Lucid

Too true, the words rolled through his mind in the final moments. It was a strange feeling drawing your final breath, knowing your lungs would be ash and that breath steam in the same instant. Too fucking true.

The moment the flames washed over him, he cringed internally, yet the pain never arrived. Instead, his world blurred. Pixels falling away like wayward dominoes from a shelf. He shook himself hard, finding his arms and legs restrained by thick leather bands.

"What the fuck?!" he fought against the short slack in the belts. "What is this?" He cried out, the last of the world falling away, leaving him alone and strapped to a table in a mostly empty room. Strange points of light flashed on and off at the ends of protusions that stuck out from the walls, ceiling and floor at equal distance, sending dancing shadows across the room.

"Help!" cried out, feeling as though the plain walls began to move precariously close in an instant. "Someone, help me!"

"Calm down Jimmy!" A woman, came rushing around a corner Jim hadn't noticed. She wore all white scrubs and her face was obscured by a surgical mask. "You'll be just fine." She approached him slowly now. Her eyes darting to a spot just behind Jim's head that he could see.

"You didn't finish." She said. Her eyes settled on his, and he felt her gaze as heavy as the leather bonds holding him down. "You have to go back."

"What? Go back? Go back where?" His mind reeled as images of walls of plasma and flame filled his reality. The pain was instant and his screams brief as the heat engulfed his body. The last thing he saw before he faded to black were her eyes, green and full of hate.