Sensory Challenge #3

[Kitti]

The senses are key to writing descriptions that really make waves and invoking one or more of them in a setting can really help to bring it to life for anyone reading.
What I want you to do is take the selected sense and write using it and the secondary word that I present.

Your sense is: Touch
Your secondary word is: Comforting​

 

[PoetLore]

She looked in from the hallway and saw the young mother looking into the enclosed incubator at her tiny son. there was no time but still she stepped into the neonatal intensive care unit, crossed the room silently and wrapped her fingers around the young lady's hand that was clutching at the side of the bed that housed her tiny son. Nothing was spoken, just a gentle squeeze and compassionate gaze to bolster faltering courage before she left.

 

[Ravenfrost]

He had been caught and he was the least of them, a small youngish man with a starved and perpetually apologetic look about him; hunched shoulders in shabby clothes, eyes kept downwards, hands that continually clasped each other in agitated petition against another future blow of fate.

Still, this starveling rat was not without some small crumbs of knowledge. What his comrades had planned. How they had learned of the treasure. Thus, the wizard set forth to extract every possible bit of information from him, without pity or finesse.

It had been easy for such a skilled magical practitioner to ferret out the prisoner's deepest fear to use against him: Tom's horror of small confined spaces. The wizard had placed the intruder, squeezed tight, in the pages of a book, bound with spells and blood-forged iron.

Thus situated, the wizard had been sure the little rat would tell all he knew and was sorely puzzled when Tom (eyes rolling back in his head, limp with terror) continued to defy him. As for Tom, it was beyond his understanding how he could be in a book (as his captor claimed); all he knew was that it was Death and the End of Everything. When you're already dead or mostly so, it doesn't matter anymore. He was surprised that the wizard, such a smart fellow, didn't seem to understand that. Tom was in his tomb, the walls pushing in on his body, air fleeing, dark, cold, alone. No escape. He knew the wizard would never let him go. Never, never, never.

Even when he was temporarily "freed," falling from his standing tomb to some grainy surface, crashing, bruised, limbs numb and unresponsive from lack of circulation, even then he didn't hope for a reprieve. His entire existence had been leading up to this moment of eradication. He was born a nothing, had lived as nothing, and to nothing he would return. His mind turned inwards to a gray empty place – this retreat, at least, was his.

When the wizard picked Tom up scornfully by his long, unkempt hair and shook him, like a terrier shakes a rat between his teeth, Tom didn't mean for his hand to catch on the hidden knife in the wizard's sash. The jeweled hilt was more like a hand, a friendly hand, than a knife hilt. The kind of friend that would share his food with you, that wouldn't kick you out in the rain when you had no place to sleep, that wouldn't laugh with all the others who called you stupid and ugly and worser things than that.

The knife felt real good in his hand, and there were so few things Tom could remember that felt good. It seemed to move of its own accord but like it was asking Tom's permission too, and Tom just didn't want to let go of it. The touch of it was warm, comforting, like it was telling him everything would be okay. It was the most amazing feeling he had ever had in his life.

And the knife cut out the wizard's heart, surprisingly fast, without as much blood as one might think. That was nice. Tom didn't really much like the sight of blood.

As the wizard dropped to the floor, deader than last Friday's flounder, Tom heard a voice, sweet as a silver bell come from the knife, saying: "You and I are one now, Tom."

He smiled. Good times were finally coming, he just knew it.

 

[noodle]

She was curled in the corner of her room, knees tucked up to her chest and arms curled around her legs in miserable silence. A knock sounded on the door and she turned her face away from it as her best friend entered. "Go away."

"No." Her friend meandered her way toward her and slid down the wall to sit next to her. "I let it go too far. I'm not leaving you alone this time. We both know it's not what you need."

Sam could feel her walls cracking, and she just hugged herself tighter in response, ignoring the girl that sat next to her. The girl who had hurt her...but was it really healthy to dwell on such things?

A hand, soft and gentle, slowly settled onto her shoulder, comforting in just its presence. "I'm really sorry I said..that. I forgot...you know..."

Sam hissed and swiped the tears away that were threatening to spill over. "Fine."

A smile broke through the cloudy expression on her friend's face, and she pulled Sam into a side hug. "Come on, let's go watch a movie."

"Alright."

Maybe it wasn't okay today...but maybe it would be okay tomorrow.

 

[Doctor Jax]

In a flurry of blankets, Gabe woke with a panic, reaching out blindly in the dark. He breathed heavy and fast, as if someone were trying to steal the air right from his mouth, and the world was a confusing mass about him. He had no idea if he was even really awake.

"Mom? Momma!" Gabe called out in the dark, with only the sheets that wrapped around him anchoring the boy to the world of the awakened. The cotton fibers always felt so soft to him, and he had always marveled at just how sensitive his fingers were, that he could pick out every single fiber. The blanket, however, was a different story - a scratchy, cheap fabric that irritated his skin, but kept him warm. He put out a hand around him and felt his teddy bear, the shag-like fur flowing like running warm water against his hand. He knew that his mother would be there soon, but his teddy would help in the meantime.

He heard the light click on, but as ever, he saw nothing. He had vague memories of what light was like, but the only thing he could really remember was a sense of warmth that suffused all of his skin, like a favorite scent or a comforting lullaby. Something sat on the edge of his bed, and the velvet fingertips of his mother's hand stroked his face.

"What's the matter sweetie? You've been having a lot of night terrors lately," his mother hummed blearily.

"I-I-I had the dream ago. That rocks fell outta the sky and crushed everybody," Gabe sniffled, crawling towards his mother and locating her lap with his hands, setting his head down while he hugged the plush teddy bear close. His mother stroked his hair, her fingers tracing his scalp gently, and she said, "Honey, those are just dreams. There's nothing to be worried about."

"But I dunno how I dream that stuff. I don't remember what things look like anymore," Gabe whined, burying his face into the teddy bear's back. The bear had a gentility like Bermuda grass, pliant and giving, and the smell of their laundry detergent helped remind him he was home, instead of standing in the yard looking up at a red sky with streaking stones falling to earth.

"Sometimes when you dream, your brain makes things up. You don't ever really forget things, baby. You just can't remember it all at the same time. So it seems like those memories go away."

His mother hugged him close, and her warmth seemed to seep through his thin t-shirt.

"Everything will be okay, honey. I promise. And I'll always be here if you need me. Just go back to sleep, and Mr. Bohr Nielsen will protect you," she said, taking his hand and tapping the velveteen nose of his bear, named after the scientist he had latched onto for the year.

Though he knew what she was saying made sense, something about it didn't click with him, but that didn't matter right now. All he knew was the sent of his mother's shampoo in his nose, the silky smooth cloth of her pajamas under his cheek, as his eyes began to drift shut again.