His stomach churned around nothing, his hands shook, his arms too heavy and weak. His attention drifted in and out, only half there. Why couldn’t his body just behave? If only it was as prone to suggestion as his subjects. His skull lulled with the weight of his drooping lids, jerking up again only to list further. He couldn’t afford to be this exhausted, why now, when he had pushed through just fine so many times in the past? Had he always felt this terribly and never noticed? His magic seemed to scream for him to rest, but he knew all too well how impossible that was. It was a moot issue, he had long accepted that. His body was betraying him, he would be bitterly angry, if he could feel anything apart from nausea in this fog of blankness overtaking his consciousness.
WHY? He had not been pushing himself, in fact he had been slowing down! Why was this happening?? It did not make any logical sense?
He could only blink owlishly at the muffled questions breaching the droning static, his mind taking a shamefully long time to process, and he squinted as he willed his mouth to form around even a simple reply. But he stared dumbly, jaw hanging loose, the effort of willing even a small vibration from his throat seeming a herculean task. He reached desperately for his faculties only for them to flee from his grasp, like recalling a fresh dream.
What was happening to him?
His back ached with the tension locking up his frame, moving was like swimming through concrete, clinging to every bone, fighting lest he freeze into a statue.
The only part of him resisting the freeze was his soul, which was only beating faster and harder in his chest, trying to escape the terrifying entropy of his body.
A small clatter somehow a loudspeaker in his ears was the only thing that penetrated the fog, he flinched violently, his back bowing into himself and hunching automatically to protect the panicked and fluttering soul. His eyes shot wide like saucers, staring ahead and unfocused, breath that was barely there, now coming fast and hard, shuttering in and out of him, ripping through the concrete that sealed around his bones.
The room rocked in his vision… No that’s not right, he was the one rocking, without his consent, light at first but swinging deeper.
The realisation screamed through him, he was losing control. His body disobeyed his every command, he was receding into the static of his mind, his vision tunnelled as he was swept away, even as he desperately tried to swim back to himself, by the time he realised how far he had been swept away, it was too late.
