the marble and her own faint reflection.

Eventually she sat down, then got up almost immediately. Sitting made her feel too much like someone waiting to be found.

She was approaching the edge again when something changed.

Nur stopped.

A few paces ahead lay a white tile she had used as a marker. There was a crooked grey vein running across it, branching near one corner.

She could no longer see the branch.

She looked upwards.

The sun was smaller.

Or dimmer.

For a moment she could not decide which, and she clung to the distinction as if one answer might be harmless.

Then the golden reflection beside her foot faded.

“No.”

She returned to the centre of the circle.

The curved rays around the sun had begun to draw inward. Their edges blurred, and the warmth on her face weakened. At the perimeter, one row of tiles disappeared, followed by another.

Nur lifted both hands.

“Please, no.”

The words came out too loudly. She glanced into the surrounding dark and lowered her voice.

“Please, please…”

The light continued to diminish.

She looked around for something to touch, something to turn or press. There was only the empty floor. The sun hung well beyond her reach.

She rose onto her toes anyway.

“Not now… Please don’t go…”

Her throat tightened. She felt foolish speaking to it, but the thought of saying nothing and watching it disappear was unbearable.

The circle contracted around her.

She stepped back as the shadows reached her feet, although there was nowhere within the light that they would not eventually reach. Her own shadow weakened beneath her.

The gold had deepened to amber. She could see only the nearest tiles now.

She tried to choose a direction while she could. The seam to her left. She would follow that. When the light went out, she would crouch, find the seam with her fingers, and keep moving.

She stared at it, fixing its position in her mind.

Then she looked up again.

“Why?”

The sun dwindled to a dull point.

Nur watched it until she could no longer be certain it was there.

Then even that uncertainty was gone.

She held her breath.

Nothing happened.

No footstep. No touch. No sudden rush from the dark.

She let the breath out slowly and tried to take another without making a sound.

Her eyes searched for the floor.

She blinked, waited, and blinked again. There should have been shapes by now. Some distinction between what lay beneath her and what stretched ahead. She knew darkness changed when you gave your eyes enough time.

This did not.

She held a hand in front of her face and moved it from side to side.

She could feel the movement in her wrist. She could see nothing.

The seam was somewhere to her left.

She began to lower herself towards it, then stopped. The thought of putting her hands on the unseen floor made her straighten again.

Nur turned her head to the right.

Then to the left.

She kept turning, unable to bear the feeling that she had left some direction unwatched.

Minutes passed.

Her shoulders ached from holding them rigid. She swallowed, and the sound seemed terribly loud.

Then something cool touched the underside of her foot.

Nur froze.

At first she thought she had stepped into water. But she had not moved, and the sensation was thickening beneath her arch, pressing between her toes.

She lifted her heel.

Something stretched with it.

A small, wet sound broke the silence.

She tried to wrench her foot free.

It did not come loose.

Panic struck so quickly that she stopped thinking about direction. She threw her weight forward, trying to run, and nearly fell when her other foot held fast as well.

“No—”

She pulled harder.

The substance tightened around her ankles.

Behind her, someone laughed.

It was a quiet, breathy sound, almost a chuckle.

Nur twisted towards it.

The darkness behind her bulged.

She could not have explained how she saw it. There was still no light, yet a shape separated itself from the blackness, close enough that her body recoiled before her mind understood what was reaching for her.

Something broad and wet closed around her waist.

She screamed.

The sound escaped once, sharp and naked, before another fold of the creature struck her shoulder and spread across her chest.

Nur clawed at it. Her fingers sank into a cold, yielding surface. She tried to pull away a handful, but it stretched between her hands and thickened around her wrists.

The laughter came again.

Closer now.

She tried to duck her head beneath the thing climbing towards her face. Her feet remained fixed to the floor. She twisted at the hips, desperate for some leverage, but the movement only dragged one arm across her body.

It held her there.

The black substance rose along her neck.

“NO! HELP—”

It covered her mouth.

She jerked her head back and tried to breathe through her nose. For one precious moment she could.

Then it flowed over that too.

Her scream became a pressure trapped inside her skull.

The creature drew her backwards.

Her feet began to slide across the marble.