Whoa-huh.

Whoa-huh.

These sounds echoed throughout the haze.

XxX

But, sometimes, the sounds- and the pain- faded, and then there was only the haze. He remembered darkness; solid darkness had come before the haze. Did that mean he was making progress? Let there be light, and so on and so forth? Had those sounds even existed in the darkness?

He didn't know the answers to any of these questions. Did it make sense to even ask them? He didn't know the answer to that one, either.

He didn't know what his name was or where he was, and he didn't care to know, either. All he did know was that the pain was somewhere below the sounds. The pain was east of the sun and south of his ears.

For a length of time that seemed very long (and was, because the only things he knew existed were the pain and the stormy haze, and at times the two intermingled, making time creep by seemingly more slowly), those sounds- those rasping, whooping sounds- were the only outer reality that he knew. He couldn't move, couldn't think, and, in the pain-soaked haze that filled his subconscious like a summer storm cloud, he wished he was dead. He did not know that he wished it.

As time edged by, he became aware that there were periods- small, by unmistakeably there- of non-pain. These were brief, never lasting long, but they had a certain divine quality to it nevertheless.

And, for the first time since emerging from the blackness which had prolonged the haze, he had a thought which existed from whatever terrible situation he was in. This thought was of huge, jostling crowds, screaming excitedly, waving DVDs with various rotting body parts gracing the covers. There were lights, lots of bright, flashing lights; he remembered these clearly, as though he were reliving the entire experience again. The white light burned through his closed eyelids, and that was good, that was alright, because it was something he was used to- it was something he remembered. He and James had stood side-by-side, smiling awkwardly for the seemingly endless line of camera flashers, and then the entire troop who had made the series of movies (What movies? He wondered. What were they called?) all lined up and got their pictures taken together. Then the autographs came. He moved towards the ecstatic crowd, his movements slower in the memory than they had been in real life, because his mind was foggy, and pain-soaked. There were people screaming his name-

(Whannell. Leigh. Leigh Whannell. Yes, that's it. That's my name, he thought inside the cloudwhere he now was)

-and asking, no, begging for him to sign their books, shirts, DVDs-

This memory circled and circled, rather like a sluggish fly, slowly but surely flying up out of Leigh's reach. He groped frantically for whatever this memory might mean, but, for a very long time, the sounds interrupted, shattering what had been his first (and possibly, last) memory since the grey haze.

Whoa-huhhh…

Fayunn…

Whoa-huhhh..

Sometimes the sounds stopped.

Sometimes, he, Leigh, stopped.

His first really clear memory of this, what was happening right now, the now outside the haze, was simultaneously terrifying and welcoming. It was of stopping, of being unable to draw in another breath. It was terrifying because he knew that he was going to die. It was welcoming because, while he could take a certain amount of pain, enough was enough, and eventually everyone had to get out of the game sometime.

Then there was suddenly a mouth over his, a mouth that unmistakeably belonged to a woman, despite the hard, spitless lips. This mouth, which had covered Leigh's like a smothering blanket, began to force air into him, down his throat, inflating his lungs. When the mouth pulled back, Leigh could smell his warder for the first time, smelled her on the outrush of air that she had forced into him. It was a dreadful combination of vanilla cookies and chocolate ice-cream and chicken gravy and peanut-butter fudge. It repulsed him, and he hoped that she would not rape him full of air again.

There were more sounds. He could hear someone screaming, "Breathe, goddammit! Breathe, Leigh!"

To his despair, the lips clamped down again. The dreadful air was forced down his throat again. Blew down it like the dank suck of wind that follows a subway train, putrid and made of exhaust fumes, the kind that leaves sheets of newspaper and candy wrappers swirling in its wake. The lips were withdrawn, and he tried to not let the air go out through his nostrils, because the smell really was putrid, but he couldn't help it, and oh God, that stink, that fucking STINK.

"Breathe, goddamn you!" the unseen voice shrieked, and he tried, he really tried, because he didn't want any more of that putrid air forced down his throat, but before he could really get started, her lips were on his once more, as dry and dead as strips of salted leather, and he was raped full of her air again.

When she took her lips away from him this time, he forced her breath out, and whooped in a gigantic breath of his own. Shoved it out. Listening to the rasping, croaky sounds and wondering if they really belonged to him. He waited for his chest to rise up again on its own, but when it didn't, he sucked in another giant gasp of air, and then everything was all right- he was breathing like he had been doing for all his life. He did it quickly and frantically, trying to flush the disgusting smell of her out of him.

Normal air had never tasted so fine.

With that comforting thought, he began to sink back into the haze again, where the flashing cameras and screaming crowds were, but before reality could disappear completely, he heard a low, cheerful mutter from beside him: "Whew! That sure was a close one!"

Close, but not close enough, Leigh thought, and fell asleep.

XxX

He dreamed of the flashing lights, the screaming crowds. The dream was very vivid, so much so that he felt that he could reach out and actually feel the skin of his fans, the smoothness of the cameras which produced so much light. He recognized that he once thought of such events as annoying, but he dove into the dream now with relief. Dreams, memories- they had to be better than the reality of his situation.

When he awoke, bringing him back to the state of semi-consciousness, he was able to make a connection between the flashing lights and his current situation. It seemed to just float into is mind, as though he had known the answer all along. The pain only appeared to come and go. Despite sinking into the haze, and the pain being covered, it was always there. He knew that now. When the pain wasn't accompanying him through that thick summer storm-cloud, he was grateful, but he knew now- it was always there, waiting to return. There were two more things Leigh became aware of; one was that the dream was not a dream, but a memory, last year in fact, when he had attended the premier of a movie that ended a particularly popular horror franchise. The other was that the pain was not strictly restricted to the upper half of his body; while there certainly was pain there, Leigh found that the pain was actually strongest in his legs.

His shattered legs.

Once he became aware of this second fact, the pain seemed to double. Flaring suddenly and violently, his legs began to scream bloody murder. Leigh tried to scream along with them but found that he could not do so. The best he could manage was a weak moan. His legs felt as though they had been shattered with a sledgehammer- he could feel the bones in his legs, once two perfectly working legs that now felt like the meat of his thighs and calves were now housing hundreds of large splinters, poking at the meat of his legs, sometimes grinding against each other.

It was a long time before he was finally able to break the dried scum of saliva that had glued his lips together. When he had managed to so, he croaked out, "Where am I?" to the large woman who sat by his bed with a DVD in her hands. The name of the movie was simply 'SAW". Leigh recognized it as his own creation with little surprise.

"Sidewinder, Colorado," she said when he was finally able to ask the question. "My name is Annie Wilkes. And I am-"

"I know who you are," Leigh mumbled. He did indeed. "You're my number-one fan."

"Yes," she said, smiling, "That's just what I am."