By
Melissa Mead
They say that just before death, each person is given a moment of perfect clarity. It's a cruel gift; because this instant of complete comprehension comes only at the very second the body loses all ability to act.
I wished for that type of clarity when I found myself on that plain, naked and utterly alone. Sheer ridges loomed on all sides. The earth was black and strangely waxy. Above, the sky glared with a whiteness that hurt the eyes, but gave no heat. In that entire barren, scentless place, there was nothing but the wind and me.
From the first, I knew the wind was my enemy. It prodded and pushed me, running cold fingers over my skin. Furious, I shook my fist at the invader I couldn't see.
It clamped my wrist like a vice. As I gaped, it uncurled my
fingers one by one and spread them apart. I had one vision of my hand-spread wing like against that blazing sky, before the pain began.
It started at the base of my wrist, an invisible knife sliding its tip under my skin. Like a child's crayon tracing of their hand, an impossibly thin line burned upward, delicately outlining each finger.
Torment blazed behind. Part of me began to scream. Another part watched in analytical horror as the line completed its journey, wondering at the lack of blood. With tender precision, my invisible tormenter stripped the skin and flesh from my bones, as though peeling a willow twig. The
unseen force turned my hand this way and that, as though admiring its work.
My knees buckled, but with what was left of my hand pinioned, I couldn't fall. The pain surged higher with the shock, and I howled.
Abruptly, the force released my hand, and I crumpled to the
ground. The wind heaved and buffeted. In my pain-addled state, I imagined that another, stronger force had intervened. I looked around for my rescuer.
Instead, I was lifted and pressed back against the ground, my face to the merciless white sky, my arms and legs outspread. Fresh agony speared through each hand, each foot. Now I could see something-metal spikes driven through feet and wrists. I lay panting, snatching frantic, shallow gulps of that sterile air. Pressure weighed down on my sternum, and a whine wheezed between my lips.
The pain flared anew, from breastbone to groin, and across my abdomen. Then, impossibly, it returned, and deepened. Fiery fingers probed and tore deep where nothing had a right to be. The edges of my vision darkened. From far away came a sizzling, and, impossibly, a scent like frying bacon. The tearing became a tugging. I closed my eyes. No
man should have to see his own liver.
And in that moment of ultimate clarity, the wind had a voice:
"Now, class, pin back the abdominal flaps."