Defective - Jacob Black {1}

Chapter 11: Half Dead

At first, I felt nothing, it was like I had lost all my senses. I couldn't even open my eyes. 

I tried to move my body, wiggle my fingers and toes at least, but I got nothing in response. Was I paralysed? Had that vampire just left me for dead in the forest? Well, I didn't think I was in the forest, it was too quiet.

For days it felt like I was stuck in that senseless coma-like state until I began to hear a light thumping noise once every few seconds. It began to grow louder, and then I could feel a pounding in my chest... it was my heart. Why could I hear my heart? Then I began to feel a movement all over the inside of my body, a flooding sensation as my heartbeat began to speed up. There was no way I could feel the blood pumping around my body. I wanted to scream, this had to be a dream.

My toes then began to tingle, and I took the risk again, after failing for what felt like a motionless eternity, and tried to move my foot. I was unlucky to begin with but then I got a twitch. I tried again. They moved ever so slightly.

Again and again I tried to move my toes and each time I got better results until eventually, I could move my feet normally. I proceeded to try and wake my whole body, it was becoming easier as I felt more and more blood reach certain parts of my system until suddenly I felt like I was suffocating.

I choked on nothing as it felt like someone was wringing the air out of my lungs. I tried to breathe in but it was like my body had forgotten how to. I could feel my face heating up as I panicked, I wanted to punch my own chest to try and get myself to breathe. Then suddenly I bolted up right, my lungs filled with air as I gasped, my eyes opening for the first time, the light blinding me for a moment.

The light streaming in blurred my vision and I reached up and rubbed my eyes with the backs of my hands until I could focus. I turned towards the light that was flooding in through the floor to ceiling windows on my right and all I could see were the tops of trees. Where the hell was I?

I looked back towards the room I was in to see if I could recognise it. It looked like an office, one wall was covered completely in books, some looking over hundreds of years old. Old paintings covered the walls, all of them disturbing, being either paintings of demonic creatures or sacrifices, all looking to be from medieval times or older. It was all very clean and very quiet. I hadn't been here before.

I shifted so I was sitting up right, my back now against the brown, leather couch I was laid on, my eyes focusing on everything at once. Everything was so detailed, nothing like it was before. I could smell everything too, a section of the window was opened letting in a small breeze. I could smell the freshness of the morning coming from the forest, I could hear the river rushing past, birds, bugs, animals, even leaves falling from the trees and hitting the ground.

What's happening to me? How can I go from feeling nothing to everything?

I allowed myself to stand and my eyes located a body length mirror in the corner of the room. I started towards it, meaning to take only a single step, but arrived in front of it almost immediately. As if time fast forwarded five seconds. I gasped when I saw my reflection.

I looked like me, but it wasn't... me. A better, perfect version of me was staring back. My hair was fuller and longer, I no longer had any split ends from where I'm always straightening it. It had changed colour too, it was no longer my usual dark brown colour, it was darker, almost black. My lips were a peachy pink colour and plump, I knew for sure I didn't have any make up on yesterday. My eyelashes were full too, like I had false lashes on, I even checked to make sure they were my own. The scar on my cheek from when I had chicken pox when I was six had disappeared, I no longer had any imperfections. But my biggest change was my eyes. My eyes were still blue and bright but around my pupil there was a blood red outer circle with the red seeping into the blue like spilt ink. It actually looked pretty, but it scared me.