My skin felt clammy and cold, as if I was enveloped in mist. I struggled to breathe as cold, damp air stung my lungs. I tried turning around to see if I could see lights from Faircrest, but all I succeeded in doing was disorientating myself. I no longer knew which way I’d come and where the edge of the wall was.
Darkness, real darkness, I discovered was pretty frightening. Although I was well used to moving about at night, I was never really in total darkness. There was usually some small illumination from somewhere. I began to understand that I had never really been in darkness before.
With growing dread, I realised that my sense of hearing had stopped working too. I couldn’t hear any sounds from either side of the wall, and there had been sounds of merriment from taverns on both sides.
I called out and m voice sounded flat, as though I was shouting, muffled, through a blanket.
At least I knew my senses were working. It was something else, damp and vey cold, that was suppressing light and sound. Perhaps calling out wasn’t such a good idea.
I began to shiver, the cold quickly leeching the heat from my body. I drew my cloak tighter around myself and it felt as if the material was covered with a light frost.
Just as I was considering moving in a random direction in the hope of finding the Faircrest side of the wall, I caught sight of something from the corner of my eye. I span quickly in the direction of the movement, but there was nothing there. Puzzled, I looked around, trying to maximise my field of vison, which is both difficult and disorientating in total darkness. The stones of the wall-top had become slippery and crunchy with frost and I had to take extra care with my footing.
I paused, waited, counted to three and suddenly span around, hoping to catch anything sneaking up on me by surprise. Then immediately wished I hadn't.