When he woke again, Kraft was glad to see the ceiling and the quiet twilight glow, rather than anyone's anxious face or hurried footsteps rushing back and forth in the hallway.
A whole afternoon had flown by in a deep sleep. He had thought he might have a long dream about fighting something or running in vain through an endless series of repeating spaces, but in reality there had been nothing. His mind had been so empty it couldn't hold on to half a thought.
His consciousness had drifted like a baby floating in amniotic fluid, absently waving its nonexistent limbs. It wandered for a little while—or perhaps a long time—waiting for the memories from before he blacked out to rise to the surface on their own.
The orangish-yellow, slightly tipsy light strolled slowly across the bedding and cabinets, then climbed diagonally along the wall. The scent of bitter, torturous herbs mingled with the smell of grain roasting in the smoke rising from nearby chimneys, filling the somewhat warm and damp air.
It was nearly dinnertime. Gradually emerging from a deep sleep didn't feel good. Not only had his energy not fully recovered, but his headache had worsened.
The missing stretch of time left him with an uneasy sense that the world had abandoned him. Everything had moved forward beyond the reach of his awareness, and instinctively he wondered if he had lost control of something.
That unease prompted Kraft to abandon the idea of continuing to lie there like a corpse. Pressing a hand to the throbbing spot on his temple, he slowly sat up.
A jumble of information crowded into his mind, with no regard for order: fractured space, banquet dishes, medical representatives, dissected aberrations, gray-white stone, severed limbs, solid Black Fluid.
Oh, right. There was that thing,