The world passes by in disjointed flashes. A scattering of senses that provide brief illumination before fading away. A pulsing bloom of pain spreading through my chest. A fleeting smell of ash, sulfur and charred meat. A collage of blue, green and brown sliding by in a never-ending dance. Sounds come and go without meaning, beyond my ability to grasp.

Some stand out with a lasting clarity, while others fade away like sparks from a fire. Throughout it all is an overwhelming sense of wrongness that has nothing to do with words, reason or conscious thought. A pervading itch in some deeper, unknowable part of my being. A voice in my soul, trying to scream with a mouth sown shut.

The humid fever dream squirms through my mind. Stripping me down to something that operates on the base levers of pain and relief, desire and rejection. All I can do is ride the waves in blind reaction, unable to rise out of the tide sweeping me to and fro.

The pressure squeezes me tighter and tighter. The locked grip of a giant, pinning me down in misery. I struggle with no recourse, in a place where time holds no sway. Broken and beaten down until a cool wind wraps around me in a gentle embrace. Soothing the raging waters inside until I finally escape into a gentle abyss

* * *

The first thing I’m aware of is the heat. Overwhelming. Suffocating. Both within and without, it steals my strength and all I can do is let out a gargled moan that dissolves into a wet and wheezing cough. My body rattles through the fit, trying and failing to draw in a solid breath. My lungs are made of cheesecloth and the air seems to just slip right through. Every breath is a labor to complete and the coughing only makes it worse.

Soon, despite the heavy heat pressing in, I begin shiver. My back and jaw clenching up in pain as I shake from head to toe. One after another, I’m beset by a deluge of suffering that leaves me drained and exhausted. My awareness is broken thing and the torment stretches on, drifting in and out of what thin strands of consciousness I still hold.

Eventually, I rise above my own personal bubble of woe and a low roaring reaches my ears, interspersed by a series of crackles and pops. The sounds slips around my head for a while, unable to find purchase until something slides into place and I recognize the source. Fire.

The thought sends a pulse of nervous energy through me, pushing me to leave the pervading darkness through a single open eye. I gaze upon the pine needle covered earth in front of me before tracing the ground up to a crackling fire. Red, yellow and orange dance upon a log cabin styled campfire, sending fleeting embers out with intermittent pops.

The flames send out waves of heat that are only matched by the heat radiating out of me. It’s not a pleasant warmth; As if my body were slowly being cooked from the inside out. It’s too much. My mind rejects the heat and suffering. It retreats from the outside, back into my inner world, before dissolving away into nothing.

* * *

“Wake up.” The words drag me back from my tranquil respite. “Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.” I go to turn over and away from the obnoxious noise, but my body refuses to listen, only offering a token attempt to move before giving up. “I know you can hear me.” My everything hurts, each in it’s own separate way, and all I want is to slip back into oblivion. I try to do just that, but the pain has a tight hold on me, refusing an easy release. An endeavor made harder by the incessant stream of words directed towards me.

With a start, I crack open my eyes, or eye, one of them stuck shut. My thoughts are slow to come around, but something buried deep connects the dots.

Someone is talking to me.

Everything else is dim and unimportant compared to my visceral need for actual human connection. A shining beacon that overpowers my near absolute lack of agency.

“Ah, there we are.” It’s all I can do to open the one eye and stare ahead, the weight of injury and pain turning the easy into draining feats of effort. “Now I doubt you’ll appreciate this fact, but you’re going to need to relieve yourself eventually. And while I appreciate the extent of your injuries, I am not going to be helping you do so. Nor will I be cleaning up any mess you make. So…” I fight my heavy eyelids, blinking past the mounting urge to let them rest. “….It’s really in both of our interests at this point.”

All I can see are the two boots of the speaker in front of me, cast in flickering relief from the fire. Brown and knee-high, they are pointed a bit to my right, one of them tapping up and down and up and down. The hypnotic motion decidedly not helping my attempts to stay awake.

