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Pain. Burning, searing, excruciating pain. It was all I could feel.
Fear. Paralyzing, immobilizing, petrifying fear. It was all I could think.
Hundreds of tiny needles poked into my skin. Thousands of pinpricks of light stabbed my vision. My head swirled and my mind whirled and everything hurt and throbbed and burned and screamed. Nothing I felt was real. Nothing I saw was real.
I woke up screaming. Bright, sterile white pervaded my vision. It was all real. The pain. The fear. The hurting, throbbing, burning, screaming terror. All of it, real.
My vision slowly cleared. A hospital. I was in a hospital. The sterile white was in the walls, floor, curtains, cabinets, and sheets.
But why was I in a hospital? I couldn't remember.
A nurse, clad in still more white, rushed into the room. I was petrified. I couldn't move. Couldn't speak. All I could do was watch as the nurse adjusted fluid drips and plugged more IVs into my skin.
"Are you alright?" the white-clad woman asked. I didn't even blink. "Okay, young man, you were severely burned when you came in. The girl who brought you in was very concerned about you. She said you had been in a fire, that your house was on fire. She said you had jumped from a two story window to a nearby tree. She said you fell. You were unconscious when you came in." She paused. "Does any of this sound at all familiar?"
I strained to shake my head.
"Amnesiatic," the nurse whispered, scribbling on a clipboard I hadn't noticed before.
Suddenly another flash of pain ripped through my body, hovering in the top layer of my skin. I gasped, searching for a breath, but, try as I might, air escaped my franic breathing.
The burns on my skin seemed to glow white hot as everything in my body began to catch on fire, turning me into something marvelous. Breathtaking. Beautiful.
The nurse raced over to my heartrate monitor, which had flatlined. I was dead.
But how was that possible? I felt alive, so, so alive.
I felt my flesh burning off my body, revealing smoldering, fiery orange feathers. I was still human, but I was something more.
The nurse hid in a corner, frantically dialing 911. She needed to report me, what I had become.
I was a phoenix.
ns 15.158.61.12da2
