Chapter 3


    I am freezing. It feels like I’m being cut open from the inside out and then thrown into a frozen ocean. EVERYWHERE hurts. I can’t even open my eyes, the pain is holding onto me too strongly. And i’ve felt like this for ages and ages. My sense of time is warped, but it must have been days of this by now, surely. I don’t think I can handle it for much longer, but I don’t know how I’m going to make it stop either. This doesn’t feel like a dream, but it’s all I can hope for. At least it’ll end when I open my eyes if I’m dreaming.


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    Sound rushes in - distant and muffled.


    Voices? Or just the ringing in my ears? No. Someone is speaking…


    But the words are tangled upon each other, slipping away before I can make sense of them.


    There’s movement. A sway, a jolt. I’m being carried.


    Carried where?


    I should be afraid but the fear can’t reach me. It’s stuck on the other side of the fog pressing on my mind.


    I drift away again.


    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


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    I wake to heat. Blistering against my frozen skin, like fire licking at my bones. It hurts. It hurts so much all I can do is lean into it. Or I think I do. I can’t tell if I’ve moved at all.


    Something presses against my lips. Wet. Water.


    I want it. I’m so thirsty.


    My throat is raw, aching, but when I try to swallow my body rebels. Seizing with fresh pain.


    A choked sound escapes me, it hardly feels like mine. It brings fresh pain to my throat.


    The voices come through again. They sound sharper this time, filled with urgency.


    I don’t know these voices. Should I know them?


    My mind claws for answers, but there’s nothing. Only the cold, only the pain. Only the way the darkness keeps taking me, pulling me down, deeper and deeper until there is nothing at all.


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    Finally - light.


    For the first time in what feels like forever, I feel the weight of my eyelids. They’re so heavy, aching.


    I try to open them, just a crack.


    The world is a blur, shapes shifting, melting into shadow and light. My lashes flutter. The effort is monumental.


    A face is hovering above me now.


    I think they say my name.


    And then- I’m gone again.