The first thing I noticed when I awoke was the cold.
The cold that seemed to wrap itself around me like a blanket, smothering me in a frosty coat of icing and settling there.
Despite the thin blanket that covered me, I could still feel the biting cold as if I was stood in the middle of Antarctica with nothing but a thin coat to cover my entire body.
The second thing I noticed when I awoke was the lights.
Bright, fluorescent lights that attacked my eyes that had become adjusted to the darkness that lay beneath my eyelids. My eyes were blurry, like an out-of-focus camera, and the lights didn't help my cause in the slightest. It was so bright, it was like the sun shining down on a freezing winter day, deceiving you by appearing warm, when in reality, it was absolutely freezing. There was just this never-ending brightness that lit up the room at full saturation.
It was like a hospital, and at first, I truly thought I was in a hospital bed. Just staring at the ceiling, at the blinding lights that burnt my eyes despite the freezing cold draft that had taken up residence in the room.
The third thing I noticed when I awoke was the lack of sound.
The beeps of a hospital machine that had seemed so familiar to me for so long. The squeaking of wheels that was almost always present just outside my room. The humming of nurses and the squeaking of their shoes hitting the polished floors as they went about their business walking down the corridors, going about their daily routine.
The click of the door when it would open to reveal a doctor coming to check up on me. The hurried footsteps of people rushing to see family and friends, the wailing sounds of children that could be heard from down the corridor and the weeping of a relative when the doctor broke devastating news to them.
The room, the place, was devoid of all these sounds.
The fourth thing I noticed when I awoke was the disconnection.
I could feel it, the panic rising like a dark storm cloud that looms over the sky for hours, threatening you with a relentless downpour. I could feel the panic, it had become prominent, the only thing in the room sans for the coldness and the lights.
And the two things melded together to create a concoction of fear and dread and threats to come. And I didn't understand, I didn't understand why I felt so... disconnected. It was as if the fear wasn't a part of me, as if I was just a spectator, watching the fear evolve into something bigger and bigger, something out of control.
And it sent thoughts spiralling around my head, theories and conspiracies I hadn't dared think up until then. It was like a floodgate had just been opened, and all the water that had been contained had come rushing out, flowing aggressively and overtaking every stable thought I had.
Where am I? What am I doing? What was I doing? How did I get here? Where is everyone?
And as my thoughts spiralled further along a path I'd neglected since I'd found myself there, my hand flew to my chest, as if everything was choking me. As if the whole thing was so overwhelming, my heart had started trying to compact itself.
The fifth thing I noticed when I awoke was my heart.
The usual steady beat of my heart, the only stable, consistent thing in my life. It wasn't there. It wasn't replaced with a fluttering anxiety, it wasn't replaced with rapid beating, as if clamouring to escape the cages that trapped it.
It just wasn't there. At all.
The sixth thing I noticed when I awoke was that I wasn't alive.
I had died, and I wasn't going to live again. But perhaps that wasn't as bad as it sounded, because my life hadn't exactly been a utopia.
***
Hi guys, this is my first story on this website. I hope you enjoyed reading this, I enjoyed writing it! Please feel free to tell me your thoughts :) Thankyou for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day.
ns 15.158.61.48da2
