I awake in one of the most uncomfortable positions possible. I am compressed against a wall with my legs and arms limp at my sides. My hands are splintered wood given human form. My face is pressed hard against wood that had been clawed at heavily.

With a great struggle, I turn my entire body around just using my neck muscles, and I quickly realize I have returned back to my crippled body. The familiar sensation of having no sensation across expanses of my body is somehow greatly comforting and distressing at the same time. The completely unique feeling is something brought on by my absolute confusion. Given an hour of thought I would still be unable to process what just happened to me. Hell, given a year or 10,I will never make sense of what just happened, but the current situation is equally alarming.

A paralyzing dread fills my nervous system as I realize I did not wake from my bed. I have woken up at least 10 feet away. I am in my 5th year after contracting Lou gehrig's disease. I haven't moved my arms or legs in months...I am now many feet from where I can normally wake.

My hands are battered beyond belief. A limit that is quickly becoming harder to reach... Pieces of drywall, wood, and chipped green paint from my wall are deep under my fingernails. Each finger has its own brand of ravaged flesh. My right hand is misshapen as though I have punched a concrete wall with all of my might repeatedly. Chills cover every pore on my skin. A cold nausea pervades through me; I have somehow moved over to the other side of the room and clawed at the wall with all of my strength.

The impossible situation only adds to my turmoil when suddenly I start to smell burning tires. My horror at the smell is dwarfed by a greater fear of the unknown force that has made me move while having my demented dream. The realism is not the problem of the dream. The dream has happened. The world which I lived in for a few painful, agonizing, and woeful days was real.

I comforted my unstable mind with these statements. The burning smell slowly grows into a quiet rumbling resembling a fire. Cracking wood can be heard from a distance as smoke slowly fills the dark room.

I start to get a combination of despair and helplessness as I furiously try to throw my worthless body forwards with nothing but my neck. I fall over and proceed to weakly move my shoulder muscles and chin. The motions slowly grovel me forwards. The increasing harshness of the smoke burns my lungs and stings my eyes in the unlit room. My mother is away for a business trip, and my caretaker does not actually sleep in the same building.

My isolation is breeding a thick layer of almost tangible panic. It adheres to me as I sweat profusely while approaching my motorized chair. With the frenzied effort of an insect trying to escape flames, I slowly use my teeth and shoulders to climb my chair. The room is now dimly lit with the fire that is quickly growing next to my room.

After about 5 minutes of the most mentally taxing physical effort that I have ever endured during my now seemingly peaceful stay on this earth, I finally am able to lay on my chair in a position where I can direct my chair controlling joystick.

Desperate to try and beat the flames that have engulfed the other side of the room, my mind races at unbound speeds. Dozens of plans involving more complicated logistics than I have ever envisioned appear before me, but they all move out of the way as the only logical solution takes front and center.

I am going to have to drive my chair through the flames, down the hallway, and then finally through the glass pane door at the backside of the house. My ever present state of life or death struggle related fear surges me to action. While meandering my tongue over the joystick in an exceptionally pathetic manner I start to roll towards the flames.

I start hyperventilating to overload my body with oxygen before I go to the fire. I will need to hold my breathe until I've escaped the flames if I want to live. As I reach the flames a new experience awaits me.

Searing Torment like broken bones and crushed teeth consumes me. Because of my hyper oxygenated state I can feel the flames lash my entire body at varying levels of intensity. The immediate problem is that the flames can only hurt the external part of my body as I roll at an oppressively sluggish pace. I am counting each second to try and remain in control of what small parts of my ever melting body I can still feel.

“31...32…33...34...35,” I think with ever increasing exhaustion as I navigated through the house using my now hazy mental map.

“44...45...46...47”

I count while thinking of what could possibly be worth this level of anguish. Kinslee, Luke, Artheus, my mom...My unmet dad all flash across my mind as I approach my glass door that is now engulfed in flames. Large pieces of burning wood and drywall have fallen all over what I now imagine to be the least human looking corpse on the planet. My own.

The glass makes a sharp cracking noise as the first charge does not completely break it. Using my tongue, neck, and ever softening cheeks I direct the joystick to try and escape the maelstrom of hate and heat that I am in. My cheeks paper thin flesh gives way like heated butter as I try to push the joystick.The taste of blood and charred flesh enter my mouth while I struggle to remain mentally stable as I feel my body slowly crumbling under the overwhelming heat. I redirect what I picture is a set of bones covered in charred meat to clasp the stick with my teeth.

The crescendo of glass falling is like music to my ears as I slowly roll over the door frame and out of my house into the street. God has sent cool night air to alleviate my pain. I know with absolute certainty that only the kindest of creators can save me from my newfound hell. I release my breath and start to gasp for air. My quickly deteriorating consciousness faintly senses that I am being moved right before I pass out.