Emily was vaguely aware of voices nearby. She could barely see anything, her vision blurry through sweat and tears and blood. The smell of blood – her blood? She wasn’t sure – was overpowering now, bitter and salty iron taking her focus away from everything other than the intense pain she was now experiencing. Emily’s screams faded quickly, replaced by her gritted teeth and animalistic grunts.

No matter how much pain someone experiences, it doesn’t really make the next time any easier. Less shocking? Maybe. She felt her mind could endure where others may not have.

When you’ve experienced your skin burn and slough off in huge chunks. When you can feel your eyeballs expand from the steam contained within and pop, leaking all over your own face. When you can smell your hair. When your nerves melt in to the liquified plastic remains of what was once your clothing.

That’s a level of pain and horror that very few can ever truly understand. She hoped that few ever would.

She could see the beasts head right in front of her now. One of its dark, purple eyes staring at her own. It wasn’t what she thought a monsters eye would look like. There was sentience there, like that of an animal, and it looked so very human. Nonetheless her mind wanted to live.

Maybe if she could lift her arm then she could hurt it. Crush its eyes, or punch its nose. Anything to make the pain stop, but her arm wouldn’t respond to her will. Her body was too busy trying to survive.

The beast continued to rip and tear away at her shoulder as its head rapidly swung left and right, while its tusk pierced ever deeper in to her chest. She could feel the monstrously thick tusk grind against the bones in her chest, reverberating the entire time while lukewarm liquid flowed out of her at a concerning rate.

Her shoulder was on fire. Every gnash of the beasts teeth tearing more and more flesh and nerves and muscle, digging deeper at every opportunity. Sharp bits of broken bark embedded in her before fading away. There was little left of her barkskin now to protect her.

Despite it all, she felt at peace, though it was a bittersweet feeling. She wanted to experience life. She felt like she deserved it, having not had a childhood like most other children.

It wasn’t fair.

Life wasn’t fair, she knew, but this was who she was. The person she resolved herself to be, all those years ago.

Endless days, weeks, and months healing in those hospital beds as her burnt flesh regrew. As her skin became infected with pus. As endless grafts were taken from the few parts of her body that weren’t burnt in order to provide skin for the areas that were. As people came and went and pitied her. That was the worst part, even more so than the gossiping whispers and judging eyes. It was a torturous existence that only painkillers could dull through the years of intensive recovery.

As much as her body suffered, her mind suffered even more. She didn’t want to be there. She knew she didn’t deserve to live, and at first she cared little for her own recovery. Only one thought eventually let her keep going, and it was a simple one. It was all she had left.

One day I’ll make up for everything. I’m going to be there when someone needs help, even if it means I have to sacrifice myself to do it. It’s what I deserve.

She thought she would have more time. To explore the world. To make a friend. It hadn’t been long enough. She hadn’t lived enough. She knew she couldn’t hesitate, however. That was the promise she made to herself. A promise she had to keep and nurture in silence through years of suffering and self doubt. All the things that made her who she was meant nothing in the face of her resolve. There was no point living if she were to break it.

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As she saw a glowing bolt of magic strike the beast. As she heard the cries of people rushing towards her, the same ones she had only met a few minutes before. As the beast finally bit through her shoulder and tore a giant chunk of it away, flinging its head to the side and allowing her body to finally slide off its tusk.

And as she flew through the air, tumbled and rolled on the ground, and gushed blood all over her and the grass she landed on. As she now stared towards the two helpless strangers on the ground, one bleeding, one crushed, both crying out in pain. As the beast finally fell.

As cold as her body was. As fatigued as her mind felt. She knew her actions today gave these people the time they needed to be saved.

Her consciousness finally faded.

She felt content in death.

----------------------------------------

It was a surprise to her then, that she could still think.

Am… I dead?

She tried to understand what was happening. She couldn’t feel anything. There was no pain. She could no longer feel the wet grass beneath her, or see the strangers on the ground. There was nothing, not even darkness. There was no screaming, or shouting, no beast growling, no flesh tearing. Not even the wind. The smell and taste of blood was gone.

There was simply nothing but her own mind in its infinite solitary existence.

She tried to call for the system. If she could see her status screen, maybe it could tell her something.

It never responded. She tried everything.

Her mind raced to consider all possibilities.

This can’t be the afterlife… can it? Trapped in my own head?

She never believed in such things. Not that she didn’t consider it. She wanted to, after all. It was a comforting thought that life would continue after death. She knew better than to give herself that false hope, though, as much as she wished it could be true.

Perhaps she was wrong to dismiss it.

Time flowed, as far as she could tell, but she had no way to keep track of it. She tried for what felt like hours to sense something. Anything. If this really was the afterlife then she felt people really screwed up when they were describing it.

Eventually she realised her body was still there, sort of. It was the same feeling as knowing where your hand was when your eyes were closed. There was a sense of self, but it was confused.

She couldn’t move her body, or if she could, she couldn’t feel her arms waving or her knees bending. She wasn’t even sure if she was standing up or laying down.

The only feeling she had was one of being stationary, but there was also a sense of directionality to it. She only understood where she was because of the flow of something around her that she couldn’t really comprehend. She was like a tooth in a mouth that was breathing out, or a boulder in a river that was flowing downhill.

No.

She was a tree in the wind. She was sure of it now. Her minds eye could see it more clearly that way than with any other possibility that she could imagine. Despite how weak the sensation was, it felt right to her.

Over time the image in her mind solidified. She could feel more. Something was leaking. There was a chunk missing, as well as a tunnel. She still couldn’t see, or hear, or smell, or taste, or touch. But she felt.

It was her body, she knew, but it also wasn’t her body. It was a tree. It was sap. It was bark.

As she focused more and more, she began to feel them. Ants? Infinitesimally small dots. They poured out of small cracks and holes in her bark and swarmed.

The missing chunk was her shoulder. The tunnel was the cavity in her chest. And the sap, her blood.

It took what felt like days, but they marched onwards towards every bit of damage. When each ant reached her wounds it would stop, drop something, and continue onwards, eventually re-entering her trunk.

She watched each and every one. There was nothing else she could do. She saw the way they flowed as a group, and as individuals. It was a mesmerising pattern. The way different groups would join up and split apart. The way individuals would dodge out of the way of others at the last moment. She would count them and make sure each individual ant stuck with their group as they collided past each other, like two waddles of penguins meeting together before going their separate ways.

She tried directing them. Willing them to move here, not there. Focus on the bigger problems, not the small scrapes.

They didn’t listen to her, if they could even hear her thoughts. She was so focused on her task that she didn’t notice it when her sap had stopped leaking.

Her bark was healed.

The wounds were sealed.

Emily gasped a mouthful of frigid night air.

She was awake.