The bouncing ball of starlight zips around the space, catapulting against invisible walls. I suppose the starry expanse was limited. 

From the movement of my spherical neighbor, I can vaguely estimate the rounded field in which I dwell. 

Should I roll out and bounce? No, I feel quite cozy just right here. I nestle deeper into my cocoon. 

Watching the rapid movements of the other being, my own lack of change seems more pronounced. An itching sort of feeling creeps in as my consciousness tracks the animated co-resident. 

Uncomfortable.

I turn my consciousness inwards, seemingly well used to doing so. I witness swirling patterns of light feathery grey, a slow, heavy, brown, and something else… I lean in to move closer.

Move closer? 

With a jolt, I find myself staring out of two disoriented orbs. I slowly bring my eyes into focus, drawing them back from staring past reality. 

A uniquely discomfiting thought worms it’s way into my mind. My body and, well, whatever constitutes me had been separated for a while. That all is well and fine. But I hadn’t felt my deity.

I shudder at the notion, some underlying cosmic fear causing me to spasm.

With that, my body shakes itself awake. I find myself, chained and gagged, leaning dangerously close to a hard, stone floor.

A jerking movement of the chains preventing me from becoming intimately acquainted with the rough-hewn cobblestone had apparently broken my reverie. 

The taste in my mouth is disgusting. A wretched attempt to swallow my saliva leaves me near-retching and coughing desperately into the twisted cloth so securely holding my jaw open.

I ease my unwilling mandible open even a bit further and slowly force it to move horizontally, back and forth, back and forth. 

Internally, I reach out to my deity’s threads and find them… weaker somehow. Continuing deeper inward, I reach out a thread of my own to investigate my spiritual state.

White appears in my vision as my head strikes the wall behind me. Grasping hands clutch at my chest as a guttural scream echoes throughout the small stone prison cell.

It takes a moment for my mind to return to itself and to my shaking body. 

My shallow pants are blocked by the gag, aided by a jaw sore from the forced, reflexive opening seconds before.

My threads were severed. I hadn’t felt such pain since I had learned to  wield my soul as a weapon. 

I withdraw the broken bits of soul to the shallow portion of myself, tugging them close to my flesh and blood.

It seems my internal state is damaged enough to cause such a thing…

But such ponderings shall have to wait.

Stomping footsteps draw closer with heavy thuds and a strange clanking with every third step. 

The future awaits me, broken or otherwise.