Dark

It’s so dark, a scary sort of dark. It’s been this way for so long that you no longer remember what light looks like. In fact, you don’t remember much of anything. Your once vast vocabulary has been reduced to a couple of desperate words that you scream out whenever you sense someone or something close.

And numbers. Counting helps you keep away the demons; counting quickly, counting slowly, counting in even numbers, fibonacci sequences, multiplication tables. Whatever keeps you occupied.

But, now you actually think about it, there is one thing that keeps you ‘sane’ (whatever ‘sane’ is) apart from counting. The feel and the sound of the chilling metallic chains that almost seem to extend from your very flesh. They’re cold, restricting and smooth.

If you listen carefully, you can hear the links clanking as they brush against each other. You think they chain you to the walls of this place – that is, if there are walls. For all you know, the chains could just go on forever.

All of a sudden, your entire being is flooded with a strange feeling, one that is almost… almost… frustrated, you scream. A short, high scream that would drive dogs mad. However hard you try, you can’t think of a word for the new feeling.

You can feel some sort of ‘door’ in your mind opening – the very same ‘door’ that keeps you from going insane… completely insane, you amend. You locked your personality, your inner self behind it almost as soon as you found yourself in this wretched place a long time ago.

The strangeness starts off as a prickle all over your skin, but the feeling soon grows in intensity until you are screaming in pain. To anyone else, it would be only a fraction of the sun’s heat they feel every day, but to you it is as though a blazing inferno is raging across your sensitive skin.

Then it stops, just like that. You continue to scream hoarsely, but it is not from pain anymore – more from relief… and maybe loss? You probably would have begun to cry if you could remember how. Or if you could even remember what crying was.

After a short while – or it might have been years, for all you could tell – you stop screaming. You can’t tell if your eyes are open or closed, so it’d be a little silly to try and describe the changes (if there were any) in your surroundings thanks to whatever it was that had happened.

An undeterminable period of time later, you can sense the feeling returning. The previously locked ‘door’ in your mind creaks open just a little, allowing you to put a name to the feeling. Warmth. Other memories began to creep through.

First, a strange scent. It is tantalising, enticing – there one minute and gone the next. Jasmine, your hazy mind supplies, along with the feel of soft petals and the knowledge of warm, sunny days. After such a long time in hibernation, you mind isn’t too sure of itself. It seemed almost like a separate entity to you/your awareness. As you realise this, another memory resurfaces.

The gravely growl of an unidentified animal assaults your ears, and you flinch. Surprised at yourself, you examine the sound, racking your newly returned memory to find a name to associate with it.

As you try, the now comforting warmth leaves you, slamming the ‘door’ closed. Just before this happens, you remember the animal’s name. It’s a dog.

During the period between the warmth leaving and returning again, you keep the smell of the jasmine and the sound of the dog’s bark with you. They are reminders that something has happened, you aren’t alone and you’re not imagining things.

You’re still unsure about whether or not it – the warmth – will return. Wearily, you close/open your eyes and begin to recite your multiplication tables. One times one is one, one times two…

Just as you reach 11x17 (187), the pulsing heat returns. It’s almost like a heartbeat, caressing your numb body. With a strange shaking motion, a glimpse of something (you’re not really sure what) flashes in front of your eyes. With a start, you realise that they are open – sort of – and had been for quite some time.

As you try to recall what it was that you saw, a sharp jab of pain sears through your skull. You scream with anger at the unfamiliar invasion. Soft strains of music from your memory soothe you, and you relent.

But the music is gone as though it had never been, and you are left alone with your dog’s bark and your jasmine scent. You begin counting once more, this time doing a fibonacci sequence. One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen…

You get all the way up to 121393, 196418 (the next number being 317811) when you are enfolded in the comforting warmth. It brings pain with it again – but the pain seems to be more localised. It is focused in your chest area more or less.

And again, a glimpse of something flees across your line of sight. You’re still unsure, but your mind identifies it as a colour, and tells you it is probably a dark green or blue.

You feel helpless as, once again, you count. After all, what else is there to do? One, one two one, one two three two one… When the warmth returns yet again, it is even more centralised. You think that it is coming from somewhere around your heart.

You gasp shakily, drawing in a breath of polluted city air, and your eyes fly open. Really open this time; you can see the cheery blue sky and fluffy white clouds above you.

Everything comes back to you in a flash of remembrance: playing in your mother’s garden (underneath the jasmine vines); hearing a dog growling and barking; getting distracted from your games; the trellis with the newly wound ivy falling, seemingly out of nowhere. Then everything going dark. So dark.

A smiling face looks down on you. You are still concussed from the fall and subsequent revival, so you think that you are looking at an angel. Then the angel looks away and shouts to someone you can’t see.

“She’s awake!” The voice is filled with joy, and is oddly familiar. That’s when you recognise her: it is your best friend. Fuzzily, you remember that she took a first aid course a few months ago. You had made fun of her for it… and now she had saved your life. Now that is irony.

A siren blares outside in the street. The men lift you carefully onto a glaringly white stretcher-bed and place you gently into the ambulance. Your mother called the ambulance when she and you friend had found you lying under the trellis, as pale and cold as death.

You slip into a blissful sleep, not hearing the doctor tell your mother that, with the amount of time you spent unconscious, you probably had very severe brain damage. He then asked your mother to come in the ambulance with you, and try to keep you awake… if you did fall asleep, there was an 80% chance of death.

The darkness claims you again, this time with a promise to never let go.

One, two, three…