Is This What Death Feels Like?

---Aaron---

Cold wind rushing past my ears. Katherine's arm tightly around my waist, and my arm around hers. The shouts from our pursuers above. The heavy pull of gravity and the flapping of my cloak. And then, it was all over.

Or was it? I felt tree branches scratching at my legs, my arms, my face. The arrow on my shoulder caught on something and was yanked out painfully, taking a chunk of my flesh with it. I felt the warm blood gush out, and the pain was unimaginable.

I must have passed out. I must have died. I was so cold; I thought I was freezing into ice. I tried to open my eyes, tried to move, but couldn't. Was this what the passage into the afterlife felt like? I no longer felt Katherine beside me. I've lost her.

Everyone was taken from me. There's no point in living. The coldness crept over my limbs and I succumbed to it. I surrendered to the elements and accepted my fate.

* * * * *

Voices. This murmuring, this low mumbling of sounds…am I going crazy? Are these the voices of spirits? What are they saying?

They faded in and out, sometimes so close I could almost make out individual words, other times so far away I wasn't sure I had heard anything at all. I remained suspended in the painful darkness that extended infinitely in all directions and wrapped me in an unbreakable cocoon.

I can no longer feel my limbs. Who am I? Where do I go? All that remained was pain, pain, and more pain. I succumbed once more to the wave of darkness that enveloped me..

* * * * *

"Shh. Don't move. You're safe now."

Mum? Is that you? I struggled to open my eyes, to call out, but I couldn't. Mum. Mum. Don't leave me. Please don't leave me again.

"There, there." A soothing hand gently caressed my burning body, bringing with it a split second of blissful cool. The touch was soft, and felt just like my mum comforting me when I had nightmares as a child.

"You're safe now. Sleep well, dear child."

* * * * *

Was this heaven? Was this hell? Are these really my own thoughts, or just tendrils of the past that my soul desperately tried to hold on to?

The darkness loomed all around, and I was reluctant to find out more about my predicament. Pain lurked in the corners, slowly stretching their tentacles out and grabbing hold of me. It hurt so much.

I'm so tired. I don't want to run anymore, or fight anymore.

I had long given up the fight. I drifted mindlessly, aimlessly, until unconsciousness consumed me once again.

* * * * *

I slowly became aware of something other than darkness. While my mind was still muddled and confused, my body responded to the external stimulus and reignited the engines of my flesh. For the first time in a long time, I seemed to feel grounded again.

My eyelids slowly fluttered open. A blurry patch of brown came into view, and it was a while before my gaze focused and I realized I was looking at a wooden ceiling. A warm fire crackled somewhere nearby, and sunlight streamed in through a window. I could hear the faint chirping of birds. Is this what the afterlife was like?

No. I'm breathing. And there was a dull ache in my limbs that intensified if I tried to move. People don't feel pain if they're dead—at least, I didn't think they did. I felt warmth radiating about me, which told me that I was definitely alive. The dead are cold, and I was not. Then the question was, where am I?

It took much effort for me to even wiggle my fingers. Although it was my body, it felt so alien, like I was a spirit inhabitating someone else's body. My muscles had not been in use for so long they had almost forgotten what it was like to move. Eventually, though, I forced myself to sit up, ignoring the tiny daggers of pain that shot through my arms and chest.

I was on a simple bed, with a mattress stuffed with straw and a warm handmade quilt. This was one of two beds that lined two opposite walls of a small room with a fireplace and worn armchair at one end and a writing desk under a window on the other end. I lifted the blanket to check on my wounds, and I was surprised to see bandages covering most of my upper body and parts of my legs. Except for my undergarments, my clothes were nowhere to be seen. Some one had taken great care of me while I was unconscious. Someone had saved me after I jumped off the cliff with Katherine. But who? How long have I been unconscious? And most importantly, where was Katherine?

A closer examination of the room told me that Kath was lying on the other bed. She lied so still I feared she was dead, but the small rise and fall of her chest told me she was still breathing.

"Kath. Kath." I tried to call out her name, but my throat was raspy and the words felt weird in my mouth after not speaking for so long. I tried again. "Kath? Katherine?"

There was no response. With some difficulty, I pushed the quilt aside and swung my legs over the bed. Gingerly, I stood up, hand gripping the edge of the bed to brace myself for pain. My knees gave out almost as soon as I shifted my weight to my feet, and I just barely managed to keep myself from toppling forward onto the ground face-first.

I reached out and grasped the bedpost tightly with both hands. Bit by bit, I forced myself to straighten again. Breathing heavily, I waited as the pain dulled. It took several tries before I was able to make the few steps necessary to reach Katherine's bedside.

Katherine slept peacefully, her hair a brown splash against the white pillow. Her quilt was pulled up to her shoulders, and one bandaged arm was lying on top of the quilt. I noticed still-healing scratches and scabs on her exposed skin, probably from our fall into the trees.

"Kath. Kath, wake up." I shook her gently, careful not to touch any of her cuts. "Kath?"