I Counted My Blessings, Now I'll Count This Curse

I heard footsteps, but I couldn’t guess how far away they were.
They could be an inch away from me, but also a few yards.

The only thing I could focus on what the pain.
The pain was bewildering.
It invaded my body like happiness would invade a little kid who got a present.

I was slowly dying of pain and I was thinking this?
God, if you are out there somewhere, which I doubt, why would you make me such a bloody idiot?

Back to the point.

It hurt like hell.
The worst part was probably that I couldn’t pull the faces of my mother, my father or my sister into view.
Everything was just pitch black

I tried to move my feet, my toes, my hands, my head, but if felt like the were filled with lead. Moving was impossible. I tried to resist the pain somehow, push it away from my body, but it wasn’t possible.

Was this the black death? The disease fulfilling it’s purpose?
I was going to die, the same way my father died. The same way my mother died. The same way more than a thousand people had died in a few days

This was the end.

In a way, it didn’t really matter if I died here and now.
There was no reason for me to stay alive.
No family, no lover, nothing.

If I would live through this, which would be a miracle, I would be alone in the world.
Maybe dying would be better than that.

I could feel a burning hot fire spread through my veins, feel it invade my body.
The heat was unbearable.
It was unlike anything I had ever felt before.

Why didn’t I just die with my mother or father?

Somewhere far away I heard screams.

Was someone else suffering the same fate as me?
Were they feeling the same things as me?
Could they feel that their end was coming?
Did they want to survive this?
Would there family still be alive?
Would they also be alone if they lived through this?

Questions filled my mind as I laid there.
It could have been minutes.
it could have been hours,
it could have been days

I had absolutely no idea.

At some point, the pain began to fade.
The fire was still blazing inside of me, but the pain was decreasing quickly.

At first, I thought I had simply imagined it, but when I tried to wiggle my toes, I could feel them moving.

God, if you can hear me, I am sorry for not believing in you. I am sorry for not being faithful. If it was you that made the pain go away, thank you. But why? Why did you remove the pain from my body? What’s the use, if there is nothing left for me anymore?

I tried opening my eyes but soon noticed that that was a little too much.
It only increased the burning.
I had to take baby steps, so I started by wiggling my toes again.
When that little experiment was checked successful, I tried to move my arms.
Nothing

Oh great, so now the disease paralyzed me? Would I only be able to wiggle my toes for the rest of my life? Would I feel the fire blazing inside me, its tongue licking my veins, forever? Maybe.

Fantastic.

Maybe, I should just be a little more patient.
Being able to move my toes seemed to have taken an eternity, so moving my arms would probably last way longer.

What I noticed then was that my hearing was getting clearer.
I could hear a scraping noise, maybe a rat or a mouse.

Was I actually going to live through this?