Amber felt herself suddenly fall into a vortex. It had no up, down, left, or right, no passage of time. All she could see were spinning lights and shadows, tangled together in a murky haze like a great heap of faded, intertwined ribbons. They whirled rapidly around her like roaring waves, yet there was complete silence in her ears.
Before such an immense spectacle, the silence became the most terrifying part. Any creature with a normal mind that suddenly fell into such a silent vortex would likely feel immense mental pressure. Yet strangely... Amber was not afraid at all.
She felt that she ought to be afraid. She knew she was actually quite cowardly—beneath her usual loud and boisterous exterior, she had always been a scaredy-cat.
Yet within this endlessly spinning, utterly silent vortex, she felt no fear whatsoever. Instead, she felt a... long-lost familiarity.
She blinked curiously at the lights and shadows that swept silently around her. She did not know where she was, what state she was in, or whether Gawain had noticed anything wrong with her. A strange, detached state of mind seemed to quietly overlay her original personality, yet she remained as clear-headed and calm as ever. It was a strange feeling... she was still herself, yet somehow she no longer seemed to be herself.
As the lights and shadows swept past, she suddenly noticed that among those faded, tangled "ribbons," there seemed to be some vaguely discernible "scenery." Instinctively, she focused her line of sight, and the instant she did, the "vortex" swirling around her unexpectedly slowed, allowing her to finally make out the details within those lights and shadows—
She saw window-like openings resembling fissures, and beyond those elongated, distorted "windows" lay countless bizarre... landscapes.
The things forming this vortex... were actually countless warped