I should be dead.

​

I felt it. I felt my neck snap.

I felt the bones splinter.

​

They pushed me, I fell.

My neck hit something on the ground, I couldn’t feel my body.

But then I felt… something snaking down and up my spine, pulling my body back together. I can only describe it as vines under my skin, something keeping me tightly taught.

​

Without thinking I get back up, and hold out my arms, covering my face.

Too late, the man pulls back his fist and hits me again.

His armoured glove impacts my face, and I taste blood.

​

But then, I don’t.

​

My head snaps back. Again, those vines under my skin pull me back together.

Before I know what I’m doing, I’m on top of the man. I’m punching him, my fists getting bloodied as they impact him again and again. His helmet falls off, and my hands punch his face.

I feel bones in my fingers snap from my brute force, but those vines again pull them back together.

Someone yells. An alarm goes off. Down the seemingly infinite white halls, men show up, dressed in black. Armed to the teeth, they see me. Through their semi-transparent helmet visors I see fear in their eyes.

​

They’re screaming. I’m screaming.

​

Rifles drawn, they start shooting. The muzzles flashes from their guns remind me of a beautiful flame.

————————

“What a beautiful, erm flame,” I say. I’m at the beach. I’m with… I’m with him. I I can’t remember his name for some reason.

I feel something for him. I can’t remember what it’s called… love?

He laughs, and tosses more dried driftwood into the bonfire, sending sparks into the summer breeze. The waves crash on the shore, and he looks at me, “Keep up with this flirting and I might end up falling for you.” He does something with his mouth…. A smile I believe it’s called.

I smile back. I can’t keep it off my face. I move my head shyly away from him. My heart pounds. I'm... happy.He moves to sit next to me. Closer than he has to. I don’t mind though. Even though I am sat next to a bonfire, I remember feeling as if his heat was twenty times stronger than the flame’s.

I awkwardly move closer to him. “You know,” he says, “there’s really no reason for you to be nervous. You know me.”

I feel blood rushing to my face. “I- Erm. You-“ I stutter. I've been staring at his eyes for too long. I flash an embarrassed smile.

He moves his hand to mine, and turns to face me. “Is this okay?” He asks.

I smile and nod.

————————

I smile as the bullets tear through me. I feel the vines moving through my body.

The pain feels… good. I run through the ranks of men, the flames all around me.

They try to stick things inside me, but I’m too fast. The vines seem to snake out of my body, helping me take them down. Their blood on my hands excites me.

As suddenly as it started, it’s all over, and I’m left in torn rags. Once a pristine white, now a blood-stained red.

I feel myself start to drift away, but I have to stay up. I can’t fall.

I reach out to steady myself, but it all goes black.

————————

I reach out to steady myself on a nearby rock. I had almost slipped on the puddle of cold ocean water.It's early morning.

The night before was... incredible. I think the word is... good. It was really good.

I move through the rocks sticking out of the sand, like giant splinters.

I left him back at the remains of the bonfire. I wanted to explore... I think.

As I move through the rock formations, I get careless again.Three things happen at once. I slip, I try to steady myself and as I reposition my foot, something stabs into it.

I let out a small yelp, and sit down quickly to see what happened. I turn my foot around, but can't seem to find a wound. I have no clue what punctured me.

It still hurts, so I run my finger on my soles, but I can't feel anything out of the ordin- what's that under my skin? Almost as if something moved under it, and disappeared. Almost like vines, reaching through my skin.

I must be seeing things. I run back to him, to the remnants of the bonfire.

Something happened. What happened?

————————

"What happened?" I tried to ask. Instead, the only noise that comes out is a dreary, "Whmnmgh hmnmghmgd?"

A man in a white lab coat looks at me. His expression is hidden behind some sort of gas-mask. He makes unintelligible noises. I can't tell if his voice is muffled by the mask, or if I was too hurt to understand his words.

I observe my surroundings: I'm tied to some sort of bed, arms and legs secured. Tubes are stuck in me, but I don't feel any pain.

Suddenly, men in full protective yellow suits come in. Like the man in white before, they wore some sort of protective mask.

They started pricking and prodding me, injecting me with things. Vines lashed out at them from inside of me, but they were quickly taken care of with some sort of spray. For the first time in a long while, I felt pain. I tried to scream, but I realised my mouth was gone.I couldn't feel the opening. I could barely feel my tongue, and my teeth were gone.

They cut three of my fingers off. All the while the vines came out of me, but were quickly subdued. I'm in pain. Pain like never before.

I feel the vines moving through me, reaching through my muscles, breaking and fixing my bones. The vines slither up my once-broken neck, into my skull.I feel them jump around. It hurts.

My eyes start to close, but just then, my body starts moving, almost as if the vines themselves are pulling me with unseen strings.

It hurts.

————————

"It doesn't hurt me," I said to him.

He was looking over my foot, not sure what to make of make of the predicament. "I don't know what to say. Nothing seems wrong. If you're positive you're not seeing things and going insane," he flashed me a smile.

Again, I smiled back. "No, it was something... It was crawling under my skin."

He raised a skeptical eyebrow, but didn't say anything.

I swatted his arm playfully, "Maybe I'm just tired."

He stood up and stretched, "We did have a late night." He flashed me a knowing smile.

I smiled back, and stood up to face him.

The way he looked at me...I shyly moved my gaze downwards, hiding the happiness dancing on my face.

————————

I quickly moved my gaze downwards to focus on what was in my bloodstained hands. A device of some sort.

It took a moment, but I was able to recall what it was: a laptop.

I looked at my surroundings, and I was dressed in rags, in a closet, full of brooms and cleaning agents. I cracked the door of the closet open, only to be greeted by the white hallways I've come to hate.

I decided to open the computer. A post-it note near the touchpad had a password scratched on it, which I quickly typed into the laptop.

I opened up some sort of... application? Is that what it's called? No matter- and I wrote down everything I could in a chronological order. I don't know what's happening, but I don't want to forget anything.

All the while, one thing flashes through my mind:

I should be dead.