There is a place that you float between awake and unconscious, for there was no way to describe that state as sleeping, and therein realities changed.  Pain stopped hurting and became a reminder that you were still alive, breathing became a focused, effortful activity and all the simple senses became muddled and unclear and therefore useless in the slow, desperate struggle that a body went through to keep living long after it had been damaged beyond repair.  

It was a blessing because the fear stopped.  Anyca had discovered at some point during the night that the cutting didn't hurt as much as the shaking her body had been doing from fear, adrenaline, the cold... the lack of blood to warm her.  The fear ate up your mind and turned you into something else, something less than human that was hard even to pity for how pathetic it had become.  And there, mixed in with the fear, was the reality that it was Tobias that had done this to her.  Not thinking of that was also a blessing.  She had begun to believe somewhere at the end, before she lost consciousness that to die would be better than to live with that night in her memory.  Her body disagreed because however the muscles in her chest ached with the effort, she kept breathing.

She heard a voice somewhere far away, but it became very close when he touched her face.  The contact hit her like a small electric shock.  Had she the strength, Anyca would have jerked away but instead she rolled her head away and let out the weakest of cries as the fear and the shaking and the reality all came crashing in again.  She trembled so hard it was almost a vibration over her body, one that hurt her bones.  As her eyes opened, blurred by tears again, she saw Tobias hovering over her and thought how strange it was that when she was looking into the face of the man that would kill her, all she could think about was the cold.  

"P-p-p-p-please Tob,"  Her voice was dry and cracked and shrill with fear, "please stop."


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