You

 You wake up heavy.  You wake up, your limbs lumber crashing down.  You wake up at first slowly and then with a start.  You wake up thirsty.  You wake up with the taste of thirst thick on your tongue.  You wake up cold.  You wake up stiff.  You wake up and think you are home.  You wake up and are not.

It is hard to talk with a mouth so dry, your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth.  You slide it forward, past your teeth, you feel the film on them. You open your mouth, try to produce saliva, bring your mouth back to something resembling a mouth.   Your eyes open and you look out of your skull into a room that isn’t yours.  It may not even be a room.  It is black forever in every direction.  You can see yourself from some sourceless illumination’s generosity.  You seem you.  The dimensions you know, your limbs loosening up, becoming more you every moment.

You are you, but nothing else seems to be.  Below you is a black floor, above you a black ceiling.  You try to call out, say anything, but your mouth is too dry.  You move forward, one, two steps.  The light follows you, the blackness that stretches in every direction is unchanging. You turn, your view doesn’t change.  You walk further, you walk faster, you jog, you run, you fall, you flail, you panic.  You are you in a light and around you is darkness.  You lash out.  You cry.  Your eyes are as dry as your mouth.  You sob.  You still.  You can’t understand.  You fall asleep.

The darkness persists.

You wake up happy.  You wake up forgetting the darkness.  You wake up remembering home.  You wake up and remember the darkness and you regret waking up.  You consider the darkness.  How far does it go?  Does it go on forever?  Upon pondering the darkness, you suddenly realize there is no ceiling, it is just more darkness extending.  You panic when you realize there is no floor.  It is darkness.  You stand on darkness, you move through darkness.  You alone seem real.  You close your eyes and there is darkness.  Is it inside you too?  You panic.  You grasp at the last feelings of hope.

You wake up.  You don’t remember falling asleep.  You remember the darkness.  You know the darkness will be there when you open your eyes.  You wake up sore, your shoulders, your neck.  You rub your neck.  You remember your mouth.  You remember it is dry, was dry, has been dry since your arrived.  You forgot your mouth used to be different yesterday.  You forgot to remember how it used to be.  

You remember your neck hurt.  You realize you can’t look down, can’t lift your arms far enough up to see them.  You are you but you can no longer look at yourself.  Is this a trick of the darkness?  Each moment more frantic, you can not see your hands, your feet, your belly or nipples.  You touch each part, you feel each contact.  You move, but you are unobserved.  

You wake up.  Were you asleep?  The darkness behind your eyes or in front of them, they seem the same now.  Before now, yesterday, or maybe last week, your body began to fade.  You couldn’t feel your toes, you reach down and you find you can’t move them either.  It moved up.  Slowly, your hips and groin, your stomach, your chest.  Your fingers went next, and your arms were the last bit to fall away.

How long now since you couldn’t feel your dry mouth.  Have you blinked in days?  How would you know?  The darkness inside is the same as the darkness outside.  What is there left of you?  Does inside have any meaning?  Is the darkness your see with your eyes, if you still have eyes, different from the darkness you see when they are closed?

You wake up.  You are you.  There is darkness, but you are you.  What are you?  Not body or eyes or movement or your parched mouth.  But you are.  You know that.

You wake up, or you fall asleep.

You open your eyes, or you close them.

You see darkness.  You know yourself.

You surrender hope.  You surrender life.  You surrender yourself.

You imagine the most brilliant flash of light.