The pain was gone, but so was everything else. I—if ‘I’ bereft of all sense existed—didn’t float, as there was nothing to float on. Death, as I was coming to understand, was more like laying on a warm patch of land with no sun. Comfort in the darkness. But moreso, there were the memories that came unbidden.

I was at the tree, struggling against the zip-tie that bound my wrists behind my back and wrapped around the tree trunk. This action served only to make the pain worse. My shoulders were already over-extended, my arms just short of comfortably meeting. I cried and screamed, banging my head against the hard bark, mumbling broken prayers to whoever would listen to save me. There was a voice—no, the impression of an inaudible voice whispering back—and my wrists came apart. I had only that one moment to revel before I was falling.

The next memory was before that, before it all I imagined, in a hospital. My father, his face in the light, sat beside a woman laying in the bed. She was all bones draped so loosely with skin as to resemble a Halloween decoration. There was compassion in my father’s eyes so long as he held her gaze, and only rage when he would meet mine across the bed. The woman whispered, again so small so fragile that her words were lost, but my father nodded. He stood up abruptly and left the room, all but brushing shoulders with me as he passed. I sat beside the woman, and as her soft fingers traced my knuckles, I knew this was my mother. My hands, I saw them, were so small compared to hers. I must have been a child. Her words did reach me then. You are so special, Desmond. I love you. Be good for your father. And the memory faded.

More memories passed, here and there, though nothing else that felt substantial. Inside the void, I began to hear a single noise. It was quiet, and I strained even in the absence of all else to bring it into clarity. It was…rain. The soft woosh of the drops as they blew against a house or a barn or something, and the occasional plop of something dripping. A gutter, maybe. I began to expand my perception. I felt the chillness of wherever I was, the feeling of a breeze passing across my face. I had a nose, eyes that would not open yet. I found I had fingers again, which I managed to twitch, and arms and shoulders. I had a chest, which I felt rise with each breath, and a heart that beat ever so slowly. And…nothing else. It was as if my body stopped there, just below my ribcage. No pain, but no sensation either.

I tried my eyes again, the muscles weak, and I managed them to part. I was alive. Around me was a hospital room. I was laying in the bed, a blanket pulled up under my arms. Wires were still taped to my chest, and a thick IV in my shoulder. I worked at the blanket, finding it surprisingly heavy, and pulled it back enough to see I did still have a torso. I couldn’t sit up to pull it over my legs, but it seemed to at least be draped over something down there.

I turned my head to watch the monitors, though the screen was black. Then I saw the rain. The sounds emanated from a small speaker set on the bedside table. I focused on that for a while, listening to the calming noise, until I heard some small commotion outside of the room and paws coming closer. There was a small curtain that blocked my view of the hallway, but it pulled back slightly and a ferret in scrubs came through with a clipboard. She smiled as she saw me.

“Oh, hello, dear. You’re awake. The doctor’ll be happy to hear that. I’m just going to take your vitals real quick, and I’ll be out of your hair.” She snorted at her own pun.”

She switched on the monitor which began a quiet rhythmic beeping, and watched it a second before writing down the numbers. She took my blood pressure as well and my temperature, noting them, and smiled again.

“The doctor will be in shortly, I imagine, now that you’re awake.”

She turned to leave, and I found my voice.

“The rain.”

“Hmm?” she hummed, turning back, “Oh, the little sleep machine? Cute, right? Weirdly enough, it was the only way we could get you to sleep peacefully. You actually ripped your seams a couple times before one of the other nurses thought to try it. Is it bothering you?”

“No!” I said, trying to reach out a paw, and ended up coughing which felt…odd with no sensation below my chest. “No,” I croaked, “I like it. Just curious.”

She just smiled, nodded, and left. True to her word, the doctor came in soon after. He was a tall deer who clacked in wearing a long lab coat and a name tag announcing him as Doctor White, Chief Resident Surgeon. He pulled a chair over and sat down beside me. The set of his mouth and the bags under his eyes told me a lot.

“Well, Desmond. It’s good to finally meet you. Your case has been…a rough one, shall we say.”

“I…yeah, I bet.”

“You’re lucky you were brought in when you were. Honestly, and I don’t say this to scare you, I’m not sure you’re even lucky for that. It would have been a long shot even if we had been there in the OR when you were attacked. The fact you’re alive at all is…well, it’s a miracle. Were I less of an optimist, I might have turned down operating at all.”

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“Ouch. Way to tell it straight, doc.”

“Sorry.” He chuckled. “I’m just saying you were very nearly in two pieces when they wheeled you in.”

“And I’m…in one piece now?”

“Yes, and I take your meaning. We managed to reconnect everything down there by some magic, though to be honest with you, if you ever regain function of anything below your chest it would be another miracle. Only time will tell at this stage.”

“Well, thank you, Dr. White. For all that’s worth. I don’t suppose you know how to contact my b…my friend, Gray. I would guess he’s the one who at least called the emergency line.”

