Chapter One
Have you ever been in so much pain it ceases to have any meaning? So much pain you can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t even scream? So much pain your brain applies a filter to it, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to survive it with your mind intact? Cast adrift on an ocean of pain, my body tossed and turned helplessly, buffeted by forces beyond my control. It sounds almost poetic, doesn’t it? But at the time I prayed for death, anything to ease that white hot agony.
I wish I could say there was a bright white light waiting for me at the end of a glowing tunnel. In reality, I was so focused on the misery, there could’ve been a three ring circus around me and I wouldn’t have noticed. How long I hovered there I never knew, time ceased to have all meaning.
But then something happened.
A soft golden light wrapped around my body, and a feeling of warmth and comfort descended over me. At first I thought that was finally it. I was gonna die, and I’m not gonna lie, there was a measure of relief in that realization. Relaxing, I basked in that warm glow, soaking it up like the summer sun after the chill of winter. Only instead of the pain fading away and being carried off into the great beyond it grew worse, something I hadn’t thought possible.
I was still reeling from that new torture when the pain faded and disappeared so suddenly, I could feel the echo of it for long heartbeats after it was gone. Drawing in my first unlabored breath, my eyelids fluttered open, vision blurry in the uncertain light as I tried to focus.
Dimly, my mind registered the fact that a man stood over me, his hands lightly pressed to my abdomen. Before I could open my mouth to ask who he was and why exactly he was touching me, he looked up and our eyes locked. Neither one of us spoke, though I did feel his hands pull away swiftly. The man stared down at me with an expression of surprise mingled with fascination, as though I was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen before. I have to say, he was pretty captivating as well.
His eyes were the most vivid shade of blue - the kind you only see in magazine ads for contact lenses or on movie stars. They practically glowed in the muted light, and a golden nimbus surrounded him, flickering and crackling like a bug zapper. My lips parted to speak, but a wave of dizziness washed over me, making the room dip and sway. I swear my eyes only closed for a second, and when I opened them again, he was gone. Puzzling over whether or not any of it was real, I sank back into sweet oblivion, my sleep restful and devoid of pain.