Dead One

Time for Random Writing again, and I am nervous. I have seen The Intern's blog and have begun to wonder if mine is one of those sites with "unflattering writing samples." I do not believe I have sent The Intern or her agency anything, so she likely had no reason to check out my writing samples, but I am not sure. Hopefully Random Writing Thursdays (or the Tuesday Character Sketches) is not so bad as all that.

........
Dead. That word meant something new and important.

Anne sat up, feeling the pressure increase in her head and shoulders. Reaching for a light switch extended that tingly pressure through her arms, but she couldn't find anything solid within reach. Confused, she let her hand fall, back to her side where it bumped lightly into a cold stiff hand. Anne froze, terrified, before forcing herself to explore physically that which she could not see.

She opened her fingers and reached slowly to where she'd felt the hand. Still cold. She trailed fingers up the arm, surprised to find she seemed to be sitting on the body. Tracing fingers down the torso, she froze again, giving her brain time to adjust to the information that she wasn't on the body as much as in it. They separated around the waist, where she sat and the body lay prone.

Moving a leg, she felt it pop free. The body beneath her solidified and she couldn't put her leg back where it had been. She pulled her other leg free, moving away from the dead thing she was on, stopping quickly when she realized she had started to sink. The body seemed to be the only solid thing she could reach. It lay on nothing or at least nothing she could feel. Her legs felt think and heavy as she sank.

Anne whimpered, grappling for the body in the dark and pulling herself back towards it when her fingers caught at the edge of a sleeve. She moved more easily than she'd expected, almost as if she was weightless. The body held still, unmoving as she climbed aboard using it as a life raft, sure that if she started sinking she'd never stop.

She clung to the dead thing, wrapping her arms around its waist as she cried, tearlessly, into it's chest. She couldn't remember what had happened, where she was, or how she'd gotten there. The word dead flashed through her mind again, but she pushed it away, unwilling to think about it.

Still it caught her attention in such a way she couldn't seem to get rid of it entirely. She crawled up the body apologizing mentally as her hand skimmed the dead breast, as she balanced on her knees on its stomach, reaching for the face. If that word meant what she thought, what she feared, would she even be able to recognize her own face by touch? But she did, at least she thought she did, the scar bisecting her eyebrow, easily found even in the dark.

Anne had died and she didn't remember how.