There is a purpose. You are safe.

It was a heartbeat, a warm embrace that pulsed with that message. It was ingrained within her. A repeatedly practiced phrase. A voice that was her own but from somewhere much too long ago.

So very cold, it was, and dark as well. There was no sight nor sound, no sense of taste nor smell. It didn’t feel real, and she wanted to panic but that heartbeat was there.

There is a purpose. You are safe.

She didn’t feel safe but she tried to believe in it anyways. She needed to if her sanity was to remain unbroken. She realized what that meant soon enough.

She needed hope.

Bradford! Keep that reserve full!

… Ischemia levels less than one percent…

Temperature ratio is stable… increasing… lowering devit fluid…

Cell decomposition critical! Lower abdomen, grids 3-4 to 5-7!

Damage is… we’ll take minimal loss of original tissue, she’ll be… affirmative, thirty minutes to warming. Follow protocol outlined in prototype K…

The words should have meant something. She should have understood them, but she didn’t. It was too cold. Half of her was a racing, panicked and frightened mass of exclamations and fears, and the other was a stunned and silent pondering.

You are safe. There is a purpose. She preferred the latter of the two states of mind.

It grew warmer. More accurately, the unthinkable chill lessened. There was no physical sense of presence; it began to Feel as though it was not cold that affected a body, but that the cold was her body.

Suddenly the world was numb. It was a familiar coldness now, which brought her some comfort. Familiarity meant the world when all else was alien. This strange tingling all around, a faint throbbing that spoke of a heartbeat. This was something she had Felt before.

And then her body was pain. It was catatonic agony. She had been submerged in a wave of torment that cast away all thought and sense of self. She imagined herself drowning, swallowing water until suffocation, loss of consciousness and death but this condition was never-ending. The suffering was immeasurable and absolute. Self-preservation demanded escape, but how could she flee this affliction when it was all that existed?

Perhaps there was more: something else, a helping hand to bring her back to composure. Perhaps time would damper the pain. Perhaps she would heal and remember those words that before had lessened the calamity. Perhaps…

Time was relative, and without anything to measure by then purgatory was infinite. Before this she had believed her reasons were for life itself, but now she wanted nothing more than to die.

“Hello?”

Silence. A slight scuffling sounded approximately four feet away on the eleven.

“She is awake, is she not?”

“Heart rate is stable, and brain scans show conscious activity, Doctor.” The voice paused. It was a young woman, her breathing faintly audible. “In fact, her levels have nearly topped the chart.”

“Ha! Sounds just like her.” An old man. Horridly old. His own gasping was tragically inconsistent and his voice was sandpaper and smoke. He moved closer, making use of a cane and favoring his left leg by the sound of it.