I don't know where I am.  I don't like what's happening to me.  It's so dark and cold.  Oh it's cold!  Even if I were well wrapped up I'd still feel the cold trying to sink its sharp teeth into my warm soft flesh.  Sometimes when the cold takes its bite, I want to scream!  Scream so loud that everybody will hear.

I don't know if I am in a room or out in the dark and dreary world.  If I am outside, I should be able to hear the wind blowing.  Why are there no comforting sounds of birds chirping high in the trees.  I strain to catch the noise of traffic going back and forth.  But my ears are filled with the sound of my own breathing.

I want to move, but it's not easy; when I try to stand my hand hits something above.  Whatever it is, it isn't hard.  It's soft and wet, a sticky wet.  I feel out a little way with my hands to reach the obstruction, but there's nothing there.

There is a heart beating.  It is somewhere close.  I hold my breath for a moment, a few seconds, and listen to the steady rhythm.

Now that I have stopped breathing, it's louder, as if it were inside me.  My companion, my beating heart!

I thought the pain had gone to be no more, but it comes surging back.  It tears me, it numbs me with its violence.  Oh, is it animal or man which is inflicting this terrible pain?

Oh, I can't move now.  I am paralysed, my God!  I want to move, my brain keeps sending signals telling my body to move!

At this moment I want nothing more than to die.  I want to be rid of the pain.  My body has become so tender, it would easily break in two if somebody were to touch me.

Ah, the pain is easing.  It draws back like a wave, and I try snatching a couple of deep breaths.  Now I must compose myself; it'll come again, but this time I'll be ready, using my body as a sponge to soak up its anger.  I'm in control.  I'm not defeated yet.

I want to know which is the way out.  I can#t seem to find it.  Hands sink into nothingness.  Eyes search; I roll them in their sockets, looking for the light.

I don't feel dead, but maybe that's what I am.  Dead.  How can that be?

No, because listen, I can hear voices!

They are very faint, and mostly what they say is garbled, but sometimes I hear the soft voice of a woman whispering a name.  I listen to the name, picturing each letter in my mind.  "Peter...Peter...Peter..."  I keep repeating the name over and over out loud.  Do I know a Peter?  I rack my brains to think of one.  What is she trying to say?

Most of time though my voices aren't there and they leave in a dark world where I seem to be the only living thing.  The only other is the pain, this creature which hurts and haunts me.

I wish I could see it, if only out of curiosity, but everyone knows what happened to the cat when it became curious.  I don't want to be like that!  Fading out like a cat, just a big grin fading...At least I try to retain a sense of humour.

I had a dream the other night.  I was where four roads meet.  Fortunately there was no traffic, because I was standing in the middle of the junction looking down each of the roads in turn.  I knew I had to choose just one of them.  There was only one road that led home, all the others went nowhere.  So I chose one and began to walk down it, seeing no sign to indicate whether I had chosen wisely.  It was dark and ominous, like this place where I am now.  I turn around, to see there was no going back; all was black.  It was only a dream; so I carried on walking until I reached the baleful place.

Warmth.  A feeling of warmth is spreading over my body.  I am tingling as my body finds new life.  Strength returns to my arms; I raise them at once, and feel for the set sticky roof.  My fingers touch nothing.  That's one cloud that has lifted.  Either that or the roof has mysteriously risen a few inches or I have shrunk!

I am warm.  It's like lying in a sheltered place with the sun falling gently on my face, on a summer's afternoon.  I wish I could wake up and be at home!

God, why have you put me in this place?  Why am I tied down here?  What have I done wrong?  I'm sorry, I'm sorry!  It must have been something dreadful, but it's slipped my mind.  I can't remember what I did.  You are punishing me and I can't remember.

I would like to be at home now.

Far away I hear something.  Far away, but the sound is echoey, as if travelling down a long tunnel.

I go to move my head but of course it won't budge.  All I want is to move my head so that I can listen better.  Even that is denied me.  Why am I forced to remain stationary?  What's doing this to me?

Closer and closer I can hear the sound, floating through the air towards me.  I'm trying to work it out, wondering whether it's a voice or not.  Not seeing things makes it hard to recognise them.

Surely it's a human voice.  But it's not the female I heard before.  No, this is deeper, a male voice.  A young man maybe, quite young, just in his teens, when the voice take a deeper tone.

I can't understand what he's trying to say.  The voice is getting louder, it's vaguely familiar.  I'm sure I've heard it before somewhere, but never like this, floating, as if halfway up in the air!

I can feel it by my side, next to me.  It's so close now it almost touches me.  Ah, there was a touch!  Something with hairs on it brushed against my left cheek!

It breathes heavy as well.  If it'a human, I would like to see it.  If not, you can keep it.  I don't want to see flesh peeling from a cadaver's face. bony claws, slightless sockets and teeth champing in the empty skull - horrors to make a child scream!

Now it has hold of me.  What does it want, this human?  It's palms are secreting sweat into where it gripped me.  I don't want to be gripped; I would fight it if I could, but it's too strong.  If I resist, it'll crush my bones at any moment.

It's lefting me now, I'm being raised.  The wet, sticky roof above me has completely gone.  "Now then, just a minute," I say.  "I have a right.  You there, listen!  Is your name Peter?  Where are you taking me?"  But it must be the wrong name because he doesn't reply.

I hear his breathing, deep and ragged.  I hear us moving, slowly, with laboured steps.

We stop moving and gently he lowers me to the ground I have never seen.  He lets go of me and where he had hold of me my skin grows cold.

He has gone, and again I am left all alone.  Why do they leave me alone?

A light shines.  At first my brain doesn't register what it could be.  I shut my eyes tight and then I remember, and open them, and the light comes flooding towards me.  Ahead of me I see nothing beyond the bright light.  People are moving frantically about me; the come and stick things into me!  Some are shouting; I can see their mouths anxious and stretched; but so faint is the sound that I can barely catch what is being said.

Then suddenly, something new: a burrring noise, high pitched and monotonous; it goes on and on.

Until it stops and silence wraps round me, and the light fails.

And I'm back in this dark and ominous place.