The first thing I feel as I regain my consciousness is the cold lumpiness of soggy soil wrapped around my hands, like handcuffs made of the ground I lay on, as if the earth itself wants to imprison me. I try as hard as I can to move or open my eyes, but despite all my efforts I remain transfixed to the ground, unable to even twitch a toe.

As if gravity wasn’t enough of a burden in this peculiar situation, it seems that there’s something resting on my chest, bobbing up and down with every breath I take… Its weight is significantly heavier than what my body could possibly be able to support. Such a pressure would normally crush my ribs, smash my lungs and heart, snap open my aorta, and make every single blood vessel inside of me burst, killing me in mere seconds. The pressure it exerts on me is unbelievably strong, so strong that I can’t actually even feel it at all, in fact I can’t even feel the slightest thing anymore… The mixture of sensations; the constant change of feelings, mentally as physically, is making me sick…

The pain becomes unbearable and I start to panic, but as I’m trying to reassure myself that everything will be fine, the grievous feeling disappears altogether, just as if I wasn’t feeling anything to begin with. It’s as if I’ve been awaken from a deep hypnotic trance which I’ve been in for ages, except that I don’t have any memory of what happened before the trance either, as if I’ve just been reborn with a clean memory and a new life ahead of me… Except I know that isn’t true, as there’s something that I vaguely remember about all this, but I can’t seem to put it in place…

I try moving again, but just as before, not even the smallest movement is possible… Now, however, I’m finally able to open my eyes. Expecting to see something resting on my chest, or to be able to examine my surroundings, I’m instead confronted with darkness, pure darkness, of the blackest black you have ever seen. The darkness is of such a piercing, opaque obscurity that all I can see is… nothing. There’s literally nothing but a thick veil of darkness surrounding me, that blocks my view completely. It’s as if the darkness is inside my eyes, burned on my retina. It’s as if I never opened my eyes to begin with… Or perhaps they have been open all along…

Due to the lack of sight my other senses start to intensify. I start feeling the coldness of my environment even more than before, and the soil my body has half been buried in seems to be covered with leaves… Where am I?

The taste in my mouth doesn’t make me feel ‘safer’ either. A warm sensation that I couldn’t really identify or link to anything, with a slight flavor of some familiar metallic substance mixed in… Copper maybe? Although it’s only speculation, I do think it has to be that… But then again, what liquid tastes like that anyway? The only copper thing I’ve ever had in my mouth was a penny…

My nose won’t be of much use in this situation either, as my ability to smell has been completely disabled, my nasal passages blocked off… What is this place, and when I will I be able to escape it… I have lost track of time and space, It almost feels as if I’ve lost myself…

It’s only now that I notice the most peculiar thing of all.
As I try to explore the final sense I have, another terrifying factor comes into play, and the fact that I hadn’t noticed it earlier, as if it were completely normal, makes it even more frightening. There’s no sound at all. I can’t hear anything. I can’t even hear my own, heavy breathing…

And then I heard it, the noise that pierced the deadly silence… A memory… A sound… A scream… A scream I vaguely remember… The scream… The scream that changed my life…

Forever.