by Mary Coffin
“If you are tempted to remove your blindfold,” Silas said as he tied a knot in Loki’s blindfold behind her head, “then you’d better get good at using a sword because that is what you’ll have to depend upon if you fail at this. I know how you love to use the sword.”
Loki heard the challenge in his voice.
Silas was responsible for training Overseers. Up until now, he primarily worked with Loki, Kado and Waysu on fighting skills. They learned how to use swords, daggers, and other weapons. Loki was the only one of the three that had never used a weapon. Waysu was a natural with the dagger. Apparently, she learned as a child how to use one. Kado already knew how to use a sword and demonstrated his skill in an impressive match with Silas. Loki, on the other hand, was new to all of it and using a sword was her least favorite. Silas let them know that weapon training was only a backup to their other skills that were going to surface after the indoctrination.
“The idea,” he had said, “is that you never reveal your presence. If your presence is compromised, there might be a time where you’d have to fight your way out of a situation. Hopefully, that won’t be the case.”
Now he stood before the three new members, each of them wearing a blindfold, each one standing in a different spot in the small cave.
“You can’t use your physical senses of sight, sound, smell, touch or taste. I’ll come for you once you’ve all crossed the bridge.”
Loki heard him chant something under his breath. Then, as if the room was suddenly soundproofed, all went silent. She stood there, waiting for him to give some directions. What bridge was he talking about? She didn’t recall seeing a bridge in the cave or crossing one on the way there. So what did he mean?
Loki waited but no further instructions came.
She spoke his name. “Silas?”
She moved her mouth but didn’t hear her voice. She repeated his name.
“Silas?”
This time she was certain that she called out but there was no sound coming out of her mouth. It was a little freakish, to say the least.
“Waysu? Kado?”
Still, no sound came out.
Loki reached out with her hands as she took a few steps forward, in the direction where she last saw Kado and Waysu. She walked cautiously, expecting to bump into them or to run into the opposite wall. She felt nothing so she continued stepping forward, her hands desperately reaching out to feel something familiar.
She recalled the cave was small, so why hadn’t she reached the other side yet? She hadn’t encountered anything or anyone. Her mind raced to understand this strange phenomenon. It was unnerving and she thought she cried out, or at least it seemed as though her mouth went through the motion but there was nothing. The silence was so complete; she couldn’t even hear her nervous heart pounding in her head. Loki wanted to shake it off. She screamed the loudest, most deafening scream.
Nothing.
She reached for her blindfold, about to rip it off, when Silas’s words rang through her mind.
If you are tempted to remove your blindfold, then you’d better get good at using a sword because that is what you’ll have to depend upon if you fail...
She kept the blindfold on but, while resting her fingers on it, was suddenly aware that she couldn’t actually feel the blindfold. She moved her fingers across it, or so she thought, but there was no sensation in her fingers or on her face. She touched her fingers to her ears, or where she thought her ears were located, and snapped them. No sound in her ears. No feeling in her fingers.
She decided to sit on the floor and held her hands out to balance herself as she reached down for the cold surface. She never felt it with her hands or her bottom so she really wasn’t sure whether she was sitting, standing or balancing on her head.
There was no sensation whatsoever.
She told herself to take some deep breaths and thought she did or, at least, imagined that she did. She started to calm down and just sat or stood there, in whatever position she was in, and tried to let go of the fear of losing her dependence on her physical senses.
She wanted to succeed but was unsure of what to do. It felt like an eternity since she had entered the cave but there was no way of knowing how long it had been. She thought back over Silas’s words. He said he’d come for them once they all crossed the bridge.
Is this a riddle? Is there another meaning to what he said?
Loki was lost without her physical senses. There was nothing that connected her with time or space. It was the most naked she had ever felt, almost like she didn’t exist. It was as if the person she had known herself to be was gone but she knew she wasn’t really gone.
So, what did that leave her with? She didn’t even have the ‘tweenlings to help her understand this situation. Thinking about the ‘tweenlings brought back memories of what it felt like to spin with them. She recalled how, after spinning for awhile, she’d eventually feel like she was nothing but energy in motion. She wasn’t her body or emotions…just energy. Then she realized that this was the same sensation, only brought about in a different manner.
At that thought, she noticed a shift in her perception. It was as if she instantly had vision but with a different set of eyes – inner eyes. She saw the layout of the cave and was aware of the walls around her, the rock ceiling high above, the dirt and cold stone beneath her feet, and of the air that filled up the space in between. It was all energy. Everything is energy. There might be different forms but it’s all just…energy. It’s all similar, in that sense.
Loki let her inner senses play with what it felt like to be these other objects that were comprised of energy. She let herself become totally absorbed with the experience of being a rock, the dirt, the sun, a fairy, her horse - Beno. She had no clue how long she had been playing with these new senses, but at some point, she became aware of something else.
She felt the empty space around her and realized her awareness was back in the cave, back in the physical space. Her physical senses were returning and now she knew that she was still standing.
“Hello?” she whispered quietly. This time she heard her own voice!
There were still no other sounds but the empty space was changing. She felt it being filled up with something new. Like water that moves around an object, the empty space parted as this new energy moved through it. Then, she suddenly realized the new energy was coming toward her.