Run Away With Me

I slipped into consciousness very subtly. It seemed slowly but surely I was aware of sounds all around me. I could feel where my toes and fingers were. I could feel the distant throbbing of pain kept at bay with so many painkillers I was surely now classed as a junkie.

I felt so alive.

I opened my mouth to gulp in air, breathing, it never seemed so amazing.

But my lips wouldn't part. My tongue wouldn't move to form words to make a sentence. I could feel my chest rising and falling but when I tried to stop it, it was to no avail. I felt out of control and I couldn't even weep in self-pity.

I dragged myself out the metaphorical rut I had found myself in, and tuned my ears in to what was around me. At first everything just blurred into a buzzing of static, the sound that comes off your TV when you can't get it to work.

But I was patient, and soon I began to distinguish other noises, apart and separate, yet together. A steady beep came from my right, and a low buzzing came from my left. Also to my left I could hear the soft tread of feet come closer, then pass by. In the distance, a low murmur of voices drifted through the halls I could not see.

I wondered vaguely if this was what a blind man felt like.

"Do you think he's awake?" A voice came from impossibly nearby.

The squeak of wheels inched closer and if I could have moved, I would have flinched.

"Maybe, who knows," another voice replied.

"Will this help?" Asked the first voice, a female.

"Hopefully, we need to try to know for sure," a male this time.

I tuned out from the conversation. It was obvious they were talking about me, and I felt a little self-conscious as I felt them pull away the light blanket that had been covering me. I hoped I wasn't naked.

"Right foot first?"

"Yes,"

Suddenly, a sharp pricking sensation came from my right foot. I felt myself panic as what seemed to be molten metal seeped its way into my veins. It burned me, yet it froze at the same time. It felt rough and smooth and every brand of pain. I could feel every part of my body rejecting it, screaming internally in the agony that was me.

"Left foot, quickly,"

As the feel slithered slowly, agonizingly, up my right leg, towards my knee, the process repeated self and the pain increased a tenfold. Soon, both legs were heavy and filled with whatever they were injecting me with. Before my brain could process the pain, it came again from my right arm, then my left. My whole body was being devoured inside out by what felt like frozen fire.

My limbs were stiff and heavy, and when the fourth sensation started in my neck, heading upwards, I knew it would reach my brain, and something would happen. I didn't know if it was good or bad, but as the frozen fire wrapped itself round my brain and invaded my senses, all I knew was pain as my mind flickered with memories.

A school, empty hall, open door, pain, nothing to what I feel now...

"His heart rate is increasing, rapidly, Doctor,"

A girl with long dark hair, knowing eyes, gentle body close to me...

"He's responding, we can only hope it works,"

Blond hair, gentle lips, curious hands...

Something injects into my chest, right above where my heart is beating away.

Yelling, fighting, screaming and the sense of regret...

The frozen fire is now everywhere, enveloping my heart and slowing its beats to regular thumps.

Love... an overwhelming feeling of love..

Then the frozen fire is everything I am. I open my eyes and I catch a glimpse of two people above me. Then they are gone, and so am I. I'm not sure if I exist, and I can't remember what I was remembering.