How long I spent drifting through the blackness I can only guess at. Assuming I had been found within 3 days, I would've been truly dead for at least 4, as for what I can only guess was a day and night, I regained sensation, slowly, symptom by agonising symptom of life.
My first new avenue of awareness was my own heartbeat returning, as if pushing sand through previously dormant veins. My pulse felt sluggish at first, but picked up over the coming hours until it felt as though my body would tear itself apart. Every fiber if my being seemed to burn, and eventually I came to sense that I was in a morgue locker, and my fever was turning it into a crucible. Conciousness came and left repeatedly, each time I returned more lucid than before.
I finally awoke fully, laid out on the autopsy table. I had always made it clear that my body was to be donated to medical science, something I thought would be beneficial, given I'd no longer need it. My current sutuation, however, had not been accounted for. I sat up, in the half-light of electric bulbs, still groggy and coming to my senses. I was in the very hospital I had worked in, I could recognise the tiling on the wall anywhere. It was some time at night, given the apparent lack of staff around. It took a moment for me to realise that I only had a sheet to cover myself. Looking at my arms, I noticed how defined the muscle and blood vessels were, to the point where muscle looked feathered at the attatchment points, and the skin was drawn taut over the flesh.
Horrble weakness assailed me as I tried to stand, every muscle ached dryly, as if I hadn't enough blood left in my body to fuel the dessicated flesh. I collapsed to the cold, tiled floor almost immediately. The impact barely registered as hurting, although I hit the floor with a strangely solid thud.
I lay dazed on the floor, feeling as if I'd been cured in salt. Desperate hunger clawed at my insides, my mouth and throat were dry, and felt as if they'd been sandpapered. Desperation gripped my mind, overriding any semblance of reason. Having not eaten or drank for 4 days, and my apparent ressurection having stripped me of what little fat had been in my body, any boundaries had long since dissolved.
I felt my heart quicken, forcing thick blood through my body, giving me some strength back, I was able to haul myself to my feet, wrapping the sheet around me. My eyes were becoming accustomed to the half-light to an uncanny degree, as if it were daylight. Strange smells drifted through the still air, smells I had only previously been somewhat aware of were now pervasive. I could pinpoint each chemical, each storage cabinet a new cocktail of preservatives, fillers, fluids.
Beneath the enbalming table was a stainless steel canister, from within which emerged a thick, almost resonant scent. Given the funnel directly above it, fed into by channels in the table, I knew it was a blood drainaige basin. My right hand hung beside the basin, fingers reaching almost unconciously toward the vermillion fluid. Blood was high in sugars, salts, water and protiens. It was human, though. Animal blood would've been comsumed without a second thought, black pudding was one of my favourites.
The blood drained from the bodies was only good for disposal anyway, though, and it was relatively fresh. The gentle flicker of the light gave little reddish definition to the blackened void within the vessel.
When I came to, there was little left in the canister, perhaps a litre, less, even. I was left with a strange feeling of euphoria, well-being even. My hands were bloodstained, and I could feel coagulated blood on my lips. The appearence of my skin had improved considerably, now looking better than I had during the last six months of my life.
With my immediate survival apparently secured, creeping disgust at my own actions took hold. Wiping my mouth, I stood up. My personal effects had to be nearby, they were usually boxed up and left to the side, for reference during the autopsy. Looking around, I saw the squat wooden container. A paper tag left on it read "Aspen Connors, 8th Jan. 1908. Age: 24 Cause of Death: Unknown, likely tuberculosis"
Picking it up, I put it on the table, seeing to my dismay it was locked. They had to be at night in case of theft, I looked around the room for a means to prise it open, given how flimsy the lock was.
I didn't want to destroy any surgical equipment that an intern or junior doctor would have to take the fall for. I decided I may as well try using my hands first. I pushed my fingertips into the gap between the hinged lid and box, gently pushing up the lid. To my surprise, the box seemed unnaturally fragile, the lid almost peeling off, leaving behind the lock, still affixed to the main box. I knew the boxes weren't particularly strong, but this seemed off, as if the wood was worm-eaten.
Inside the box, as expected, were my clothes, watch, wallet and keys. My watch had been broken, be it during my coughing fit, or afterwards. It was a pocketwatch, and I, having given in to the trend at the time, had it engraved with a skull motif, and the words "momento mori." The irony wasn't lost on me. I dressed myself, and folded the bloodstained sheet, wiping my face before placing it on the autopsy table.
