Page 1 of The Raven
Death
The Raven
My lungs constricted asI bolted upright with a deep gasp. Desperate tosuck in air, my fingers grabbed at my throat, trying to find whatever was wrapped around it, preventing me from breathing.
But nothing was strangling me.
Consumed with panic, my lungs finally expanded. Sharp pain like Iwas being stabbed with a thousand knives coursed through my body, once again taking my breath away. I fell onto my back, writhing around on the ground, and unable to stop the moans of torture escaping me.
“It gets easier,” a man said from somewhere nearby.
I tried to look around for the source, but my vision blurred from the tearsstinging my eyes, and all I could make out were fuzzy shapes shrouded in darkness.
“Help…me,” I managed to croak, my voice hoarse.
“Deep breaths,” he replied calmly. “You’ll adjust to it.”
Why wasn’t he helping me, dammit?
Bile churned in my stomach and began inching its way up. Despite theexcruciating pain, I somehow rolled onto my front and pulled myself onto all fours as my body heaved, expelling acid that burned my throat as I spat onto the floor.
But the suffering didn’t ease.
“What’s…happening?” I managed to get out between heaves.
“Your body is remembering.”
“Remembering…what?”
“What happened before you came here.”
His words didn’t make sense, and with the avalanche of anguish tearingthrough me, I couldn’t take a moment to ponder his meaning, not helped when another retching fit took over.
After several minutes, my body stopped heaving long enough for me to suckin several deep breaths, just like the man had told me to do. Slowly, the tension coiling inside me began to unfurl, the pain not going away, but rather, my body adapting to it.
“Where am I?” I said, shifting from all fours to sit with my back restingagainst a wall, and my legs stretched out in front of me.
Every muscle in my body ached like I’d run back-to-back marathons withouta break, and without any food or water to keep me going.
“Some call it the in-between. Some call it nowhere. It doesn’t reallymatter what it’s called; it doesn’t change where we are,” the man replied cryptically.
Now that my vision was clearing, I shifted my gaze around, taking in theplace around me. My confusion grew.
The derelict train station looked like it had been abandoned hundreds ofyears ago, if not longer. Long weeds had overtaken the rusted tracks, and every window in the old ticket office were shattered. The decaying brick walls were coated in thick, rotting ivy, and the gut-churning stench of mold hung in the air.
Wherever this place was, night had fallen, and the only source of lightshining was from the bright moon high in the sky. As my eyes scanned my surroundings, they landed on an old man with hair as white as snow. He watched me from where he sat on a bench, intrigue covering his face.
“Who are you?” I asked, his ambiguous answer to my last questionalready forgotten.
He chuckled softly, standing from his seat and grabbing a walking stickthat had been leaning against the bench. “It’s always the same questions. Where am I?Who are you? How did I get here?” he said, putting his weight on the stick as he limped over to me. “Let me ask you a question. Why areyouhere?”
I frowned at his line of questioning. Not because he didn’t answer me,but because when I tried to recall my last memory before waking up here, there was nothing but a black hole.
“I…I don’t remember,” I replied, shaking my head.
Nothing made sense, and with the throbbing at my temples, I couldn’tthink straight to even begin making sense of what the hell was going on.
The man gave me a sad smile, pity filling his eyes. “It’s acommon symptom, especially for those who have suffered severe trauma.”
