There's movement, and I'm off my feet before I have time to panic. Suddenly, pain, searing hot around my throat. Rolls over me like a wave. I feel I'm trying to breathe and it doesn't work, and that is a very frightening sensation. That is, in all of those days that I've been waiting for the execution, the first time that I really feel death, laughing right into my face. Oh my God I don't want to die! Where am I going, what is to happen, what will be, will I still be there, will I just cease to exist? I am so afraid.
I feel my body tremble, I feel my hands with my fingers stretched to their limit behind my back. The bones in my neck crack. I'm shivering allover. My head is turning very hot and blood seems to be boiling in my veins. It feels as if someone tried to cut my one remaining eye out of my skull. Red and black dots start dancing in front of my face. Is that I making these strange noises? Then, I don't feel myself anymore, and maybe it would be pleasant, wasn't it for the sensation that I am sucking my nose in, because I try to draw breath so hard. The world blurs in a spin.
And I'm still alive. I am very alive, and all kinds of sensations explode in my mind. I feel, and I feel too much. So much! And it frightens me. Please, let it stop now. Let me breathe! I want to scream, yes, in that moment I want to scream for help. I want to scream for Pearl, and Jack, to come and rescue me. But it is too late. I don't know how long it lasts. I thought it would be over quickly, I'd just cease to think and that was it. But I am still there, and I couldn't say, have I been hanging for seconds, minutes? My senses are swimming, but my mind is there, very clearly. It is a little bit as if I lost my feeling for reality, a little bit as if I was really drunk, but in the back of my head, I'm still watching myself. I'm watching, and I want to run away because I see that I am dying. And as much as I have longed for death in my life, the one, or the other time, now that death's pale angel slowly wraps a cold embrace around my chest, I want to live. I want to live. I am too scared to die. But somehow, the pale figure only rests its head calmly against my shoulder, and holds me tighter. Oh God. Not like that. Not here, not now.
But … when then, Hal Sparrow? When is the right moment? Maybe … maybe this is just it. Maybe it's just over now. As simple. Stop. Struggling. Maybe I'll just die now, and sail a ship into heaven today. That would be fine. Heaven must be an ocean. Maybe I can just go on sailing there. I will be fine, maybe? Maybe death is not so very different? Being dead I will go on with my life? I feel very light, I realize. Very light, and getting lighter. And suddenly, rather calm. Not just as frightened anymore.
But then, there's more hot stinging pain around my throat, and I drop for a bit. Jesus Christ, what's happening now? Reality clams me back, and the sounds of a raging crowd ring clearly in my ears. I don't understand. Cold encloses me.