AWAKENING
By
A. Maire Dinsmore
Copyright © A. Maire Dinsmore
Visit the author’s website at: https://www.amairedinsmore.com
In the first moments of consciousness, I felt a confusion wash over me that I had never come close to understanding before. While the memory of what my bed was supposed to feel like was clear, there was a distinct difference between that memory and what I was currently experiencing. I remembered cushy pillows covered in soft fabrics that still carried the lingering scent of laundry detergent and fabric softener. What was beneath my head however a cool, wet hardness that felt gritty and smelled of some type of oil. The confusion quickly morphed into a fear that settled like a cold, clammy hand around my stomach as the realization that nowhere in my small apartment could be described in this manner.
As the fog of sleep began to fade I began feeling intense discomfort like I had slept too long in an awkward position. But I couldn’t see myself and I couldn’t move most of my body. Unable to roll over or sit up, I decided to concentrate on one problem at a time.
My eyelids themselves coursed pain through my head as I tried to open them, a movement that was seemingly an impossible task. Forcing myself not to panic, I lifted a hand and brought my fingers to my face. Since I could not yet see, I concentrated on what I felt. I could feel my entire arm was shaking and already ached from the movement. It was more than just discomfort when my fingertips brushed against my eyelids, but I progressed with carefully searching for any obstruction or whatever was preventing me from opening my eyes.
At first I couldn’t feel anything and my heart began to pound as panic began to rise. But I stopped myself, forcing my lungs to suck in air as deeply as I could manage and concentrating on my fingertips. Where I knew my eyelashes grew I instead felt a series of bumps. On closer inspection they felt more like lumps of a hard crust and I decided that whatever it was, it had effectively sealed my eyes shut. I began picking at it, starting with my left eye as the right side of my face was on the ground. Trying to remove the clumps and I knew that in my attempts I was also ripping out my lashes. My eyes watered at the discomfort and the tears leaked out wherever they found a weakness in the barrier, thereby actually helping with my efforts.
Finally, at what seemed like an eternity, I was able to open that one eye. Glancing down the length of my body I noticed that not only where my legs folded in a nearly unnatural manner but something heavy was draped across them and I discovered this was the reason I wasn’t able to move. Needing better vision, I carefully lifted my head and freed the lashes of my right eye as quickly as I could, my cold stomach suddenly churning with all the new details unfolding before me.
When I could see with both eyes, I glanced around me and for one horrible moment, the confusion returned. I was staring into a face and the first thought I had was ‘Why hadn’t they helped me? Why had they just watched me struggle?’ and I wanted nothing more than to curtly ask them these exact questions until the blank stare didn’t change and the open mouth did not have the ever so slight movement of breath. I looked harder at the eyes and noticed they were glossed over, realizing the milky appearance wasn’t from the low light. The face that I was staring into, the face less than an arm’s length from mine was that of a dead person. A man if the details in my head were correct for I closed my eyes quickly and wished fervently that I had never opened them.
My heart pounded so hard in my chest that it began to ache and the cold, clammy hand around my stomach suddenly squeezed. I felt bile rising up in my throat. It was all I could do to turn my head, vomiting as far away from my own body as I could manage. It burned my throat and I tasted nothing but stomach acid. It aws the kind of vomiting one did when food had been impossible and there was nothing left in the stomach. Exhausted, I laid my head back down on the ground and allowed the cool wetness to soothe my head. A sob rose in my chest and grated against my raw throat but something inside of me wouldn’t let it out. Something whispered in my head for silence… perhaps it was natural instinct or perhaps it was something more. Either way, it seemed like a better idea than crying and I swallowed the sob, grimacing against the pain of it.
Opening my eyes, I tried my best not to look at the face again. Instead I concentrated this time on the reason I was unable to move my body. I pulled my arm down and tried reaching behind me but found that a sudden, stabbing pain in my shoulder made this an incredibly bad idea. Sucking in my breath through my teeth, I tried bending sideways at my waist and sliding myself along the ground, ignoring the way the grit that covered it bit into my skin as I moved. Forcing myself to reach back as far as I could, I brushed my hand against the object that was strewn across my lower body and legs.
A sinking feeling in my stomach caused the churning to return as I realized whatever it was preventing my movement was covered in fabric. I kept searching by touch and the fabric soon ended and turned to a cool unyielding hardness, confirming my suspicions. There was a dead body on top of me, one that had already begun the process of rigor mortis.
As soon as the connection clicked in my mind, I forgot about listening to the whisper of control and silence and began thrashing. I was trying to get it off of me like a teenage girl confronted with having a spider unexpectedly drop on her. Though my chest ached to shriek I was also trying to move, retch and breathe all at the same time and the vomit won the battle. I felt the hot splash of it on my arm, but my reaction to it was distracted by the feeling of the body sliding off of me enough so that I could scramble away, a movement somewhere between crawling and dragging my body across the floor.
In the compressing silence of the space surrounding me a sudden noise stood out as if it were a jet engine starting up. I froze at the sound of it and stopped breathing as I waited for it to repeat, knowing I might be able to tell where it was coming from. I wasn’t sure of the amount of time that passed as I waited. So, I decided to start counting well after my body forced me to start breathing again though I tried to do so quietly. After the awkward position that my body was in began to settle in, I began to wonder if I had heard a noise at all. If perhaps what I thought I had heard was nothing more than myself and my own movements or even a domino effect from moving the body.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I resumed my movements though I had no idea where I was going. My eyes were finally adjusting to the low light and I was beginning to make out the shapes around me. Though what my brain was registering my eyes as seeing seemed too impossible to be real.
Everywhere I looked there was another dead body. Casually piled together and strewn haphazardly as if they had been thrown together without much care. Clothing was ripped and torn, covered in blood from wounds and stains from god knows what else. Hair was matted or pulled out and random accessories began to shine as I noticed more detail. Once face in particular stood out to me and I stared at it for a long moment before I realized why. It was my neighbor. The larger woman with the little dogs that was incredibly polite if annoyingly nosy. Incredulously, I wondered where the dogs were and if they were alive.
More practically I began to consider why I had woken up amongst a pile of dead bodies. Whomever had put me here, the reason seemed pretty clear to me… they had done so thinking I was dead. Resuming my movements, I continued to crawl across the floor while trying to avoid the bodies. I still didn’t know where I was going but felt that reaching some sort of landmark would help center me.
The change in location brought a change in temperature and I shivered at a sudden chill. This new sensation distracted me again and I halted, looking down at myself to peer at more than just my body but also what was covering it. My favorite t-shirt was in tatters and a blood stain extended from my left shoulder down across my chest. As I looked at it,
holding my head at an uncomfortable angle, I remembered the pain I felt when I had tried to reach behind my back. I realized this meant I had been wounded and bleeding, likely the reason I had been assumed deceased. The once orange fabric had been thin enough in its original condition, but now just seemed pathetic. Jeans on my legs seemed mostly intact if defiled beyond belief.
I knew that suffering through the chill would only make things worse but as I pondered my options, it seemed that I had few before me. Until I looked about me in desperation, as if someone would pop