Chapter 80

• My head aches with the weight of that damn bear sitting on my skull. My mouth feels weird and furry, like I just ate my socks, and I blink at the bright white piercing light as I slowly try to open my eyes. Flinching at the assault and screwing my face up in reaction. My body is heavy and disconnected as I try to come to and figure out where I am and what happened to me. I feel like I just survived a train wreck, and I’m not entirely sure I’m not dead and in the afterlife waiting room. I’m altogether disoriented, everything spinning, and I can barely move my body as though I've somehow I feel vacuum pressed to the surface I’m flat out on, and it’s the most surreal sensation to wake up to. It takes a minute for my eyes to grow accustomed to the brightness of my surroundings, and, much like having a torch shone in your face, it’s painful at first until it levels out and an actual ceiling comes into focus. Watery eyes blur to clarity and blink repetitively to figure out what I was staring at.
• White square tiles and a gray, wooden ceiling fan that’s on slow and hitting me with a gentle breeze. The tiles are large and grubby and pull my focus enough to let me grasp the reality of my situation: I’m inside a building and no longer on the forest floor.
• My gut twists, and my insides sink as that filters through. It all comes slowly back, the memory of eating dirt and passing out, and I try to sit hurriedly as panic comes kicking back into play. Straining with all I have in me as mild panic sets in.