[ WP ] You begin to have the sneaking suspicion that Death *likes* you

There ’ s no way to escape the heat of the New Orleans summer. The air filled my lungs with desperation, and my clothes with dripping, salty sweat. After the hurricane, our electricity was shot and not even the fan, with its mocking, motionless blades, could quell my tortured soul. I took to counting the cracks in the ceiling to pass the time before finally succumbing to sleep. 
 
 By late August I could feel my mind beginning to seep out of my ears and onto the splintered wooden floor of my bedroom. The heat had driven me mad. It must have started with the occasional wisp of cool air through the cracked window above my bed. I shivered with delight as these little bursts of relief came wafting through the room and down into my spine. Maybe the summer isn ’ t so bad after all, I thought. I could finally rest without waking in a sticky heap of my own stench. 
 
 I gradually came to depend on each fleeting escape, now a surging burst of frozen ecstasy that cooled my body and mind to a perfect balance of bliss and relaxation. I didn ’ t leave my room much anymore. Why suffer through the stifling summer heat when the frigid sheets of my unkempt bed kept drawing me back into a liberating embrace? 
 
 One particularly chilly morning, I awoke suddenly and realized I must have fallen asleep with my head propped up against the headboard. My neck was stiff and my eyes struggled to adjust to the light trickling through the window. I reached out to the glass of water on the table, but for some reason all the energy in my body couldn ’ t muster the strength to lift my arm from my side. Panic set in. I tried to form a word but my lips cracked and allowed thick blood to drip down my chin. My throat quivered and I felt ice breaking and dropping into my stomach as I watched the door creak open to reveal a ghastly figure clad in a tattered black cloth. It sauntered deliberately over to the bed, swaying like a sailor until it stood over my frozen body and stared into my cold eyes. The blood had already crusted over my lips, my eyes beginning to burn from the piercing stare of the dark figure. And then it lowered its head, extending its pale mouth towards mine, sticking, locking on to my icy orifice. 
 
 I felt the little warmth I had left drain through my mouth and into the creature. Cold numbed my mind, my core. I no longer thought. I became nothing, and I watched with dimming eyes as the shadow silently slipped out through the window above my bed. 
 

