Pain.
The searing pain did not come from external blows, but burst out from deep within the bone marrow and from every inch of nerve endings, as if the entire soul had been thrown into a furnace to be calcined.
Sakaski opened his eyes suddenly, and what he saw was not the expected white ceiling of the hospital, nor the twisted metal frame of the car accident scene, but a rough, yellowed wooden roof. A smell that mixed with sweat, salty sea breeze, and some kind of... Gunpowder and steel entered his nose roughly.
The severe headache made him almost vomit. Two completely different torrents of memories were like two evil dragons, biting, colliding, and merging crazily in his small cranial cavity.
A memory belongs to an ordinary soul from the 21st century: overtime, subway, mortgage, flickering computer screen, and finally the dazzling lights and severe pain caused by the truck that lost control and crashed onto the sidewalk. Plain, depressing, with a hint of regret for unfinished dreams.
