Just Survive

Chapter Three

- Ashley Gray -

The unsettling feeling of senselessness crawled within my skin as if every part of me was trying to escape my own body. The tightness of my muscles caused the most excruciating pain, twisting and tensing against my bones without mercy. It was barely recognisable, perhaps like falling asleep, curled up on a two-seat sofa while six foot two; but it was the worst ache I had ever been introduced to. Recognisable, in the most pain-inducing way.

My body should've felt numb but the agony broke through the barrier of my comatose limbs. I was motionless. I was dazed. But terrified as I believed my carcass was paralysed - stuck in my awkward composition for the rest of my existence. But then again, it didn't feel as though I existed in those agonising moments. I could've been buried right then and there with no way to contest. I couldn't scratch my way through the dirt, I couldn't scream as my lungs filled with debris and I began to suffocate.

I wish my mind would shut off as the rest of my body decided to. My wishes left unheard though as the minutes droned on by. My body like a row-boat in the middle of the vast ocean, surrounded by sharks.

My vision was blurred; I could only grasp the dark figures of two or more human figures hovering around me. I didn't know if I was dead, dreaming or just incredibly blind. I couldn't decipher anything with my hearing muffled, drowned out by the painful ache in my skull. The pounding and thumping in my head added to the pain and the confusion, I couldn't think of what had happened to put me in this dreadful position. What could I have done? Fallen perhaps, in an attempt to further feed my cabin with the smell of cooking meat, I had smashed my head open on a rock or tree and I was bleeding out, hallucinating and delusional.

Or maybe I died in my sleep, rendered a corpse on the rustic floorboards of my old temporary home. I had made my way to hell for causing the most catastrophic event in the history of mankind.

Or maybe it was a bad dream, awakening me to my bad habits and the hell I helped create. But one detail held me captive in bewilderment, who were the black silhouettes encasing me in my blur? Demons, corpses, or actual human beings either saving me or using me?

The real question was: would I ever find out? Because all I could feel was my slow approaching death as it felt as though the blood was draining from my body. My heart was slowing to a haunting halt, rendering me deceased and hollow for the rest of the shallow and short existence of the earth.

It felt like hours, maybe days before the blur of fog cleared from my icy eyes, the eyes that saw too much for the life of a twenty-five-year-old. My pupils may have adjusted to the flickering lights that hung above my weak head but the hurt and ache in my ligaments had not faded. They were worse (if they could've gotten worse).

My arms hung at my side, grating against the edge of my uncomfortable wooden chair. My wrists, however, not so numb any more as I could feel the burning of rope as I twisted my arms to get comfortable, that being impossible though.

My denim-covered legs were also tied to the chair with thick, wire-like rope, keeping me captive to the seat. This wasn't a nightmare or a hallucination, the pain was too real. I knew this was real.

I struggled in my seat for a moment as the panic settled over me. I wriggled frantically, my heartbeat quickening as well as my breathing as I squirmed and squealed under the pressure of the wire around me. I was trapped. I began hyperventilating even more, now finding it an extreme challenge just to breathe.

How did I get there? When did I get there? So many questions raced through my mind, I couldn't even think straight to figure out how to get out. All I did was panic, my head floating like a balloon full of helium as my chest frenetically rose and fell with breath after excruciating breath. My limbs started to tingle and tremble, the anxiety coursing through my blood like a disease. I thought it would never stop.