CHAPTER ONE — Between Breath and Darkness
The first thing I remember is the absence of myself. A hollow quiet. A sense of being present without a body to anchor me. Then, slowly, a figure emerged from the blur — a man with black hair streaked in silver, as though wisdom had threaded itself through him over time. His eyes were soft, welcoming, and impossibly still. Green, though at first they seemed colorless, like they were waiting for me to notice.I had heard people describe “soft eyes” before, but I never understood the phrase until that moment. His gaze didn’t push or demand. It simply existed, steady and open, and I could see straight through it into something deeper — the soul behind it.Then the rest of the room sharpened.Wires of every color stretched across my body, connecting me to machines I couldn’t name. Green, yellow, red — and one thick grey cable made of three fused together. Blood pressure cuffs tightened around my arms. Heart rate monitors blinked. To my right, a screen displayed four smaller screens inside it, each one filled with lines that jumped when I twitched.I saw myself twitch. Hello Im here. Hello but no response.I lay limp on the ambulance gurney, surrounded by medical staff. Surgeons with scalpels and lasers. Others stitching inside what felt like my shell. Suction devices hummed like the ones at a dentist’s office. Most of the doctors were men, scattered in age and size, moving with practiced urgency.I stared at the wires attached to my chest, abdomen, head, hands, and legs. I didn’t feel them. I only saw them. And that terrified me more than pain ever could.Darkness swept in.A touch pulled me back.I opened my eyes and saw him again — the man with the soft green eyes — but suddenly I couldn’t feel his touch, and then I couldn’t see him at all. Only the place where he had been. My inside voice whispered, Who are you?
I heard myself say it, but no one responded. It was as if my voice never reached the air at all.A younger man leaned over me, sliding a long cloudy white tube toward my mouth. Time warped — pausing, fast‑forwarding, looping. The tube moved slowly, painfully slowly, until it didn’t. Until it was inside me, deeper than I could comprehend.I felt it reach the cusp of my chest plate.
I gasped inside, unable to move, unable to speak.A nurse in lavender scrubs stood above me, her mask tucked under her chin, her brown hair resting neatly on her shoulders. She looked confident, almost calm, as though she had done this a thousand times.The man continued inserting the tube. It grew shorter as more of it disappeared into me. When it was gone, I knew exactly where it sat inside my body.I tried to speak. My mouth moved.
But only my inside voice whispered:I’m here. I’m here. Please. Please.I looked down at myself, staring with everything I had, and realized I wasn’t in my body at all. I hovered above it, watching my lips wrapped around the tube, watching my chest rise and fall without me inside it.Sound faded. Darkness.
Then I seen him as he slowly vanished in what seemed like thin air..Behind a brown‑framed glass window, more people appeared — three doctors pressed shoulder‑to‑shoulder at a curved table attached to the wall. The screens in front of them were blank. Not light, not dark. Just nothing.Tunnel vision narrowed my sight.
Tunnel hearing narrowed my world.
My ears popped.
Then again. My mouth moved.
“Excuse me, Sir. I’m asking you a question. Hello.”No one heard me yet again, How or why is this happening. Panic while Confusion crashed through me.“Time of death.”No.
No.
Don’t call T.O.D.A bomb went off inside my head. My breathing slowed to a crawl.“Brain damage… most likely quad… she’s not going to make it.”What?
I’m here.
I’m right here I made it. I made it. Please im here right here. From somewhere deeper than thought, my body jerked. I saw it happen.“Z!! That was her… It worked! It fucking worked!”Intensity flooded the room. My heart raced — one hundred thirty‑four beats per minute. The air felt thick, like a cloud of fog. I couldn’t breathe. Acid rain in my lungs. It felt Like a pillow pressed over my face.I gasped — the kind of gasp you take after holding your breath far too long. Air entered with precision, moving through tissues faster than sound or light. It felt like water swirling down a drain, only upside down. My head is extremely clouded. Dark grey almost almost black.I felt myself reenter my bodies shell.
I inhaled slowly and the air burned as my lungs inflated my body was reclaiming its shell. I
Exhaled like it might be my last chance.Emotions surged — jittery awareness, regret, sadness, heart ache, confusion.
Three slow breaths.
My breathing labored.A heavy weight pressed against my sternum1st, making it impossible to draw a full breath. I tried. It didn’t work.Darkness returned.
Silver dots scattered across it.
Life slipped out with my final breath.Peace followed — pure, internal, absolute.
Freedom without memory.
No nothing.
No anything.
No life.Relief washed through me.Then—“I hear you! I HEAR YOU!”Darkness again.
Confusion overtook my mind.And then awareness — sharp and undeniable awareness. We never get back any second that has passed.
The importance of each one can’t be put into words I feel their value.
I feel it now.Light.