“Look, knocking on the heart’s door is never going to be enjoyable, but you know what’s worse? Doing so covered in your own shit and piss. So if you–”

The rest slides off me, meaningless sounds that I can no longer grasp as I return to the land of slumber and dream.

* * *

The world rushes back to fill the empty expanses of exhaustion. Blinking away the clumsy vestiges of sleep, I absently stare into a dying fire while my head gets itself back up to speed. A nebulous… something tickles the edges of my mind. Important, but forgotten, it leaves an aggravating itch that I long to scratch. I mentally circle the vagueness, hoping to stumble upon a chain of connection that will lead me to whatever it is.

I lay there, thinking in wandering loops until the question is taken out of my hands. Footsteps sound out in the air, far out of my narrow line of sight. Soft against the padded earth, they become more distinct as they come closer to entering my vision. Stopping just outside of what I can see, a shuffling is followed by a series of dull thumps and sharp cracks as a bundle of wood is dropped to the ground near the fire, one errant branch rolling within a few inches of my face.

“Good. Good. You’re awake. Saves me the trouble. Now you fell asleep in the middle of our last conversation. Being the upstanding type I am, I won’t hold it against you.”

I’m in an odd place mentally. Countless traumas, injuries and worries leave me less than I should be, yet still together enough to recognize the deficiency. The mere acknowledgement that I’m not all there proving that I’m not all gone either. Working with half a deck of cards, I’m slow to disengage from my musings and notice that the voice has stopped. The silence following the pronouncement stretches on, each second that passes further hinting towards an expectation for a response of some sort.

A few more seconds tick by before I attempt to retort with a hesitant, 'thank you?' All that emerges is a gurgled groan that devolves into a new round of coughing, the rattling sounds interspersed by a wet wheezing. The two run their course, capped by a second, longer groan.

“No need to commiserate over your transgression, what’s done is done. Although it is nice to see you suitably remorseful about the whole thing.”

I lick my lips and swallow in a failed attempt to conjure up some saliva. My efforts only bringing pain in the form of cracked lips and a desiccated throat. Through teary eyes I spot one of the brown boots tapping up and down again.

“I was debating whether or not to get you some water, but it looks like you’ve already solved that issue. Smells like it anyway.” An irritated huff sounds out and the boot stills its movement before the voice continues where it left off. “I’ll head back to the stream and fetch you something to drink after building the fire back up.”

Fear crowds me at the thought of being left alone. Loath to lose this fleeting savior, I kick out and push my arms against the ground, flailing around in a thoughtless panic.

A quick stinging rips through my hysteria, stopping me in my weak struggles. Shock overcomes the already fading pain as I belatedly realize that I was just flicked on the nose.

“Relax. You’re fine. Have been and will be. Let go of the fear you cling to so tightly. Grasping at clouds and fearing the fall when you’ve already landed.” A snort interrupts the soothing words. “Silly, but understandable. You’ve been through much and have yet to unpack from your journey. So calm down and close your eyes without worry, for there is something you have yet to grasp."

The voice gets closer. The words spoken softly into my ears.

"The world is but a dream. The highs seem like the tallest mountains and the lows like the dark depths of the sea. But it is nothing but an illusion. A mirage painted by minds unable to deal with the truth. A truth that you have only begun to scratch at.”

I can feel the outline of her words, trace the ebb and flow of her meaning. directing me back towards the hazy glimpse of a dream. The shadow of a thought that continues to itch in my mind. A half remembered memory, only revealed by what it isn’t. The negative spaces pointing towards something beyond my grasp, yet still there none the less.

“The world is a dream and we must die to wake up."

A short silence emerges from those words. Filled quickly by the wind whispering through the trees and the slow burn of the nearby fire.

"Go to sleep and rest your eyes free from fear. You have already woken up little dreamer. And waking up is always the hardest part."

A cool sense of peace sweep over my battered body and stressed mind. Relaxing my clenched muscles and soothing me into the arms of sleep. The final words sending me off with a smile on my face.