Dead But Alive

chapter nineteen: at a price

Light.

Bright light, blinding me. Light as if at the end of a tunnel, pushing away the warm blackness. 

Pain. 

I squeeze my eyes shut, try to pull the darkness as a curtain around me, try to stay in my own painless world.

But the light comes rushing toward me. My eyes blink open, for the first time in who knows how long. My world is a blur of light blue and light green and white. 

I squint, and it shifts forwards, doubles and then fades away again. No matter how hard I try, I cannot see clearly. 

"Reid," comes a voice, the sound echoing and loud, bouncing off of the inside of my skull and resonating inside my head. "Reid, can you hear me? Can you hear me, Reid?" 

I try to find the source of the voice, but I cannot. Only blurs. Only too-bright lights that hurt my eyes. I try to move, and discover that I can't. My muscles don't respond. I can't feel my legs. 

My heart trembles inside me, afraid. 

And then I realize-it's beating. A weak, weak rhythm as if it's sickly and dying. 

But it is beating. Blood is pulsing through my veins once again. My chest is rising and falling, my lungs expanding. 

Am I back? Am I alive?

Am I Reid again?

Another bright light is shined in my eyes, and I squeeze them shut and press the back of my head against whatever is behind it. I notice I'm no longer suspended in liquid. I am lying on some kind of operating table, cold and flat and hard. 

"Keep your eyes open, buddy," someone tells me. "Do they work?"

I squint, open and close them. Nothing but blurs. 

"Can you see me?" says the first voice.

I can't, and I can't respond to tell them so. I try to shake my head, but my neck won't move. 

"Not great responses, either," says the second. "Heart rate's weak, breathing irregular."

I blink again and again and try to see. Try to understand what's going on.

Suddenly there is white-hot searing pain on my forearm, like someone's torn the skin open. I try to scream but nothing comes out. I try again, and a cracked and raspy cry is all I can manage. 

"Oh no," someone says, quietly like they didn't mean for me to hear it. "His skin's tearing." 

"Move," the first one says, and there's a pause. The burst of pain jumped my muscles, and I've managed to roll onto my side and curl into a ball. 

Make it stop, please. Take it away.

"What caused it?" the first says. 

"I just touched him," the second replies. 

Something bumps my knee, and pain envelops my whole leg, fire that won't leave. I scream, and keep screaming. It hurts so badly, so deeply. 

"Oh my goodness," a voice says as I cry and squirm and try vainly to escape. "Keep him down. We don't want him trying to run."

More hands touch my shoulders and ankles, and pain blossoms there too. My whole body is erupting in flames, swallowed in lava. My muscles tense of their own volition, and the voices around me are raised in concern. "Keep him down! Get me a hypo, Zeke, now!"

"His heart rate's too high!" another one calls. Someone pins my shoulders down, tearing the skin there too. I reach up, push them away, struggle against their hands, and I feel my skin split from elbow to wrist when I move. When I pull my hands back they're covered in blood. This frightens me, and I can't get control of myself. 

"Sedate him!" the first repeats. "Put him out or he'll do more damage! We have to refreeze him! Zeke, hurry, please!" He sounds terrified, furious. There's wild beeping, alarms going off, scientists and doctors running, frantic to keep me alive. I'm screaming bloody murder, unable to stop the screeching that's tearing from deep within me. It's like someone's peeling off my skin, and not very carefully either. The pain increases, more and more and more, until finally-

It stops.

I feel empty, still. Quiet.

But so, so good. I can't help it, and I start crying in relief. It's absolute ecstasy to not have that pain gripping me anymore.

"Don't move, buddy," a soft voice says. Familiar. It's Rich.

"Don't move, Reid," he repeats. "You're not ready to take on the world yet. The nitro burnt you very badly. That's why it hurts. They numbed you up pretty good so you should be okay now. They're gonna refreeze you. But don't move. You'll tear your skin further." 

I hold still, and he lays a cool palm on my sweaty forehead. "Just calm down, bud. It'll be okay, I promise. Your heart's still weak, so you need to relax." He continues soothing me as I let my tense muscles relax, let myself go limp. Tears of relief slide silently down my face. 

"We're gonna take care of you," he repeats. "We'll get you to Snowhill. But you have to hang in there. You're not ready to wake up yet. They shouldn't have woken you. I'm gonna put you back to sleep, buddy, but you have to trust me, okay?" He holds a clear mask to my mouth. "Can you breathe in for me, Reid?"

It's not like I have a choice. I inhale deeply, and a misty fog enters my head, clouding my brain and hiding my thoughts away.

I sleep. 

I wasn't totally happy with this chapter; it didn't turn out like I wanted it to, but I edited it and couldn't come up with much better. Ugh! I don't like it when that perfect story is just out of reach. Ah well, I'll try again. Hope you enjoy anyway! Please vote/comment if you liked it, I appreciate every one! Thanks! ;)