46. Colson
FORTY-SIX
COLSON
Blackness.
That's all I can seem to focus on.
And pain.
It’s everywhere.
My legs, my head, my arm.
I try to open my eyelids, but they’re too heavy, and I…I can’t. They don’t budge. Something is wrong, but I don’t know what.
I attempt to move my arm, but it seems like the hardest thing in the world. It doesn’t get the signal to shift like I want it to.
I try my eyes again.
Nothing.
It’s too…dark.
Like the night sky after all the stars have fallen from it.
A weird smell encases me, briefly distracting me from my body failing to work. It worked mere hours ago. Fuck, why can’t I lift my arm? Why does my head feel like someone took a hammer to it?
I choke out a cough that makes my ribcage throb.
The smell. It’s so potent, reminding me of a gas station, that unforgettable smell of gasoline when you pump it into your car. But this is worse. Not something you want to stand there and sniff. It fills my lungs, preventing me from getting a deep enough breath of oxygen in.
I wheeze out another hack, my throat turning into the Sahara-fucking-Desert. I lick my lips, my tongue being the only part of my body that wants to listen to me. A funny taste moves over the tip of it.
Why do I taste blood?
Sirens wail in the distance. It’s like they’re next to me but also miles away.
Finally, after willing them to time and time again, my eyelids peel open, giving me a chance to see my surroundings. Except…I can’t make sense of it.
My head is full of pressure, like when you hang upside down on the monkey bars as a kid. But this is so much more than that. More invading. More crippling. More dizzying .
And then I look down—or am I looking up?—and see red on my clothes.
There’s so much of it. More than I’ve ever seen in my life.
My stomach heaves at the sight of it, acid and bile flowing into my mouth in a disgusting amount, then the blackness comes all over again because that red is blood and it all…
Belongs.
To.
Me.