Concrete under your feet is littered with broken glass and other debris. Distant sounds of traffic and metal ricochet off the walls in the dark, the narrow, black passages of cold, dank air. A stumble, a fall, burning sensations on your knees and hands, and then a sudden wash of white light. With a start, you look up and that light blinks. No, wait a minute – the one light is two, and the figure blinks again before offering a hand up.
Upright
In the light, you can see the scrapes on your hands and knees, and indeed the blood. The figure pulls a clean-looking rag from somewhere in the black and you grab their hand through the barrier. They help you to your feet, strong but gentle. Fully upright, out of instinct you look up and down the passage, and spot several more pin-pricks of light in groups of two. You’re not as alone as you thought.
Reversed
The pang of doubt hits you in the throat and crackles through your bones. You look away from the light-dotted alley and back to your hand, now covered in the cloth, and then up to the eyes before you. Still, no sounds except for the distant traffic and din of the city, somehow moving forward in time despite the only light from all eyes on you. A slow, tentative step back from the stranger, and they straighten up, it turns out, to a little taller than you. With your unwrapped hand, you give a tentative wave, then turn away – no one follows. In spite of your empty stomach, eyes wide in search of new light, you have to go it alone.
All illustrations and text copyrighted from The Liminal Deck.
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