Chapter 6 - Ransom

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" The words whispered through my pain-wracked mind, even though I'm pretty sure I wasn't the one who said them.

Hell, I was having a hard time focusing on anything outside of my own body. Over the last couple of months, the pain had been building, but this was something I hadn't been prepared for. The pain was incandescent as it washed in and through my body like a nuclear bomb.

As I felt my stomach bunch up with the need to vomit, a chilling sensation washed through me. Like a cool breeze swirling through the trees on a bright Fall morning.

The cessation of pain was so unexpected, I felt tears build behind my eyes.

Fuck.

I was almost afraid to trust it. To believe that my pain could just be swept away with a light wind. I pulled a deep breath in through my nose, slowly - so slowly - filling my lungs. When I was able to exhale without pain, I felt like crying like a newborn baby thrust into the cold, hard world.

For the first time since this stupid illness had settled in my body over twenty-five years ago, I could breathe without aching. I no longer felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest. My body straightened to my full height, something I hadn't been able to achieve for the last year.

My insides were finally calm. Heart, lungs, stomach, hell, even my kidneys didn't ache or burn. My legs didn't feel on the verge of giving out on me with every breath. Even the soles of my feet didn't have that icy pins and scalding needles feeling anymore. My head wasn't swimming as if I had just stepped off a Tilt-a-Whirl. I could see without any tunnel vision.

Speaking of vision, I lowered my head. Kiema was standing next to me, still as a statue. I wasn't even sure she was breathing. Her hand was laying on my arm. Not that I could feel it. I wouldn't have known she was touching me had I not seen it with my own eyes.

I laid my other hand over hers. Her body trembled. The faintest hint of pain slid through me like the sharpest blade through flesh. So clean, a person didn't feel it at first.

The hope that had built inside me crashed and burned near my feet.

As close to tears of frustration as I've ever been in my life, I pulled my hand away from her arm.

The pain washed away on another breath. Peace and health settled over me once again.

She was the cool breeze inside me.

"Fuck!" I was so fucking screwed.