Take A Deep Breath

Chapter 2

The darkness doesn't have an end, like I expected it to. I thought that it would last for a while, then end eventually when my brain finally stops fighting. Except, here I have no concept of time, so here could be months, years, seconds. Every passing moment feels like a century but could really be a minute.

The darkness keeps going, almost comforting me while I think. Not think. Stay. While I wait, wait for my brain to give in, I stay.

It seems like an endless void, seeping into darkness forever. I'd like to never leave here, to escape the dramas of the world, but I'll have to leave soon. Whether that is to come back or to disappear, I do not know.

All I remember is water and pain. Water seeping down my throat, pain replacing every feeling in my body. Nothing else. Except the darkness surrounding me.

And then there is noise, muffled by the darkness but still there evermore. Trying to invade my senses, ruin this perfect feeling. It is cold and warm, calm and stressful, peaceful and worrying. The noises rip this, tears the serenity apart and my brain recognised the letters, each bunch forming what my brain calls words. Sentences. People speaking. I recognise the voice. I recognise the tone, the deep deep tone.

The words and sentences swirl beneath me, tossing me around like a piece of paper. Questions and answers match up with one another, but my own voice is muted by this darkness, forever darkness. My hearing is being filled with darkness. I can only feel, only smell this perfect void.

And then there's a tingle, small but enough to travel throughout my body like an electrical wire lighting up my body. It starts at my fingertips and runs up my arm, twisting and curving to follow my nerves. I can move my fingers in my left arm and they curl into a fist automatically.

And then I can feel things, like the cool surface of this darkness, but it's different. It is solid, not forever nothing. It is not warm and cold, only soft and familiar. It is not calm and stressful, only confusing. It is not peaceful and worrying, only refreshing. I want to grip it, tear it into shreds until I can understand why I know what it is but can't name it. I can feel the back of my body laying against it.

And then I can smell, only slightly, but it's enough. It's not salty like when I went diving with my friends and oh, that was such a long time ago, but it smells like chemicals. Artificial. Medical. The name is on the tip of my tongue, but blankness covers my brain in a veil of confusion and frustration.

And then I can taste. The air, the darkness, it tastes like the cool. It tastes hopeful and promising like a fresh pool of water. Water. I can taste water, too. The smooth liquid fills my throat and relief spreads throughout my body. But that is all.

I want to lift these heavy eyelids, but I am not ready. The darkness is telling me to wait until the time is right. So I do. I feel and I taste and I listen and I smell but I do not see. Not yet. The urge to ignore the signs burns in me like a raging fire, but the raging fire is tolerable with certain amounts of shelter. Time goes by, lots of time, how much I'm not sure of, but it does. It takes up everything and I want to give in and look but the heaviness continues to tell me otherwise.

Then, one day, or one moment, the heaviness disappears.

And I instantly open my eyes to the burning light.