Ajani - First Planeswalk

The world spiraled in on him, forcing him down inside himself. The weight of it crushed his mind. Everything went dark and warm, and he felt as though his consciousness had ruptured, his mind being exiled to some realm of insanity. Shapes swam in the darkness—the blood-hallucinations he always saw under his eyelids.

But then Ajani realized his eyes weren’t closed.

Ajani felt a void around him like suction. It dragged at his fur and skin, and sucked at his eyeballs. He blinked repeatedly and moved his head from side to side, but his vision was reduced to watery impressions. He saw a dark green shape, its hills and valleys roiling uncomfortably, and momentary inklings of creatures moving across the world at speeds too fast to be natural. He could sense that place in a way he didn’t understand, a feeling like the memory of a taste, an imprint once removed from reality. It was Naya; somehow he was certain of it. That green, undulating shape was my home world, he thought.

He saw—or felt—other shapes in the void too. He turned his attention to them, which brought a blast of chaos rushing past his mind, like turning to face into a hard wind. He perceived four other realms in the void, dynamic and textured like Naya was, but they each felt very different. They were alien and off-putting, but he strained his perception toward them as much as he could. His eyes couldn’t take the grasping winds of the void, so he closed his eyes. His mind hurt when he tried to concentrate on the scene before him, so he let his consciousness float freely, as blank as the void. After a moment, the worlds appeared to him, as if he could feel their contours with some sense beyond sight or touch. Other worlds, other lives, other bizarre forms of being—he felt a rush of living textures that bewildered him.

***

He let his consciousness slide toward one of the worlds, a swirl of hot reds and smoke. Before he could turn away again, he felt it rushing up to meet him. There was a violent jolt, and the sudden sensation of weight—and falling.

He had a body again, a real, physical body. And it was hurtling through fiery air toward the red world’s ground. When he landed, he thought, he would either wake up from the nightmare, or die.

***

Alara Unbroken, Chapter 24-25