Runt (Completed & Editing)

Existing

"Who the hell are you and more importantly what the fuck do you want?" Shane's angry voice spat, slicing through the darkness with more venom that his normally smooth voice. Knowing he was somewhere out there in the bleak nothingness was comforting.

"I should be asking you the same!" A familiar male voice shot back. I knew that voice from somewhere, I just couldn't remember. A voice from my past. I strained to remember but I couldn't. My mind had put up walls that prevented me from knowing anything other than the emptiness before me. I laid in the darkness enjoying the numbness that cloaked my body. I wasn't sinking into oblivion, I wasn't floating into the clouds, I was simply existing. Somewhere between the two. Not quite one, not quite the other.

I tried to open my eyes but no matter what I did or how hard I tried, nothing happened. I couldn't see Shane. I couldn't see the owner of the voice that I couldn't place. I couldn't see me.

I started to worry and I felt scared. Would I be able to see Shane again? His beautiful perfect smile? His soft smooth hair? I felt my breath catch in my throat and I struggled for air. I gasped for air, envisioning myself as a fish out of water. Flopping around on the sand after being washed up by the tide. I gasped over and over but couldn't get enough air. It was starting to weigh on me, like an elephant was sitting on my chest and slowly wrapping its trunk around my neck to strangle me.

"What's going on? What's happening?" Shane's voice carried over the various other noises that tried to drown it out. Beeping, scraping, ripping. I didn't know what to do. I was becoming more and more afraid, and Shane wasn't by my side to help me. I felt sharp objects poking into my skin and I tried to move away. Shane's questions echoed in my mind. 'What was going on! What was happening?'

"Shane!" I tried to scream, but nothing came out. I kept trying. I needed him. I needed him to help me. "Shane!"

I was terrified now. I had never been so scared before. I felt my heart begin to race and my palms start to sweat. I didn't know what to do. My breathing became uneven and choppy. The elephant's eyes became blood red as its trunk grew ever tighter, cutting off the little air I was taking in. My muscles clenched and unclenched. I felt myself moving but I had no control over it, no control over the erratic movements that were happening all throughout my body. I continued to scream for Shane, and nothing continued to come out. I wanted to cry, to scream, to fight, but I couldn't. I could only experience it.

I felt my movements become more sporadic. More sharp things were poking me, I didn't like it. I screamed for it to stop but it didn't. No noise was made, not a scream, not a whisper. In the darkness I felt a warm wetness. Was I crying? What was happening now?

My body slowed, the movements becoming less frequent, more subdued. I tried to open my eyes again, but nothing happened. I wanted to be angry, my body wasn't working how I wanted it to. It wasn't listening, it wasn't moving. I was alone in the silence and the nothingness.

After all, I was only existing.