Prologue
At first he's unconscious, and then his entire existence is pain. It takes long excruciating moments until he becomes aware of the fact that he is a tangible human mass and not just a swirling cloud of agony given self-conscious thought by some cruel, merciless God. His limbs feel liquefied, and he's sure his brain is a molten mess inside his splitting skull, not that he can remember what the parts of his body are called, just that he can feel them and they hurt beyond all cognizable recognition. It would be a blessing to be paralyzed, numb to all feeling for the rest of his life, but in truth the physical pain is nothing compared to how his heart feels. Clearly some great hand had reached into his chest and squeezed it into a bloody pulp, somehow without actually killing him, because that's the only possible explanation as to why it aches so badly.
"Boss-lady, c'mere and get a load of this."
"Well, looky here..."
At some point, he perceives a low fuzz of noise, indistinct and unintelligible, but he cannot muster the strength or the desire to learn what's going on around him. Without warning, fierce white light batters at his closed eyelids and he lets out a noise that doesn't sound human in protest. The light goes away but is replaced by the sensation of something touching the endless plain of agony that was once his face.
"Hey! Hey, Queenie, you alive?"
Meaningless sound vibrates dully beside his ear and he does not respond, only keeps the burning sacs of air that were once his lungs expanding and deflating in a passable imitation of life. In doing so, the pain flares, becomes sharper and unbearable and, mercifully, he passes out. Something flutters around the region of his neck, unbeknownst to him, searching for a pulse.
"Well I'll be a two-headed rattler! Get 'im to the infirmary, now!"
It found one.