Smothered.

Dark.

Death presses down on me. He’s squeezing my lungs, which ache like the dull throbbing of an ankle sprain. Not enough to kill me, just enough to make it hurt. Just a little. But then it will grow and expand and consume me.

His breath stains blood on my neck. His eyes, they glow like the blade of a sword.

He chuckles, deep and grisly. “How does it feel?”

How does what feel? What it’s like to be taunted? Tortured? Torn away from any chance at normal life?

Then, with slow ease, he extracts his sticky fingers out of my intangible flesh, through my damp skin.

One.

By.

One.

This is Death, and he is here. He caresses my cheek, and the blood seeps through my pores like tiny waterfalls.

I am the Hunted.

Immobile, paralyzed. His grimy and hairy knee digs into my throat. The hair on his legs prickles my collarbone. When he grins, his teeth stun me like the flash on a camera. They illuminate the darkness with their own light.

His outline leans closer. My choked breaths are gone. I rasp and wheeze as Death prepares to take me.

But then the weight is lifted, and vivid bloody light descends upon me. It moves like flames. And it envelops me.