Making my way out of the morgue, I could hear the gradual rise of activity in the hospital, and the approach of staff, probably the morning shift. I met one of the morgue assistants on my way out, who dropped his clipboard in shock at seeing me. "Doctor Connors?" he stammered. "But... you were dead."
"I'm not dead though." I pointed out. "If I was really dead I wouldnt be here, dead people don't come back to life."
"I saw your body though. This can't be!" He continued. "You had no pulse, no breathing, nothing!"
"I thought I was dead too, if it's any consolation, but obviously I'm not. I'm breathing, and my heart appears to be fine" I told him. I didn't understand why he was upset. I bade him good morning and went on my way. I needed to get home, my appartment would be in an awful state if I'd been away for too long, the stray cat that often visited me would probably be wondering where I was, seeing as I always fed it when it came around.
Stepping out into the sunlight from the relative shade of the hospital was a painful experience, as if nails had been driven into both my eyes, stunning me for a moment. It was January, and not particularly warm or bright, although I had spent quite some time in total darkness, and was probably worse for wear after my episode.
My breathing, once it had stabilised somewhat, came easily, for the first time in almost a year. I felt less empty, healthier. It was as if my disease had been naught but a bad dream. I was filled with vigour unlike anything I'd ever felt. I made it home in half the time it would've taken me only a week ago.
The world seemed heightened as I walked home. Sounds were more detailed, smells could be pinpointed, I could see in immense detail. It was abnormal, certainly, and something that'd need thorough investigation. Hopefully some amount of the panacea remained in my room, so I could analyse it properly.
I made it home, and to my abject horror, it seemed my appartment had been ransacked by thieves. The open door swing idly in the frigid breeze. My room and workspace had been torn asunder, papers scattered about the floor, and drawers ripped out of the chests, and cast aside. The panacea was gone. The only sign of life in the otherwise still wreckage was the stray cat, waiting patiently to be fed at the window, oblivious to the ruined state of my home.
I immediately noticed that my bookshelves were the epicentre of the chaos. Any of my medical or literary texts had been left untouched, but my occult texts and papers had disappeared. I could feel panic rising up in my spine. I fought to maintain control, but seeing all my things strewn about or stolen was driving me to crisis. I collapsed, hyperventilating. I was shaking badly, and curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth in the hopes it'd help somehow. I can't be sure how long I sat there, amidst the chaos.
Eventually, I recovered enough to stand up and take stock of my situation. I spent the day reorganising my appartment, finding that none of my few valuables had been taken. Come sundown, things were in an acceptable state of order. Since my rent was monthly, and paid two days before my episode, I was in little danger of eviction should my mistaken death disrupt my invalidity pension, although given my newfound condition, I thought returning to work was once again on the table.
I left my appartment building after that, taking advantage of my restored health to go for a walk. Never in my life had I such entheusiasm for something so simple.
I made my way to the docks, where I had enjoyed many leisurely walks in the sea air, and where the sound of waves on concrete never failed to calm me. At night, the docks took on a more sinister atmosphere, gone was the pleasant hum of workers and ship engines, replaced by a thick scent of fish and oppresive humidity. The smell wasn't just fish though, there was a certain cloying, sebaceous quality to the smell, made all the more potent by my now enhanced smell.
Standing on a pier, gazing out at the sea, I sensed I was being watched, stalked even. A quick look around, ears straining didn't clarify anything. The moon, pale and gibbous, hung low in the sky, casting silver beams into the abyssal waters below. I could've sworn I saw something move down there.
Just then, an almost corrupting plume of froth appeared in the water, right by the pier, perhaps twelve feet away from me. From within the disturbance burst forth, slimy and stinking, that same fishlike smell, was a creature no science nor mythology could explain. In the half-light, the flabby mass appeared a grey-green colour, with thick, rubbery skin, mottled and punctuated by membrenous fins. It uncoiled, standing in two legs, half-walking, half-hopping at me.
Its figure and face were so vaguely, unsettlingly anthropoid, with four limbs, although pot-bellied and hunchbacked, with freakishly long forelimbs, tipped with claws. It's face was some twisted hybrid of human and aquatic, with bulging, lidless eyes and pulsating gills about the neck. From flabby lips poured measured gurglings and growls, as if it were speaking, voice full of malice.
Just then, it opened one clawed hand and charged at me.