Blackness, sweet blackness, and the sense of floating among the stars. Nothingness. It was exquisite now ... even the touch of agony that still seeped through was exquisite.
How much of this, I don't know.
I heard a voice again, and at first I thought my precious blackness was leaving me. I struggled to keep it. I grasped out, clutching with my mind.
"Don't give up ... we are coming...."
It was her voice. The low, seductive voice of my dreams. But I didn't want to hear it now; this was the last thing I wanted to hear. This voice had brought me here, and I never wanted to hear it again.
"No matter what they say ... no matter what they offer you or tell you ... don't give up."
I fought it off. I drove it away by sheer mind-power. Either that or it stopped of itself. I didn't know and didn't care; all I wanted was peace and blackness again if I could find it.
And then, after a while, I was awake, truly awake, and I knew this because I ached and burned all over. I could scarcely move. I lay on the tablelike thing and stared at the gleaming metal ceiling, not really seeing it.
"How do you feel?" said somebody.