Time had become riddled with black holes for Echo. She couldn’t remember when it had started,
Time had become riddled with black holes for Echo. She couldn’t remember when it had started, but those few times she managed to surface back out of them she always thought she had a vague memory of before. Not a memory of details, or places, or people, but the memory that the black holes hadn’t always been there. But that feeling seemed to get fuzzier every time.She thought black hole was the right word for it— they consumed her entirely, and for those times she was in their grip, it was like entering non-existence. She wasn’t alive, and wasn’t real until they spit her back out again. She had no way of knowing what happened between the times where she ceased to exist, or how much time passed. And her surfacing to consciousness was only ever brief.She felt like she was drowning in non-existence, being devoured by it, and she was only allowed brief gasps of awareness before it took her again. It seemed the gasps got briefer and briefer every time.There were constants, even though the scenes she woke into varied. She was always with the same woman. Just as she had that vague feeling she hadn’t always been in the grip of the black holes, she had a vague feeling she had once known the woman’s name. Her face was for some reason familiar, even in the haze Echo’s sliver of conscious thought had become.She always woke into compromised positions; she was always naked, and the other woman was usually naked, sometimes partly clothed. She would find herself in the middle of pleasuring her, or being pleasured when she surfaced. And yet, even when consciousness came back to her automatized body, control did not. She could not stop herself in the midst of any of the carnal acts she found herself engaged in— not that it mattered much. Her consciousness was like a leaf on the wind. As soon as it settled in place, the wind picked it back up again and carried it away.Then she would sink back into non-existence; and then surface into a similar scene. She would only get glimpses in the span of ten or fifteen seconds before her head ducked back under water and she was drowning again. Even in those ten or fifteen seconds, it was long enough to hate that Other Self. That sack of flesh that had no consciousness, that in the blackness did not drown in non-existence but existed fully.When Echo was down, she was up; for those seconds Echo was up, that Other Self must be down; but for her it was only a blink. The majority of Echo’s time belonged to her— and she, the thoughtless sack of flesh was aware for hours and days, she was the one present in all the endless lost time Echo had no chance of recapturing or regaining. And she was the one with all control, and even if she sank down as Echo came up, she never lost her grip on their shared body, and the body could never be deterred from its planned course of action— no matter how Echo tried. Even with only ten or fifteen seconds, she tried.The thought she remembered that she used to surface for longer; she thought she remembered that she used to be able to seize control of the body back from that other her. She didn’t know when this had stopped, but she suspected the root cause was the same as the cause of all else; it was the woman. Without knowing the details, without knowing how or why, Echo still knew that.It was the woman’s fault; this woman who had created the Other Self, this woman who had taken Echo’s power and given it to the thoughtless doppelgänger who held the reins of her mind for days or weeks or months at a time, all while Echo herself lay dormant in non-existence.If the woman had taken it from her and given it away— she could give it back. She could take it from the false Echo, and give it back to the real one. She could lift her out of the grip of the black holes, and set her free.But why would she? Clearly, she’d known what she was doing when she had done it. She had probably kidnapped Echo and forced her into this place; why would she now release her when she had clearly gotten exactly what she wanted?And anyway, if Echo had no hope of regaining control of her body, she couldn’t even make the demand in the first place. So she would disappear more and more… until finally she would never resurface again. She probably wouldn’t even know it was the last time when it happened.But it turned out she was wrong again. The blackness of non-existence surrendered her back to conscious awareness, but she felt the change— she couldn’t remember her name. She tried for several seconds, but realized she had no time to waste. She couldn’t remember her name— and a few seconds more to check around confirmed she couldn’t even remember the hazy-half feelings she’d thought she’d been able to remember too— whatever they had been.It could only mean one thing. Together, the woman and her other self had succeeded in wearing her down to nearly nothing, and when the blackness claimed her next it would never give her up again.The knowledge did something to her— it gave her a kind of electrified power, some kind of rush of adrenaline, and though she had tried many times and failed, this time when she reached for the reins, and struggled for them, she succeeded. She shoved her other self roughly away, and seized control of her body again— felt the long-forgotten memory of what it was to be spread through an entire body instead of curled in the back of her own mind.She had strength enough to shift off the other woman, from the position she’d been on top of her on the bed. She thought briefly of running for the door— but gave it up. She had shaky control, but it had only come from the pure desperation of knowing that, for all intents and purposes, her existence was about to end.With it she could buy herself seconds, or if she were lucky, minutes— it would not last long enough to allow her to escape. And even if she did escape, with the Other Self so powerful in her, she would easily retake control and return their body to this woman; and she would cease to exist all the same.There was only one hope of survival or escape for her— and it was to beg. And even if she doubted this woman next to her would be sympathetic, it was her only chance, and she had to take it.“There,” she heaved, and even in speaking she felt out of practice. “I’m back— I’m not your precious— that other— “ She felt so much contempt she couldn’t even name the thing.The woman didn’t look particularly disturbed. She shifted from lying into a partially raised position, and had a look of curiosity on her face. “I understand. It must be important, whatever it is, for you to have the strength to retake control.”“Let me go,” she said, directly. “Undo what you’ve done to me— destroy that thing that borrows my face and my body, and give me back control. And then let me go.”The woman said nothing; only watched her.She injected a greater sense of urgency into her voice— it was easy to do, when she was feeling it too. “Please,” she said. “Please— if I go under again, I won’t ever come back up. You have to save me from that— you have to let me go free. You have to take the thing out of me and give me back to myself. You’ve got to.” She pleaded.The woman tilted her head. “I have to save you? Aren’t I the one that did this to you?”“Yes,” she replied, with an edge to her voice. “And I hate you for that. You took me out of my life— whatever it used to be, and split me in half, and stole my power and gave it to your creation— but there’s no one else I can ask. You’re the only one who can help me. You’re the one who did this.”A look of amusement spread across the woman’s face. “Oh, so that is what you think. Oh, Echo.” She shook her head, still wearing the same look. “You thought of this yourself.”Her name having been briefly returned to her had held her attention for a second, but at the weight of the revelation it was all but forgotten.Echo stared in shock. “What?”The woman smiled. “You thought of this yourself. It was your fantasy— all your plan. You wanted your consciousness to be stolen from you, and then dissolved, so all that remained was thoughtless, faceless obedience. You fantasized and dreamed about it for months, but it was your private shame, and it took you a long time to trust me with the information; to show me your plan. And longer for you to ask me to do it. But eventually I agreed. I’ve given all of this to you because you asked me. And now, I’ve given you the complete gift. In the moment you slip under for the last time, try to appreciate that.”Echo was too shocked to reply. And unfortunately, the shock was strong enough to knock the reins from her hands— she felt the Other Self taking them back, and the blackness surging forward again.She couldn’t even be angry, or despairing. She could only feel the shock— I asked for this… I wanted this…And maybe somewhere, in the distant recesses of her shred of consciousness there was something like a curl of satisfaction; maybe shared with the Other Self and maybe not. Maybe something old and repressed, or something that had been all but worn away. But it was there.And then there was nothing…nothing but an echo of pink… -- source link