Fever

1

He woke to pain unlike anything he'd ever experienced. It was like someone had shoved a hot brand straight through his chest. A hot brand coated in acid.

And he was falling. Why was he falling? There seemed to be nothing but sky, dark clouds streaking by. A distant, muted sun. Or was it a moon?

His eyes wouldn't focus. Limbs turned to lead. Even his neck refused to support his head.

Helpless. Spinning. Falling.

And the pain, a searing presence that overlaid everything, occupying his consciousness with relentless brutality.

No more, no more.

He closed his eyes, willing it to stop. The pain, the spinning. Everything.

And then, blessedly, it did.

...   ...   ...

When he woke again it was dark. Pitch black.

At first, the pain was far away–-a pinprick of light in the vast darkness. Distant, as though it didn't belong to him.

And then the light grew bigger, opened, dilating like an enormous burning eye.

Blinding. Crippling.

There was a sound like breath and gravel–a moan?

Had he made that sound?

His eyes wouldn't open. But he didn't want to be awake anyway. He struggled to pull away from the pain, wanting to fall back into the darkness.

As if in rebellion, his consciousness rushed toward the light.

It was hot. Scorching. Or was that just the pain? It seems to be everywhere in his body, like a fever, radiating from the blazing hole in his chest, charring every nerve ending as it flooded his limbs, his brain. Even his skin seemed to ache and cringe, as though it would crawl off his body to escape.

The ground seemed to be sliding beneath him, grinding at his back and legs.

No. Someone was carrying him–-dragging him.

Eyelids cracking against his will, he looked up at a blinding white sky, eyes rolling. Caught a blurred image of his own legs, limp, booted heels leaving shallow grooves in dry, gray earth. There was a shadow, too–not his own. Someone leaning over him. Holding him.

The pain pulsed and grew, inflamed by the pull at his shoulders, under his arms.

Let go, he tried to say. Leave me.

But no words came–just that weak, dry-gravel sound.

Stupid. Pathetic.

Just let me die.

His head lolled to one side, cheek resting against a small, cool hand.

And then–sweet relief–the darkness swallowed him again.

...   ...   ...

There was no sense of time–-only a series of brief images and sensations, in no logical order.

Cool air. The pain. Blessed stillness.

A wall of stone looming above him, jagged with shadows.

The sound of footsteps crunching on dirt.

Someone peeling away his armor, baring his chest–-a moment of icy relief and then the pain again, redoubled.

His own gasps echoing around him strangely.