Waking Up

Johnny blinked away the moisture, his breathing shallow and irregular as if he had to keep reminding himself to swallow the stifling air. The world around him floated, subdued and suppressed, sound and light trickling down to him, filtering through some vast gulf he couldn’t process. He drew a hand across his face and his fingertips came back red. He just stared at the crimson, mind not registering its meaning.

“That’s weird,” he mumbled, feeling the fresh blood between his fingers and thumb. “It’s cold.”

With unsteady steps, Johnny walked to the door, navigating the darkened room by the insistent, flickering neon of a digital clock, its shrill alarm slowly jack hammering through Johnny’s dizzying disconnect with his surroundings.

“How long has that been going off?” he wondered, his lips tightening into a grimace as the pressure of noise swelled without indication of stopping.

His body seemed to know where it was going because when a curtain of black exhaustion wiped sight from his eyes, he awoke to the open sky and buzzing street lights of an empty night. A thought burned through his neurons and Johnny touched his face again. The blood was like ice in the chill air.

“This is my blood,” he started, trailing off as horror dawned gradually through his dead body.