Sweat trickles down my bare body in streams. I’m naked, I’m dirty, my hair is damp.

Why am I naked?

I look up and realize I don’t know where I am. I am here, but a moment before I was, not.

I don’t think I was alive a second ago.

Have I just been born?

But no, that’s ridiculous. I’m full grown, and I’m all alone in this sandy, dusty wasteland. Flat on my back, I stare up into an oddly empty sky and try to remember my name.

A cold hand descends on my chest.

I shriek, alarm pumps through my veins as I struggle underneath that smooth, strong hand.

I can’t get up, I can’t move, I can’t even see.

“Shhh, calm down sweet boy.”

My vision clears in a horrifying heartbeat and I see the face of a very young woman looming over me. She can’t be a day older than I am. Shes remarkably strong. And terrifying.

I gape, red eyed and pale into her astonishingly beautiful green eyes.

“I am your friend.”

She kisses me then. Hard. My lungs leak air as my lips and mouth seem to be consumed in hers. She breathes, taking my air and then forcing it back into my breast.

In and out. And in again.

I struggle beneath her, tearing at her hair and eyes. Trying to pull myself out of her grasp. I screw my eyes shut and try to scream.

Time ticks by, each second slowing morphing into an eternity.

Then all is quiet.

There is no girl, no ferocious kiss, no pain.

And no air. But it seems my need for it has gone away. I am no longer breathing, and no longer desiring to.

I open my eyes to a skyless void. I’m suspended in the horizon of a grey presence. There is no up, there is no down.

There is no past, there is no present.

There is only now.

It fucking sucks.

“Hey!”

I scream. My voice startles me. It’s groggy and hoarse but surprisingly strong considering my vocal cords feel like they’ve been fermenting in my neck for centuries.

“Get me outta here!”

A light, low laughs drifts around me coming from no direction in particular.

“You are outta here sweetheart.”

“Oh no don’t get fucking cryptic with me. Nothing about this is subtle.”

Silence.

“I know you can hear me.”

I seem to have lost my grasp on time because it’s somewhere between a minute and an hour before there’s a reply.

“There’s something in your hand, my sweet.”

“No there-“

My fingers clench involuntarily around a cool, smooth object that didn’t exist a moment ago. I look down to find a key. Then subsequently, almost robotically, search the finite horizon for a lock.

A laugh, thickly pouring in my ears, high pitched and full of trills assaults me.

“No, silly. Your looking for a thing where nothing can exist.”

“I exist. And this key exists.”

I demonstrate by tapping the prongs against my forehead.

“How the fuck do you explain that, my disembodied friend.”

“Well, what’s inside a mind can’t touched.”

“What?”

“Stab yourself.”

I look at the key framed by my dirty hand and clothed in grey monotony.

“Okay.”

My chest explodes in red. The instrument deep between my ribs before I can even move. Laughter rings in my ears and vibrates through my skin.

“You’re so pretty, boy.”