It was a strange sensation to be standing when she felt otherwise so relaxed. Vaguely aware of a pale, bluish light all around her, Portia realized that she must have been put in one of the glass cases. She knew that there were close to two dozen of them in the room along with her, yet she felt entirely isolated. Her toes flexed and stretched and gave Portia a start. A thigh muscle twitched in response, and her body weight shifted of its own accord. The disturbing sensation confirmed that her mind was far removed from the workings of her body. She attempted to reach up and push back the bandages over her eyes, but her hands would not so much as twitch. In fact, her eyes did not even bother to answer her commands. They looked neither left nor right and did not even try to blink. She floated, fully conscious and aware, in a useless mannequin. Portia began to cry, but the sounds echoed only through the confines of her mind. When the attendant came for her, she had no idea how long she’d been standing in her glass case among all the others, blind, mute, paralyzed, and bathed in blue light that was the very color of a perfect summer sky.
