Nightmare

The squeak of a gurney's wheels wakes me. The sound terrifies me more than anything, even the prospect of certain death. Nothing can come quite close to waking in a dream to the sound of those wheels, not after hearing them in all of my dreams for so long. A shiver runs down my spine. It intensifies when I realize that I'm strapped down to a surgical table. My heart lurches to a complete standstill, refusing to beat until I'm about to suffocate. Once I've regained control of myself, I realize I am not alone.

"Sierra Blair?" The voice itself is enough to make anyone sick to their stomachs, so dark and menacingly thick. "It's nice to see my star patient back for a check-up. I see you wanted some alterations in your appearance." A pale hand picks up a scalpel. "No trouble there. It won't cost you a penny! I am obliged to tell you that we seem to have run out of anesthetic... again!"

A sharp blade begins to make the 'alterations' and the pain is something I have not felt before. It gets worse every time I visit this place. I cannot scream any louder or any worse, and the scream I am screaming is something that no human being could forget once they hear it. Nobody has ever let out a sound full  of such agony. The worst part is that I feel it, I feel everything he's doing to me, I know how it will end... and by the end of it all, he leaves me there to bleed out. Every breath I take is making that blood pump away faster.

Drip... drip... drip...

Gasping for air...

Falling back into darkness, then sucked back into dim lighting with a jolt of unbearable pain! Oh the pain, oh god... I can't make a sound through it...

My heart, failing to beat...

My lungs, failing to draw in another breath...

My blood, leaving my body...

Drip... drip... drip...

Gasp! Gasp! Drip, drip, drip, drip!

Cold... so cold... I have never been so freezing cold!

Drip... drip.... drip......................... drip...............................

It's slowing... there's not much left.

I can't think, I can't hear, I can't see, I can't breathe.

Drip.............................................................................................

Silence. Darkness. No pain, no cold, no nothing. I am unaware. It is finally over.

And then?

.... the sound of a gurney's wheels.