A light is flashed into each of my eyes, bright, white, blinding. I'm trapped in a bubble, seeing shadows against the too bright, too white, too blinding backdrop. I can't hear anything. People seem frantic, rushing back and forth, back and forth. I don't know why. The cloud that I float on is enveloping me, shrouding me, protecting me from the bright, the white, the blinding. Sleep caresses me, teases me, beckons me. They are shaking my shoulders, yelling but I do not hear. I want to sleep. Why can't I sleep? The lights in my eyes hurt. They're too bright, too white, too blinding. Why do they peel my eyelids back. I just want to sleep. Why can't I sleep?
Why...
Before
That was it. The end.
I had been waiting a year for City of Heavenly Fire and it took me a day to read. I ran the last few hundred metres home after school, hoping that today would be the day that Amazon had pulled themselves together and delivered it. It had come out a week previously yet preordering had not secured a swift delivery.
I took the stairs three at a time and there it was, lying inside a cardboard coffin on my bed. I couldn't believe how huge it was. To call it thick would be an understatement. If you dropped that thing on your foot it would have fallen straight through and carried on halfway to China!
That second, I started to read and didn't put it down until I finally finished it at three in the morning. My eyes burned with tiredness, I had reread so many pages as I couldn't focus the first time. I could hardly keep my eyes open, it hurt to keep my eyes open, but I had to know. I had to know how it would end.
I had to get up at six for school. I had an English exam first that I would undoubtedly fail. But it was so worth it. As it turned out, my English exam was the least of my worries.
With the book opened to the cave scene, which I had guiltily reread, I fell asleep. The pages were slumped across my slackened face, stygian words carving into the soft flesh of my face, imprinting their magic onto my skin, my mind, my soul.
I did not wake to faded blue covers and a sagging chipboard bedstead.