{"id":4549,"date":"2021-02-15T11:29:06","date_gmt":"2021-02-15T16:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4549"},"modified":"2021-02-15T11:29:06","modified_gmt":"2021-02-15T16:29:06","slug":"seventeen-01-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4549","title":{"rendered":"Seventeen – 01"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post is from David O’Credne Miller’s point of view.]<\/em><\/p>\n

There were voices at the very edge of his consciousness, but they were muffled, far away, lost in the midst of a thousand images that flickered behind his eyelids, though his mind\u2019s eye.\u00a0 It was the same jarring kaleidoscope that he\u2019d been dealing with since he was a boy\u2014if he were honest, since he was young enough to barely remember the shape of his mother\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

That<\/em> was something he didn\u2019t talk about, though.\u00a0 It was a secret that was his and his alone\u2014how long these images had been coming.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t make sense to worry anyone more than they already did.<\/p>\n

Only sometimes did he think that perhaps knowing how long he\u2019d been wrestling with them, how used he\u2019d become to it, might be reassuring to the people who loved him.<\/p>\n

Only sometimes.<\/p>\n

Another step on the journey.\u00a0 Another road.\u00a0 A signpost.\u00a0 This is it\u2014X marks the spot.<\/em><\/p>\n

He shivered despite himself, tried to curl up.\u00a0 His body didn\u2019t listen, responding instead with the same bone-deep ache he\u2019d been feeling since they\u2019d run afoul of raiders on the road.\u00a0 How long ago had it been?<\/p>\n

It could be months, for all I know.<\/em><\/p>\n

But could it?\u00a0 Months?<\/p>\n

If he had been awake, he would have frowned.\u00a0 Clawing his way back to consciousness was too great an effort, though, especially when the deluge was still crashing over him, threatening to sweep him away with the wash of images that swirled around him.<\/p>\n

No, not yet.\u00a0 Not until he could make sense\u2014<\/p>\n

\u2014make sense of what, exactly?<\/p>\n

He couldn\u2019t remember, but it was something important\u2014something beyond finding the place called the Valley, the place he\u2019d seen in whispers of dreams and flickered images, the place he\u2019d seen in a thousand visions of the past and the future and the now<\/em> over the course of his admittedly short life.\u00a0 But there was something there, something like the voices he could just barely hear, muffled and indistinct, just beyond his ability to hear.\u00a0 There was something that hovered just beyond his reach, beyond his knowing<\/em>.<\/p>\n

He needed to know.\u00a0 He needed to find out.<\/p>\n

Time, he feared, was running out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from David O’Credne Miller’s point of view.] There were voices at the very edge of his consciousness, but they were muffled, far away, lost in the midst of a thousand images that flickered behind his eyelids, though … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[336,337,366,14],"tags":[340,150,359,171,170,350,149,148,168,147,165,146],"class_list":["post-4549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ambrose-cycle","category-book-8","category-chapter-17-book-8","category-story","tag-ambrose-cycle","tag-awakenings","tag-david-ocredne-miller","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-knights-errant","tag-original-fiction","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-serial","tag-serial-fiction","tag-story","tag-web-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-1bn","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4550,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4549\/revisions\/4550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}