My mind is a machine, ticking away like a broken clock. The thoughts and information get stuck every so often. It jolts and rattles like a sticky record player. Images and streams of data dash before my eyes. Prickles of pain shoot across my entire body. One image lasts longer than the others, blue eyes. They're the eyes of the bluest blue. They're so cold and menacing that my lungs don't function. I'm drowning, drowning in a vacuum, my mind being ripped apart in an infinite amount of directions. The fragments are sucked in the vacuum and implode.
My eyes shoot open and my lungs strain and draw in black air, air full of soot. My vision is blurred by tears. My eye lid itches and I realize it is cut and swollen. I gaze up into a cloudy dreary sky and normalize my breathing. Flakes of ash sprinkle down like black snow. My hands are spread flat on the cold, rocky ground. I dig my nails in the earth and drag my hands closer to my sides. Sandy dirt is collected in my hand. I raise my hand above my face and let the sand slip through my knuckles and onto my neck. A chilling wind howls and blows the blackened sand into my eyes. My eye lid burns and I am unable to see. I try to sit up to clear my vision but a searing pain erupts on my left side. It feels like I am being shot with a machine gun over and over. I collapse.
"Left side, two broken ribs, maybe a tear in the skin, possibly caused by a fall…" I murmur.
My voice croaks out of my mouth and the words hardly sound like a language. I don't know why I'm talking aloud. Probably to make myself seem clever, even though there is no one to show off to. Suddenly I black out. Nothing. Blackness. I force my swollen eye lid open. I am greeted by suffering. I try to yelp, but no sound comes out. My heart stops and speeds up at an irregular rate.
"I am dying," I think. "I will die."
My spine is contracting. Every muscle in my body tenses. Through my squinted eyes, the grey sky turns scarlet. There is no sound, though my head is ringing. My heartbeat pounds like a drum and quiets to nothing but a pulse. This is it. I'm dying. I will die. A shadow creeps across the sky and my vision fades. But my heart doesn't stop, neither does the pain. The shadow isn't the fading of the world around me, something is above me. I lurch my head upward. It is a man, a man with eyes. I hate eyes. They scare me. This must be a fetcher to gather my soul. I truly am dead.
"I'm ready," I hoarsely whisper.
"Ready for what?" his voice rings in the tone of curiosity. "It looks like you need a doctor, my dear. And I have arrived, and not a moment too soon."
