True Choice

Breathing was the most difficult thing about this whole ordeal. The one thing I couldn't do anything about. Each gulp for air was like swallowing a jarful of pins and needles, stabbing and pricking its way down my throat before eventually searing down the pit of my lungs. 

Dream or not, the pain was still very real. 

I felt my body give a jerk- gravity snapping at my heels, ready and relishing to pull me down in its clutches, and I forced my grip on her arms to hold even tighter, seeping out an even thicker, darker swirl of dark through the slits between my fingers.

In a weird roundabout way, it kind of helped. The blistering pain was a surge of strength flooding in me where there was none. It was probably the only thing keeping me holding on, the only thing keeping me speaking.