Page 15 of The Dire Reaction

Another beer, a cold shower, and a jack off down the drain, I’m possibly feeling human again. Enough to go to sleep at least.

Still a headache, but a couple of aspirin should fix that.

It’s dark when I awaken, a cold sweat covering my body. My stomach is rolling, my eyes burn like I’ve been welding without goggles.

How can I simultaneously feel like I’m on fire and freezing?

Every inch of me aches. Worse than my hardest work out. Worse than the time I was bucked from my horse and landed in the rocky stream bed.

My fingernails scream at me. The hair on my head bristles against the pressure on the pillow. Every point that touches a sheet feels like razor blades on my skin.

Shivering. Sweating.

I’m pushing at the stinging sheets that knot around my aching legs.

Fuck, even my toes hurt. The air burns my lungs.

Clenching my jaw, my teeth threaten to shatter out of my pounding skull.

Coughing, the shudder rips through me. Lungs spasming, my throat tightens in the rebellion of my frantic diaphragm. Saliva builds in my mouth burning my swollen tongue.

My arms refuse to move. I’m stuck in this hellish bed, suffocating, burning, shredding from the inside out. Focusing all of my willpower, I manage to move one leg. Pushing against the sweat soaked mattress, I get my hips to roll closer to the edge.

Agony rips through my spine when I twist. My organs defy my movement, coil in my gut, bloating, swelling up into my ribs. They feel like they’re cracking when I shift, dislodging from my vertebrae.

I feel like I’m dying. This pain. It all hurts so bad. I almost wish I was. I can’t breathe without my chest squeezing rigid, inflexible. The weight of my eyelids on my eyes is excruciating.

I throw my leg once more, my last vestige of strength.

The impact of the floor kaleidoscopes waves of pain, fracturing into white hot bursts erupting behind my eyes. Then, everything goes dark.

There are exactly nine granules of dirt pressing into my skin. I can feel them. Why do I know it’s nine?

Deafening noises work their way into my ears; a cacophony of sounds mix and scream for attention. Thor is snoring, Alex’s TV is far too loud, and my heartbeat is a drumline. Rushing blood screeches tiny whistles through my lungs with every aching breath. There is a bird outside whose piercing cry rams right into my skull, its trill reverberating needles behind my eyes.

I’m still freezing and burning. Waves of discord ripple through me, a shiver of cold rattles down my spine, and I can hear my bones grinding against each other with the movement. That sound alone sends spikes of fever washing through me. A wave of tepid sweat breaks from every pore. I can feel each individual pore releasing a droplet of toxic liquid, pooling on my skin. The breeze from the ceiling fan is a hurricane whipping over me, drying the sweat, crusting it onto my sensitive skin.

My bones ache. Both to move and to remain still. This enhances the burning in my joints.

Slowly clenching my fingers, I feel each ridge of the tips tracing a screaming line when they touch. Every dust mote that lands on me is a stone’s weight of pressure.

Senses on overdrive, I’m terrified to open my eyes.

The rolling in my stomach propels me to flatten my palms against the rough wood of the floor. I always thought it was smooth, worn from decades of footsteps. But, every fiber pushes its ridge against my hand, every valley swallowing and pinching my skin.

Muscles twitch and protest. My arms shake lifting my enormous weight. Feeling like I’m doing a pushup with a car on my back, I limply manage to find a sitting position.

Covering my eyes with my hand, my brows sting against my fingers. My lashes brushing against my thumb feel like thousands of tiny daggers.

I feel like I’ve been skinned. Raw nerves exacerbate every movement. The worst sunburn does not compare to the level of burning sensitivity.

Hand clamping firmly over my eyes, I risk letting my crusty lids flutter. My lashes tear apart, the glue giving, releasing the bind. A glimmer of blinding light seeps through my pressed fingers, white hot into my brain.

I hate every second of this.

Sitting up, my stomach tames. My pupils slowly adjust to the scalding brightness. Hesitantly, I drop my hand from my eyes. Blinking, I’m able to finally focus on the room around me.

Everything is so detailed. I can discern a small chip on the corner of my dresser across the room. A tiny thread is sticking out of the waistband of my sweatpants. A hairline crack is in the wall of the bathroom that’s at least twenty feet away.

---