Chapter One: The Beginning
The last thing I remember is a blindingly bright white light flooding my bedroom. Then darkness.
Now there is a burning in my lungs, as if I’ve held my breath for too long. I open my eyes; it’s like opening them underwater, in a swimming pool, a slightly acidic feel on my eyeballs. My body starts to thrash, desperate for air. Through a greenish haze I see vague shapes moving to and fro. Then a sharp but not unpleasant cold suffuses through my lungs, and I feel like I’m breathing again. Only later do I realise that my chest still wasn’t moving. A brief pinprick at the back of my neck, and then darkness again.
Sometime later – a few minutes, or a few years, it’s impossible to tell in the darkness – a part of me resurfaces. All is still black, and whatever sliver of consciousness this is has a strange quality to it. It’s like I’m a guest in my own home. No, it’s more like I’ve got the builders or the decorators in and I feel out of place as they work. There is a sense that someone or something is refurbishing my body and at least some part of my mind. I float in this odd feeling for a time, before the darkness takes me down again.