Russian Doll

Life In Death

I should be dead.

I wish I was dead.

I certainly feel like I'm dead.

Maybe I did die but my brain's still trying to catch up.

Yeah.

That makes sense.

Wait... no, it doesn't.

For the first time, I realise that I can hear a high pitched beeping in the background. It's constant. Steady. Every couple of seconds, like clockwork, the sound comes to my ears.

I can feel a soft surface beneath me. A bed.

Slowly, I curl my fingers inwards, around the sheets. They're warm. Comforting. Grounding, if that makes sense. They make me feel secure. I know that, as long as I don't lose my grip, I can never float away. As crazy as it sounds, that's how I feel right now. Like, at any moment, a breath of air could pick me up and steal me away forever.

Voices. At first, they're quiet. Then loud. Very, very loud.

A wave of fear washes over me.

I'm not entirely sure why, but I have the strangest feeling of vulnerability as I lie here, awaiting my death.

The beeping gets faster.

My heart's thumping in my chest, and I try to block out the voices, to no avail.

Faster.

Hands are on me.

Lights shine into my eyes.

Something sharp digs into my arm.

I vaguely hear someone screaming.

I think it's me.
Darkness, once again, comes as a relief.

But I'm still awake.

The screaming has stopped.

Hands are no longer on me.

Lights no longer shine in my eyes.

Even though everything has seemingly disappeared, I'm still awake.

The voices are still there, this time quietly in the background. I try to listen to what they're saying, but it's as if I'm underwater and trying to listen in on a conversation above. The words are muffled, and I'm making myself tired by straining my ears to hear them.

Then, in an instant, I'm floating. The bed is gone. The voices have died away. It's just me with my own fears, and they are rather large ones. Until now, I have kept them locked away in my mind, never allowing them to escape. Now, my defences are down. My fears are back with a passion, and, one by one, they start to overpower me, until I'm nothing but an empty shell of the person I once was.