"Dess"

I got my heroine into some trouble this evening...

Hurt like a million fishhooks dug in deep everywhere the blood touched. And it pulled. Pulled blood through tissue, bones through flesh, dragging me inside out. Tugging, ripping, tearing—I wailed a high-pitched sound that clawed behind my eyes and hurt my own ears. Then I was tumbling, falling, hitting the floor and I felt my bones rattle. Black spots danced over my eyes and a blurry, greyscale filter slid over the world. Agony burned hot like fire scalding my skin—

And I blinked. Bright white light like stars bursting stabbed my eyes. Faded.

Desert. Colour returned but it was shades of brown and flecks of golden sand for miles, blue sky that seemed infinite. A warm breeze tickled my skin, blew sand over my toes. I felt light, like the breeze could run through me—faint and ethereal, a ghost who would blow away if a high wind kicked up.

I drifted. Sun cut a huge orange circle into the horizon and heat travelled above the ground fluid like water. A throb started low in my temples, the way it does if you stand up quickly and feel lightheaded for too long. The sun sparked the gold in the sand and it glittered; a desert of stars in the ground rather than the sky. That sand burned the soles of my feet with each step, driving spikes of fire up, up, straight into my legs. The air was too heavy for me, weighing me down, and I struggled to take it into my lungs—

A little word broke through the haze around me, tickling my ears. “Dess...”

I slammed back into the world like I’d been dropped from a skyscraper into the pavement. Throat raw, mouth open, I realized I was still screaming and couldn’t stop. My pulse thundered in my ears, skin burned, and I flailed, arched, shook as if in seizure. Heels slipped and kicked uselessly in something liquid. Head thumped on the polished tile hard enough that stars flickered over my eyes.

Then a dark figure was over me; hands on my face, my tensed jaw; smoothing hair, soothing skin. “Dess...?”

That one little word. Over and over ‘til it lost meaning to my brain. Dess...Dess...Dess... It was a whisper, an embrace, a promise—it was everything in this scary, painful world suddenly and I clung to it because I was too afraid of what would happen if I let go.

“It’s gonna be okay, Dess...”