Something From Nothing

Give Me My Body Back!

Achilles Morgan

There was nothing.

Nothing but pain.

I could feel the pain in every atom in my body

I could hear the pain ringing in my ears.

I could see the pain in the violent bursts of white light.

I could taste the pain of the metallic substance between my lips.

I could smell the pain as it scorched the inside of my nose.

The pain was an icy wind choking the breath from my lungs and making a noose around my neck. It's savage, bitter blasts cut right to my bones and gripped my brain in it's freezing claws. My heart constricted in its wake as if not sure if it should go on beating. The pain throbbed in my gut, it was deep and warm, but not in a nice way.

It felt like someone had their hand in there and were squeezing my organs first gently and then as hard as they could. When it waned I could move, when it returned I could only hold still and breathe, breathe slow and deep until it passed. There was no blood anywhere but my abdomen felt as though it's been gutted. Every breath felt like a nail bomb exploding in my chest.

My eyes shot open as another guttural scream escaped from my dry lips. Why did everything hurt so much?

"Ace? Can you hear me?" A soft but strong voice said from somewhere above me. Or at least I think it was above me, I struggled to separate anything from the pain at the moment.

"Ace I need to know if you can hear me or not. Squeeze my hand twice if you can."

A dainty hand slipped into mine and despite the agony, my body was suffering through I did as the woman asked. 

"Okay, that's good. I know you're in a lot of pain right now but I need to know if you've taken anything previously that could have caused this, like a drug or anything? Squeeze twice for yes and once for no,"

I squeezed her hand once. I had never taken a drug in my life. The woman said something else but her voice blurred around me as another overwhelming burst of pain shot through me cause my body to flail with spasms.  Tears leaked from my eyes at a rapid rate and my arms flung to my head as if that would stop the endless torture.

There was a small jab in the side of my neck before searing fiery bursts pulsated around my skull, intensifying with each dragging breath, jarring and brutal. With each gulp of air the pain amplified, my muscles quivered, my consciousness ebbed. Black mists swirled at the edges of my mind drawing me into sweet oblivion.

When I woke up next I couldn't feel anything. You'd think that would be a good thing but it wasn't. There was still a vicious pounding in my head but there was no other pain. In fact, I couldn't feel anything else at all. My arms, legs, chest even my shoulders were completely and utterly numb. Not even the normal kind of numb where there are simply tingles before you regain feeling. There was just nothing.

My eyelids were heavy but with some effort, I managed to blink them open to find that I was laying on a bed. I couldn't even lift my head to see if my arms and legs were still attached. I couldn't move passed blinking.

That was when the panic kicked in.

There was something entirely horrible about laying on a bed in a room you didn't recognize, unable to move. I stared up at the ceiling, heart fluttering weakly with panic like the frantic beating of a caged bird.

My legs weren't working.

My arms weren't working.

My body wasn't working.