Forty-Eight: Reminders

I could hear it.

The screaming. The pain.

I wanted to open my eyes to see where it was coming from, but I couldn't move. I was locked in my body, trapped like a caged animal. Hot liquid pooled around me as if I were getting pulled under a thick current. There was no point in fighting the rising levels as my body worked against me, weighing me down to the bottom.

It was thick, almost black.

And then, I was pulled back. Back to the surface of the crimson river.

It swirled around me like a drain, splashing onto my face and temporarily suffocating me until it was suddenly gone. My lungs convulsed in my chest as I heaved, trying to clear them of the residual liquid. The need to hit my chest to assist in the upheaval of the foreign invader to my airways was pushed aside when I couldn't move my limbs.

Strong leather bands wrapped around my wrists, holding them to the arms of the chair. The skin beneath them rubbed raw as I squirmed and yanked