“Mr. Grayson, yes. He was treated here for his wounds, but they moved him to custody for the moment until we could figure out if you were going to live or not.”

“Custody?!” I started coughing again, and Dr. White helped me sit up so I could clear my lungs better. The pain began to creep in a bit then. “No. It wasn’t his fault. He was defending me.”

“That was the story I was told, though they never did find whoever it was he was defending you against.”

“It was my dad who was a lion, but I mean he wasn’t originally a lion? It’s…well, it wouldn’t make sense. But he was there, he was the one who attacked me.”

“Oh, I know.”

“...You do?”

“I’ll admit I’m still quite young, even for a surgeon, but having worked on you for many many hours, I can tell you the bite wound was typical of a large feline. I’ve seen a few, mainly in textbooks mind you, and I’ve seen ursine bites the same. Yours was a lion bite, I don’t doubt it.”

“And Gray’s still in jail? Why didn’t you tell them?”

“I did. Don’t get me wrong, he hasn’t been charged with anything. But until or unless you woke up, there was no other witness at the scene. As soon as I leave you, I’ll put in for a sheriff to come by and take your statement so we can get this all behind us.”

“But…okay, this might sound crazy, but where did my dad go then? He was absolutely dead before I passed out. But if they didn’t find him.”

“That,” Dr. White sighed, “is a long story. One I imagine you of all people wouldn’t find completely insane.” He took out a pad of paper from his pocket and scribbled quickly with a pen before tearing the sheet off and handing it to me. “That’s my number and my address. Once you’re out of the hospital and back with Mr. Grayson, call me. I imagine we have a lot to talk about, little Thumper.”

He got up and put the chair back, walking out of the room, and I was left with another memory. A boy with long blond hair and a dark hoodie standing above me as I lay on the ground, beaming down at me and offering a hand. He led me further into the woods, and showed me the deer he’d been carving out of a block of wood.

—

Some time later, as Dr. White had said, a sheriff came by to take my statement. He was a large tiger who filled out his vest nicely. If I wasn’t worried about my existing boyfriend, and I didn’t have an existing boyfriend of course, I might have awkwardly stared a little longer. I told the same story I had told Dr. White, omitting the part about the lion being my father, and gave the same statement that it seemed like it was dead when Gray rushed back over to me, though it must have slinked off when it heard Gray call for an ambulance.

The officer corroborated my story with the addition of their findings thus far. They had identified some third source of blood at the house, though all three of our samples were so splattered around the living room it would have been nearly impossible to tell if the lion had got up and left or been moved. He assured me that his next stop would be at the county corrections office to see Gray released.

Before I could even worry, there were fast heavy pawfalls in the hallway, and Gray was rushing through the door. I could see his restraint as he stared down at my small broken form, wanting so badly to wrap me in his arms and squeeze me to death. Instead, he pulled over the same chair as Dr. White and took my paw tentatively in his own. His touch was light as he traced the fur along my wrist, and it was only when I looked up again a little later I noticed he was crying. I mustered what strength I could to raise my arm and cup his cheek.

“Stop crying, you big baby. I’m alive, aren’t I?”

That only made him cry harder, and he placed a paw over mine on his face. We sat like that for a long time, and if I had any more energy in me I probably would have cried too.

“I failed you. I thought…I was so scared,” Gray finally croaked.

“It’s over now, my brave knight. You fought so valiantly. You’re free.”

“I don’t care about my freedom. I care about you. If I had….if you’d…” he sucked up his snot and wiped his eyes. “Look, I know we kind of just met and all, but I don’t know what I’d do if you died.”

I couldn’t sit up, so I pulled on his paw and patted the space beside me on the bed. He moved over, and I guided his head gently down to my own so our lips met. It wasn’t our first kiss, but it was special all the same. The others had been in lust, but this was a kiss of true love’s passion. I didn’t kiss him then because it felt right or natural, but because I wanted to.

“A kiss, to kill what love doth make amiss,

And bring two lovers together in peace.

A kiss, again, to seal ere gods watch o’er

What words we whisper among closéd ears.

Lo, warning to thee who breaks this duo,

Hell hath no fury as love asunder.”

“Was that…what was that?”

“A poem, or really half of one. I’m not great at finishing things.”

“It was beautiful. You could recite the dictionary, I’d probably still listen.”

I smiled and kissed him again.

“Can I ask you something stupid?”

He nodded. “Usually.”

I stuck out my tongue at him. “Are we, like, dating now?”

“Now?” he asked, and stood up abruptly, “Now?! Desmond whatever Thumper, I swear to all that is holy, if we weren’t dating before now I will walk out.”

“Okay, okay, point taken.”

He sat back in the chair and pretended to pout, but he couldn’t hide the smile that kept attacking his lips. Eventually, he took my paw again and clicked on the TV. We ended up settling on Mr. Rogers once again, and at some point the nurse came back with another bag for the IV. I felt the world fading around me, my eyes fighting to stay open, and I fell asleep to the soft padding of Gray’s paw stroking my own.