Just a few seconds more...

The night was dark.
All she could hear was a deathly silence humming in her ears. All she could see was a black darkness stretched out till her eyes could reach. All she could feel was the cold wind chilling her till her bones. She smelt rotten carcass near her. She could tell someone was lying dead very close to her.
Her mind could not think clearly. She did not know what to do..Should she run? But where? Where would she go? All that lied ahead was an unnerving emptiness, a definite and mocking darkness. Should she shout for help? But who would listen to her cries for relief? There was no one around. But she had to try. Surely there must be someone, she hoped...Then she was struck by an agonizing realization...her voiced was betraying her. She could not shout, try as she may. It was as if someone was holding her by her throat, not letting her voice leave her. She felt like she was being strangled....she began to gasp for breath..she felt a brutal pain travel through every inch of her. "Was death better than this?", she began to think...Suddenly she smiled to herself through the pain. She waited for her time, she knew it was not very long now...she was about to be saved...just a few seconds more and...she would be dead...free.

I woke up with a sudden start, my face sweating with the tension of what I had just seen and felt. For some time I pondered over the bad dream. What could have sparked such a dream? Surely there must be some connection between what your mind sees while it's resting, with when it's not, I tried to reason.

And then it dawned upon me. This was not a dream. It was real, it was happening to me, even as I was trying to figure it all out. My mind sees this emptiness everyday while it's awake...It was me that I saw in the dream, trying to call for help, my voice not cooperating with my mind...It was the already dead part of my soul that had decayed and made up the carcass. I was gasping for breath all the time while I was awake...the pain seeping through my nerves...

Suddenly I smiled to myself...it was not very long now...I was about to be saved...about to be free.