Before The Thunder

Dying wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I though it'd be more painful, to be honest. I couldn't feel anything, hear anything, or see anything. I was left in complete darkness.

'I don't want to die.'

'Someone, anyone, help me.'

Am I alone?

The mere thought of that being true makes Fear grip at my very being. I feel a darkness calling to me, a void blacker then black encompassing me.

I can feel the parts encompassed be cut off from my control. First, my arms, then my legs, and then my chest. Finally, all that remains is my head.

I feel the cold grip of death creep up my neck.

"Someone call a doctor!"

A voice rings out from around me.

A moment later, I feel as if my nose has been blocked off, and I can't breathe. As I try to gasp for air through my mouth, someone locks lips with me.

'?!'

The next moment, it feels as if an anvil has been pressed on my chest. The feeling of pain overwhelms the cold, and the pressure repeats. Again and again, in endless repetition.

I feel as if my lungs are filled with itching powder, and begin coughing.

My eyes open, I can feel my once dead limbs again. But I don't have time to focus on that now, I'm currently busy coughing up my lungs.

I take a breath, and feel as if life has filled within me once more. As I lay there, panting not dissimilar to a dog in the summer heat, I try to look around and take in my surroundings.

Beneath me is sand, in front of me in an ocean, and beside me is a woman. Above me, lay a sky that looked as if it had been dyed an light purple.

"Are you okay? Don't attempt to sit up until the doctor comes, alright?"

'Where am I? I don't seem to be in my trailer, Is this still a dream?'

'No, I don't think that could even be considered a dream anymore, is this a nightmare?'

'But even if it was a nightmare, the dread and suffocating cold I felt seemed real to my senses. I've never felt a feeling like that before.'

A man clad in a white dress of sorts jogged towards me.

"I ran over as fast as I could, what's the situation!?"

"While I was on my boat, catching fish, I saw a person under the waves. When I pulled her out of the water, I took him to land as quickly as I could, but his heard had already stopped."

'What? My heard had stopped beating? Is that what that feeling of cold was? Was i really dying then?'

"I managed to revive him before you came, can you check his lungs and make sure he hasn't sustained any permanent damage?"

"I can do that."

He walked over to me, and kneeled down in front of me.

"Are you able to talk? If so, can you tell me if you are feeling any pain anywhere?"

"I'm feeling a pain in my chest, like my ribs are broken or something similar."

"That's to be expected, when you had cpr performed, they may have broken some ribs in the process, but better broken ribs than a stopped heart."

He turns over to the woman.

"After you performed cpr, did he cough up any water?"

"Yes, he did. He seemed to have coughed up quite a bit."

He turns back toward me.

"I need you to take in deep breaths for me, can you do that?"

"Yeah, I can do that."

I began taking deep breaths. While I did so, he put a finger on my chest, moving it around various parts of my chest while I continued to breath in. The air tasted salty, as if the very air was permeated by sea water.

"There seems to be no water left in your lungs, I recommend you come with me, so I can take care of your chest. Are you feeling like you can stand now?"

I sit up with some difficulty, and get up and stand. My shirt is missing, and so are my shoes. The feeling of sand beneath me makes me feel as if the ground I'm standing on could shift and swallow me at any moment.

"Are you ready?"

I nod, before he puts one of my arms around his shoulder, and supports me while I walk.

After a few minutes of walking, we reach a village. The bustling movement of the locals radiates an sense of warmth, and the tiled triangular roofs of all the houses and shaping of all the houses make me think that they look similar to a traditional Chinese house.

We enter the village. As we walk down the dirt path, street salesman shout out, trying to sell their wares to make a living. I see one stand that seems to be selling a kind of hot milk? And another selling what looks like pink, green and white colored dough on a stick.

As we walk further down, i can tell that we have left the rural area. There are no street merchants, and few people are there outside at all. Finally, we come into sight of a house that looks similar to the others, but is significantly bigger.

He leads me towards the house, it must be where he lives. Since he's a doctor, I guess his house would he bigger than the others because of a diffrence in status.

He opens the sliding door, and I am met with the sight of what looks to be a small clinic. I see things that you would expect to see, like a bed for patients, gauze, and various other things, but one thing stands out. There seems to be a shelf filled with what looks to be jars of different herbs. Some look normal, like something you'd find in a book, but some looked weird. There was a herb that was completely purple, another that looked like a deep blue rose.

He lead me onto a bed, and sat me down.

"Give me a second, I'll be right back."

He walks off into one of the separate rooms, and I am left there alone with my thoughts.

'Okay, let's recount. I fell asleep, drowned, got saved, and am in a strange place where the sky is purple, and houses are different in structure, and everyone is dressed differently. I honestly don't think that I'm dreaming at this point, the pain I've felt this entire time and the fact that I haven't woken up yet makes me think that I'm either in a completely different location then where I fell asleep, or have somehow traveled across the world to Asia. Both are unbelievable, to be honest.'

The doctor walks back in with what looks to be crushed up herbs, and a pill of some kind.

"Here. I'm going to apply there herbs to your chest. They will help to aleivate the pain. This pill contains naku weed, and sea ganoderma. They should make you feel better than before. Take this pill first. Don't just swallow it, chew it throughly."

He hands me the pill, and after a moment of hesitation, I put it into my mouth and begin chewing it.

Immediately, a extremely bitter taste spreads throughout my mouth. I fight through it and swallow the pill, but the taste lingers.

"Now lay down."

I lay down, and as he applies the herbs to my chest, and a cold sensation similar to applying vapor rub spreads across my chest.

"That's all I can do for you, but I need to ask a few questions before we're done here."

"Sure, I'll answer them."

"How did you end up drowning?"

'How do I even answer this? To be honest, I don't even know myself.'

"I don't know how, I was just sleeping, and i was drowning the next second."

'That's pretty much what happened, excluding me being pulled down by a huge fish after talking to one.'

"Okay, now how will you pay for this? The treatments going to cost you around 3000 mora."

"Mora? I've never heard of that currency."

I check my pockets, and find that I don't have my wallet on me.

A frown forms on his face. He seems displeased with my answer, and says

"So, you don't have any mora, do you. That's fine, you can work off the cost."

"As long as i don't have to stay in debt to you, I'll do what I can to help."

"I recommend you go to sleep then, and you can start helping me out around here tomorrow."

He walks away, and I lay down on the bed. Although it's hard and the blanket is thin, it's better then nothing.

I close my eyes, questions whirling withing my mine like a typhoon, and fall asleep.