I always thought transcendence would feel better.

Waves of sick wash over, suggestions of sights and sounds just outside perception. Why can I not simply vomit and be done with it? Tantalizing tingles tease my limbs. Where are my limbs? A tongue I cannot feel tells me things I do not understand but do not like all the same. Do I still have teeth? Echoes of a word run over and over without being heard. What is he saying?

I exult.

I swear.

I try to swim upwards.

I desperately want to swim down.

I feel love.

I feel fear.

Something wet and sticky drags me down in the end, crams me into a space infinitely too small for existence. Fuzzy light floods my eyes. A metallic tang stings my nose. Pain seizes everywhere at once. I taste blood and plastic. Finally I hear.

“Clear!”

My body bucks, and I am alive. I remember and wish I weren’t.

Chaos and light fade again into a welcome, unknowing oblivion. I sleep but dare not dream. I know full well that the nightmares starts again once I wake.