Forced Contemplation by Oh Please

Waking

Sleep was such a rare and wonderful thing. Too often the impatient, loud Inuyasha would disturb her dreams even when she was at home for her rare class attendance. How she longed for a week of nothing to do; no reason to rise early, and the only thing on her agenda; cloud watching. Of course, bathing for hours at a time with scented candles and scented bath salts might grace part of the day.

Her favorite time of sleep was that hazy period between deep sleep and waking. She enjoyed the time where part of her mind knew she was sleeping. The funniest part about this in-between world was how her mind would sense things in the real world and translate them into active parts of her dream. The best imports into her dreams had to be cooking smells in the morning.  This time she woke enough to know that she wasn't any where near awake, but her mind tried to import some uncomfortable things into her dream.

The first thing she noticed as consciousness broke through her dream was pain.  Could she have fallen asleep on her desk to be suffering such a crick? Or maybe, she had fallen asleep on a pile of rocks.  Her mind only registered a bit of pain, but she couldn't tell from what part of her body it originated.

The next sensation her hazy mind noticed was the cold. Sometimes she woke with her feet being so cold that even 3 layers of socks under her flannel sheets did not help.  Once your feet were cold, it was almost impossible to warm up. But this went beyond her feet.  This felt like the time she had slept on an air mattress in the winter because they had company. As to be expected from any air mattress worth its purchase price, it deflated during the night to the point where her rump was on the ground.  Normally that wouldn't be so bad, except that the room was unheated, and the freezing temperatures were transmitted through the floor and into her rear end.  Cold seeped all the way down her legs and up into her chest.  At one point, she even got up and put on her winter coat.  It was the coldest she had ever remembered being at night, and it had made sleep impossible.  Her Mom never understood why she had been so irritable the next day, but she tried to be nice for the relatives.  Still this morning, her mind nagged her about why she was so cold. It was the bone aching cold that made her want to bury her legs under her Mom's butt on the couch.

The cold did more for waking her to her uncomfortable surroundings than the pain did until she shivered.  Sharp, stabbing pain blossomed under her right breast and she gasped as her eyes snapped open; or, at least, she tried to gasp.  There was a crushing weight on her chest and back that only allowed her to take in half a breath. She exhaled and tried again with the same results.  What on earth?

Her pain addled mind started to take notice of her surroundings as she realized she was laying face down on a hard surface.  She never slept on her stomach, even at home.  In the forests, the ground was just too hard on her breasts. At home, her mattress was dished like a hammock, and put a strain on her spine when she slept on her face.

The pain that had only barely registered before was suddenly quite obvious and crippling. Her mind registered pain all the way from her head, to her back, to her legs.  Her breathing picked up to a shallow, panicky pant.  That was all she could muster, and each inhale hurt.

She struggled to open her eyes and wondered why her eyes felt like they were glued shut, or crusted over.  She blinked once and the lack of vision increased her sense of rising panic.  What had happened?  She obviously wasn't waking from a casual nights sleep, either in the modern era, or the Feudal Era.

All she heard was her own racing heart and her own panting breath.  There was nothing to see but darkness.  Wait, to her right, there was a small shaft of light.  She jerked her head in that direction, and regretted it immediately.  The pain scalded through her neck and skull and she would have screamed if she could have drawn a proper breath.  Instead, all she managed was a strangled squeal.  Her stomach twisted with nausea and dread.

As the pain dimmed in her head, she realized she could make out some objects in the dark.  There were large gray boulders strewn about below the shaft of light.  Some light reflected up to illuminate a small, dust filled cavern, about the size of a mini-van.  She was in a cave?  NO!  Her panic escalated up another notch.  She hated small spaces; especially, small spaces with no door out! She only tolerated elevators in the modern era because they were brightly lit and she was only in them for a minute at the most.

Sweat appeared on her brow and upper lip as she panted, "No, no, no, no!" and struggled with all her might to squirm out of whatever held her in this horrifying place.  Each twist felt like her legs were being torn off.  Despite the pain she couldn't stop herself anymore than a wild animal in a trap could stop from chewing off its trapped leg off to escape.

Her vision sparkled with white stars around the outside edge of sight.  She couldn't get enough air in her panicked state.  The image of suffocating only caused her to struggle harder.  She was lying on top of one rock, with what felt like half a house lying across her back.  Another rock?  She was pinned between two rocks?

Her mind barely registered a deep, raspy voice from the darkness as she slowly lost her battle to remain conscious.  "Calm yourself."  The white stars quickly overwhelmed her sight, and then sounds became distant.  Finally, she knew nothing and drifted into the blackness of unconsciousness.