I was running down a long dark tunnel. Running as fast as I could and getting nowhere. There were no footsteps. No sound.
I came to a door. Didn't open it. Didn't want to.
Just the same, I ended up inside a room. A room without walls.
The ground felt solid but somehow wasn't. With dread, I looked at my feet. The floor was liquid. It didn't make sense. I looked closer. Not water. No, it wasn't water.
It was blood.
Ripples lapped against my boots as something moved on the edge of my field of vision. I tried to turn my head to see what it was but couldn't.
Couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
I forced myself to look. It was a head. A horse's head. Others floated past in the current, rising to the surface like huge, hideous bubbles. One drifted past my feet. I could see the dull, lifeless eye staring up at me.
Tight bands constricted around my chest, and my heart was pounding so hard, I was afraid it would explode.
Someone cried out.
The sound woke me. Though the air was chilly, I lay trembling between sheets soaked with sweat. The pain medication had worn off.
I sat up, braced my hands on the edge of the bed, and worked to slow my breathing. One of the cats leapt onto the bed and leaned against my arm. Her purring sounded loud in the quiet dark. Ignoring her play for attention, I nudged her off the bed and stood up.
I walked stiffly into the kitchen, washed down a pill, and set the glass on the counter. It had snowed, and I could see quite easily into the night. Dark shapes were scattered on the hill above the lake. I picked up the binoculars and adjusted the focus. Deer, six of them. In the muted light, the fencing rose and fell like a roller coaster, enclosing pastures that were otherwise empty, their inhabitants snug in the barn below. On the frozen lake in the south field, the snow was even and stark.
I glanced at the clock on the stove. Three-ten. I had slept for a long time. I walked into the bathroom and switched on the lights. The plush expanse of teal and navy wallpaper and matching carpet seemed foreign after the cold sterility of the hospital. The loft seemed different somehow. Nothing tangible, but a change nonetheless. Or maybe it wasn't the loft that was different but my perspective of it.
I turned on the shower and looked in the mirror. Despite the fact that I had two impressive shiners and my cheek was mottled with purple, black, and yellow, the swelling around my eye had improved considerably in the last twenty-four hours.
When I took off my clothes, the view there wasn't much better. Under the bandages, worse still. Deep red grooves dug into my wrists. In places the skin was raw and oozing.
Bastards.
I stood under the spray of hot water, and as the tension in my muscles drained away, I thought about the horses. They had been chosen for one characteristic and one characteristic only. Size. The larger and heavier, the more money they would command at slaughter. I thought about Shrimpy with his huge, intelligent eyes. I had watched him in a jumper class once, when he had slipped going round a turn. He'd regained his balance, zeroed in on the next fence, and jumped it without a rub. His rider, all the while, had been grossly out of position, simply struggling to stay on. The horse had a heart of gold, and now he was heading down a frightening path to annihilation.
I braced my hands against the wall and watched the water swirl down the drain, thinking I could have met the same fate.
I stayed in the shower until the hot water ran cold.