Eroded
What is that? The slightest shred of conscious thought. There are others. I try to gather them, to arrange them in a way that makes sense.
Who am I?
Two words drift tauntingly at the edge of my awareness. My name.
I grasp at the words desperately, but the harder I try, the farther away they drift. I try a different question. What happened?
Police. . . Dogs barking viciously. . . A fence. . . Barbed wire. . . Run!. . . Can't get caught!
Why?
A young girl, no older than ten. . . Deathly pale. . . Asleep.
Penny. . .
That's it. That's the reason I ever did anything, good or bad. For her. For my daughter. She still needs me.
But I can't see. I can't hear. I can't feel anything. Am I dead?
No! I can't be dead! Penny needs me. I finally remember my name, but it doesn't matter anymore. Get up, Flint!
I gather all the willpower I can muster and channel into one motion, one simple command: Get up!
It should be easy enough, but. . .
A pit. . . I recall something, a sign. . . Said something about a test. . . My hand, dissolving, turning into. . . sand!
I try several times before I succeed in raising a vaguely human-shaped mass of sand off the ground. Suddenly, I can see, and feeling begins to seep back into my limbs.
A glint of silver in the sand around me catches my eye. A locket. I reach for it with what I guess is supposed to be my hand, but my fingers disintegrate. I need that locket! It's all I've got, all I have to remember. . .
I reach for it again, willing my fingers to stay hard, not to dissolve. I manage to pick it up. I bring it closer and it falls open, revealing the thumbnail-sized portrait inside. Penny stares at me in silence from her place, frozen in that one moment that is captured within the locket.
I am eroded.