Emergence

The first disoriented, distorted, and deformed moments following my reluctant emergence from the ignorant refuge of mindlessness brought the disjointed consciousness of ears steadily filling with warm, viscous fluid; while the stench of death and decay burning at my nostrils competed with the nauseatingly gritty, metallic sensation of earth mixed with blood upon my palette, and the bite of winter on my exposed, naked body. Gone was my soft, warm bed, and any desperate hope of returning to the refuge of dreams, as I forced a rasping breath into the remains of my twisted body and emerged fully into the taste and fragrance of my own decay, and the eternal discomfort of a shallow grave.