Comfortable Madness First PDF 4-13-18

Safe
Dead folks filled the room without walls. None of them had
faces, only bumps for the nose and pits for their eyes. Their mouths
were filled with glass teeth, jagged, sharp and dangerous. I knew
them even without their faces. Everyone I knew, had ever known,
would ever know was there. They were there and they danced.
They circled like dust devils. Waves of rage washed through them.
They crashed against me as if I were a stone in a tide.
Soon, their spiky fingers pinched away pieces of me. There
was no blood, just meat and pain. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t fight
them off. I couldn’t breathe. Mud filled my lungs. I wanted to
scream but all I could do was gasp and tremble. When they got to
my belly, they cut into me, trying to pull the baby out. My skin
healed as fast as they pulled it away. They couldn’t get to him.
Gid saved me. He lifted me into the purple sky and we
moved without moving. Everything was smooth and iridescent. He
took me to the edge of a pit, a pit so deep, so dark; I couldn’t begin
to comprehend it. Voices lifted out it like an updraft, hot and angry.
Pain filled every bit of wind.
“This is yours,” he said.
I shook my head.
“This is what waits,” he said.
The baby kicked my ribs. I lunged, and my fingertips
brushed the point of his chin. Flesh showed for a moment. Bone
cracked. For the first time, part of him became human. I lunged
again, and he slapped me down. Blood and pain exploded in my
face. I fell to the floor.
Everything stopped. Light flared. I opened my eyes.
“You okay?” Tayla asked.
I shook my head.
“Nightmare,” she said.
“I was dying,” I said.
Her hand squeezed my hand.