A strangled gasp desperately claws at air, forcing oxygen into needy lungs that have not felt its embrace in long months. The ragged, animalistic inhale enunciates to the world that you still live. The cold air you greedily suck in burns your throat like swallowing shards of razor glass. Your world is pain, but pain is good, pain means there is still life in your body, and you have survived this forced resuscitation. As soon as you’ve flooded your body with much-needed oxygen, your chest spasms violently, wracking your frame as wet coughs replace the gasp.

Locked in a cycle that oscillates between deep, hungry inhales and violent coughing fits, your eyes open and see nothing. The darkness is complete and total. You spy no source of light in the void that wrestles against the inevitability of night. Your mind is dull and numb. It still lagging from your awakening, struggling to do anything more than its base functions. Cold enshrouds you, wrapping you within its horrid embrace. Goose pimples cover your naked flesh as the chilled air caresses you, sucking out all your natural warmth. Teeth chatter within your mouth, and you crawl up into an even tighter foetal position; your body is trying and failing to beat back the cold that has infected your soul.

As the icy numbness recedes, the pain returns, coating every inch of your body like a cruel reminder of your suffering. You spasm wildly as pain intermittently shoots through different parts of your body, mimicking lightning never hitting the same spot with the agony-inducing stab, at least never hitting the same place twice in a row. Each involuntary twitch is confined, restricted, and imprisoned; the movements are halted from completion by an unyielding force.

Still blind, you register the constraints that bind you, with the realisation you fight against them like a rabid Sullus-Tiger. Pushing upwards in an attempt to get to your feet, you shove your face into metal wire that does not give. Your hands blindly claw at the cage that keeps you pinned to the ground, fingers fruitlessly fight the durasteel. They fail to find a weakness or to scythe through the metal. Now you notice you are not even able to lie straight, your cage has you trapped in this foetal position with only a few inches of space on any side. Kicking at the prison, you are as successful as a child stomping in protest against their parent. The woven metal that holds you captive will not break under your hopeless, infantile assault.