Unravel Me

SEVENTY-TWO

I’m blind again.

Heat is pouring into my being with such intensity it’s literally taken over my vision. I can’t feel anything but hot, hot, searing hot heat flooding my bones, my nerves, my skin, my cells.

Everything is on fire.

At first I think it’s the same heat in my chest, the same pain from the hole where my heart used to be, but then I realize this heat doesn’t actually hurt. It’s a soothing kind of heat. So potent, so intense, but somehow it’s welcome. My body does not want to reject it. Does not want to flinch away from it, is not looking for a way to protect itself from it.

I actually feel my back lift off the floor when the fire hits my lungs. I’m suddenly gasping in huge, raging hyperventilated breaths, taking in lungfuls of air like I might cry if I don’t. I’m drinking oxygen, devouring it, choking on it, taking it in as quickly as possible, my entire body heaving as it strains to return to normal.

My chest feels like it’s being stitched back together, like the flesh is regenerating itself, healing itself at an inhuman rate and I’m blinking and breathing and I’m moving my head and trying to see but it’s still so blurry, still unclear but it’s getting easier. I can feel my fingers and my toes and the life in my limbs and I can actually hear my heart beating again and suddenly the faces above me come into focus.

All at once the heat is gone.

The hands are gone.

I collapse back onto the floor.

And everything goes black.