6.3
Ahh, am I alive?
It hurts.
It hurts.
It hurts.
I can't see anything.
How long have I been here?
I tried to count the seconds as they passed, but time had lost all meaning to me.
Ah. right. The element. That's right. I need to overcome it.
It was important. What was it? It was important. It was important, right? It was important. It was important, right?
I'm supposed to hang on.
But there was only pain. My awareness was simply filled with pain. My very existence was painful.
It's ok. I'm ok. I've felt pain before. I can do this. I can handle this. I can embrace this pain.
This pain…
Like alcohol being poured into a wound, my entire body stung–both the interior and the exterior. I felt like I was a lidless eyeball getting scraped by a sharpened aluminum can.
pain…
pain...
pain…
I'm done. I can't feel this anymore.
Maybe I really had died and gone to hell, but there was no fire–only black.
I swayed in and out of awareness, and, like a wave crashing rhythmically against the ocean shore, the scorch would come surging back before fading away again.
Wait… I have to stay awake. If I'm still alive, then I shouldn't die.
Staying awake is what I have to do.
Suddenly, a nonsensical thought–or maybe it really had something to it–overcame my mind. I was within the element. Its blackness had swallowed me whole. It was simply the world I existed within.
This darkness... is death?
No. I can't give up. This is pain, but death is waiting for me.
There was an option. An option.
I could either seek comfort–an escape from the pain–by letting my consciousness slip away, or I could bear the flame as it besieged my body–no, as it besieged my mind.
I have to hang on. I have to survive. I can't let this beat me.
I made it through one moment in time after another.
Stop.
Go away.
Get out of my head.
Get out of my head.
Get out of my head.
Get out of my head.
Get out of my head.