His eyes were bright but lifeless. They lit up Duen’s face from where she sat across from him, legs folded. No pulse thudded in his neck, no lungs filled his breast. He only sat, motionless and cold. Dune’s reflection stared back at her from inside the hard, glassy surfaces of his body. She quickly realized her mouth was hanging slightly open and shut it. Rather than searching him for the sign of life that she knew wasn’t there, she turned her eyes toward the room once again.
It was a small dome that she probably couldn’t even stand in. There was no back or front, left or right. There was blackness and warmth, and the strange urge to lay down and sleep. She’d been here before, but for some reason couldn’t put her finger on the day. Or year. Or lifetime.
His eyes reclaimed her gaze. There wasn’t much else to look at aside from her too-bright reflection, gazing back at her a million times from every crevice of the Aio’s armor and the unending wall around her. She lit up the room in almost the same way that his eyes did, her very veins emitting light.
“I can’t even tell how long it’s been. Are you done?” Dune asked, her usually soft voice unbelievably loud in the enclosure.
For a moment she assumed he wouldn’t answer.
Something like a gust of wind came at her ears, deafening her for a moment before waning.
“It will end when you allow yourself to be read.” His voice was cold and unwavering, coming from the depths of his glassy body, perhaps not even a signal or sound. She had heard it her entire life and still was unsure of what it was. “What is it you feel?”
“You want to know what I feel?” Duen raised her voice, almost yelling. “I feel like I can’t sit still without my legs bursting into flame. I feel like every surface of my body has gone completely numb. My limbs are dead weight. My mind is like a void that everything goes into but nothing comes out. I think I should feel something, even now, and I don’t.”