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I’m groping around, trying to find something solid to grasp, but nothing quite presents itself. Everything seems black when I look around, except that one spot of light above me. That’s where I want to be – in the light. I don’t want to be down here in the dark anymore. It’s suffocating and it’s killing me. I want to thrash around and scream and listen to the loud, steady beating of my heart in my ears, I want to feel like I’m living and not just existing, but I don’t have the energy for it. I am, after all, naught but a mere existence, and there’s no true life in me. But I wish there was. I’m left crawling on my stomach, my arms not strong enough to lift me, my legs too weak to support me, the darkness too heavy and pushing me down.
One effort after another is thwarted. My arms shake as they try to push my torso away from the ground. My knees slip out from under me. My feet find a grip once, but as soon as I’m off all-fours and trying to stand I’m pushed over again. I lie there for a while. I think maybe my place is in the darkness and that I should learn to be content with it. But I look upwards once and there is the light again, beckoning me, encouraging me, and I try to scream in desperation but the darkness swallows the sound. I try again.
My hand reaches upwards; searching for anything at all that could help me up, and finding nothing. I feel like I’m being pushed down again but I manage to push back. No. I don’t want to go back. I want to go up. Oddly, the heaviness lifts, just slightly. I keep my eyes on the light and pretend I can hear his voice encouraging me. It takes me a few minutes to realise when my imaginings aren’t imaginings anymore, and that there’s now a hand, burning bright, reaching towards mine. I hesitate. I don’t want to drag him down with me. Maybe I can be content with simply staring upwards at his radiance. His words burn me as I let myself slip slightly and his hand closes around my wrist, tugging me up, up, up. I finally grasp him, and I scrabble to follow him, and although I fall once, twice, many times over, he’s always there to catch me.
The darkness isn’t as heavy, isn’t quite so suffocating, and I breathe deeply just because I can. There are other lights now too, but none quite so bright as the one holding me. All of their voices call encouragement, and one by one their hands latch onto me and pull me up. Both of my hands are now taken by the brightest light, and I hold onto him tightly, perhaps too tightly, because I’m afraid I may lose him completely if my grip were to loosen. There are gentle assurances in my ear and I’m starting to be able to breathe easily. I can feel the lip of the hole I’ve been stuck in and I feel myself being half dragged over it, and I struggle quickly to push myself the rest of the way over.
I lie on my back for a moment, and the light is too bright and it burns my eyes and makes my head pulse, like a bad hangover, and God knows I’ve had too many of those, but slowly everything fades out to a level of brightness I can actually see through, and his face is above mine and smiling, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile like that ever before. Then I’m in his embrace, and his arms are warm and grounding around me, and his scent is clean and comforting and I don’t ever want to leave this world of light again.
“Welcome back, R.”