When he comes to, he’s not entirely sure if his eyes are open or not. All around him is darkness, a perfect, unbroken darkness. He blinks once, twice, and feels his crusty lashes sticking together. He’s definitely alive; he can feel a feeble heartbeat through his thin, bony chest. Making an attempt to raise his head from the dusty, hard, concrete floor, he becomes aware of a dull ache in his lower back, and as he struggles to pull his torso up, the pain increases, spreading up his spine towards the nape of his neck. With a hoarse, strangled cry, he collapses back with a thud, but the pain burns now. He’s breathing heavily, the air rattling in his fragile chest, and he feels the panic begin to rise. There’s a sticky dampness beneath him, and now he’s aware of it, he’s sure he can taste copper on his dry, furry tongue, smell a metallic tinge to the stale air. His gut tells him to wiggle his toes, twitch his leg, just check, make sure he’s okay. But he already knows what that burning, throbbing pain in his spine is telling him.
Somewhere in the darkness, his mind reaches for a memory, and he winces at the fragments as they’re replayed to him. A fist in his face, blood in his eyes and mouth, and the loud, sharp spit of gunfire. And pain, more pain than he’d ever imagined, and then a cool blanket of darkness. He closes his eyes, scrunches them shut, and suppresses an urge to scream.
And somehow, behind the dark of his eyelids, an image stirs. It’s fuzzy at first, a blurry, white mass that slowly grows bigger, crisper. And suddenly there’s no pain anymore, no taste of blood on his lips, no cold, harsh concrete beneath his head. He’s looking at a woman, her pale figure hazy on his eyelids, her dark hair billowing around her as if under water. Her eyes are deep, her lips red and full, and slowly, she extends an ivory hand towards him. He doesn’t think twice, raising his stiff, heavy arm to meet hers, and the light emanating from her form erupts around him, engulfing, embracing.
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