My reality was was illusionary… or non-existent. I could not see. I could not feel, yet there was a strange sense of claustrofobia. It was like imaginary walls moved and shifted with me, ever just an inch out or reach. It was scary. The thought of being trapped within something yet never being able to touch the walls. 

I was scared.

This did not last.

The floor disappeared. It felt like my stomach disappeared with it. All fear was overpowered by panic. An unseen force gripped by body and pulled. 

Now I was terrified.

Involuntary screams and screeches were choked by something that sealed my mouth. Sobs would have racked my body had they been able to. I was utterly helpless and powerless to resist.

I felt rage.

Rage at the indignity of it all. Rage at the illogical situation. Rage at unseen walls. Irrationality coloured my mind as the attempted screeched began anew. Though it felt good to vent, the screeches were met with little success. 

Then came the pain.

I was squeezed by phantom walls. This in itself was only mildly uncomfortable. However the fire ants that savagely attacked my toes was by no means mild. My feet were set alight. They were pierced by needles and frozen from all directions. Dunked in acid. It was the most painful thing I'd ever experienced.

I felt nothing.

There was no emotion. My mind was barren of thought. Only a will native to all living beings remained. A will to endure and survive against adversary.

The pain continued to climb as further and further, as I was squeezed out of the dark into a pot of boiling acid. It rose and rose, reaching above my waist, it was almost unbearable. My mind nearly shut down under the onslaught of sensations.

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But I endured.

I was rewarded.

My foot twitched. I could move. That tiny smidgen of hope was like oil added to dying embers. My will flared to life, brighter and hotter than ever.

I fought back the numbing pain with a passion to live. I would not run, I sought out the sensations, I used the pain to ground myself in reality.

Clinging to the silk thread of hope, too stubborn to go back to the dark, I felt my life hang in the balance as the pain finally reached my torso.

It reached my neck and I braced. 

The squeezing abruptly became painful. Like a vice clamped around my head, There was an indescribable pressure about my ears. It pulsated and pushed angrily. Something far larger and stronger wanted me out almost as much as I.

I briefly felt happy our aims aligned befo- PAIN. 

For the first time in the whole ordeal, I flinched. My consciousness snapped back into the recesses of my mind. Back to the dark. It was just to painful. Stakes had been driven though my eyes, skin had been flayed from my head, frost-fire wailed down my ears.

I almost went. Very, very nearly disappeared.

It was plain old pride that brought me back. An unwillingness to let my hard work go to waste. I could not stand the thought of my pain being for nothing.

I was at the very lowest parts of my mind, but as they say, there's no better footing that rock-bottom. 

I came back swinging and clawing and biting. An eruption rumbled through me, from the chest to the throat, a noise boiled over the lid that sealed my mouth.

"███▇▇▅▅"

I couldn't tell you what nose it was, but when I came to I was crying. Unbefitting a grown man, I was crying like a babe. I let it. I continued to cry. I paid no heed to my surroundings, ignored the pain and merely indulged in my newfound freedom.

I scream my lungs out.

"M-My lady, he has no heartbeat!"

I screamed in joy, pain and triumph.

That was how I was born.

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