The Last Cluster

1

My body shook, and I felt pain shooting across my body. I had felt three shocks of energy rack through me, and my nose bled from the utter torment of it all. I wanted it to stop, wanted it to kill me. I couldn't move my arms or legs, only turn my head. It was as though I had been restrained, and someone was tasing me, but much more intense. Like an IED was trying to shock me back to life. Tears flow behind my ears as I stare at the ceiling, afraid to move or breath.

With a gasp, I feel another shot of electricity shock my body into convulsions.

My father rushed into the room, gripping my shoulders.

"Alissa! Alissa!" He cried, and I could see him, but was unable to speak. Tears distorted my vision and I pinched my eyes closed. "Alissa, don't worry, I'm calling an ambulance!"

He ran out of my bedroom, presumably downstairs to the phone that hung on the wall in the back of the kitchen. I felt more alone as my body continued to spasm. I felt helpless. I felt the blood from my nose flow down my chin and onto my neck. Thick red fluid poured from my mouth, and I tasted copper.

And then, as quickly as the seizing came, it ended. I still could not move, and even the twitch of my finger sent shooting pain up my arm. I tried to lift my arm, and it felt as though someone was sawing it off. The pain became too much, and I blacked out, closing my eyes, and entering a numb nothingness.

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I drifted in an out of consciousness more times than I can count, only staying awake long enough to feel the pain and the prick of a needle against my arm. I heard voices, but they were distorted and unrecognizable. I couldn't understand anything they were saying, no matter how hard I tried. Eventually, I became too drowsy to try, and tried to sleep as much as I could.

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Part of my brain must have been awake, seeing as I kept dreaming. The images were bloody, and painful to watch. Every last one of them depicted someone's death, or someone being shot, or cut, or even exploded. Every time I saw something like that, it felt as though the bullets were cutting through me, or the fire was stinging my face, or the blade was being dragged across my skin.

And I couldn't look away. I could never look away.

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Sometimes, when I woke for a few brief seconds, I would see things. Specifically people.

Almost like a dream, I caught a glimpse of a strange man, German perhaps, leaning against the wall in a black jacket, his arms crossed. But in the blink of an eye, he was gone. In and out of my vision, he darted, always in the same position, always just a flash of a fleeting image, always looking at me.

There was also an Indian woman, watching me intently, sometimes wringing her hands, other times tugging on her clothes, and once even pacing the floor, looking like a skipping DVD. Her image flashed by me like someone was flipping the lights on and off.

I saw an American man, his hands in his pockets, his eyebrows drawn in. Watching him was like watching the lights of a police van. They flashed, and changed, and moved. This man was like those lights.

I was visited by a Korean woman, her face expressionless, her eyes trained on me. In the milliseconds I saw her in one place, she would be doing something that looked like yoga, and then, in a flash, she would be doing it somewhere else in the room.