• I checked my watch, and almost couldn't make out the glowing digital numbers: 8:21 AM. It was official- I had now been awake for four days straight. From what I remembered. And what a horrible four days it had been.

    I had been through hell, and came back to earth. The strange thing was, though, I was wishing to go back to hell. It provided much needed warmth- boy was I cold. How cold was it? I got up and stared intently at the thermostat, again, barely being able to make out the numbers shown on the small screen. 86 degrees Fahrenheit. Though it felt like it was at least 20.

    I imagined myself with icicles hanging out of my nose, my hair stained white from snow, and my skin stained black with frostbite. I laughed insanely at this absurd idea for several minutes- I was in the suburbs, not on Mount Everest.

    And that's when the next hallucination began- 8:43 AM, on the fourth day. I reached into my pocket to pull out my pack of cigarettes, possibly warm me up some. What I pulled out, by any degree, was not the smokes I had placed in there a few hours earlier.

    A large snake head was squeezed in my hand. Horrified, I let go with a quick scream and a violent jump. The humongous snake coiled around me- it's body continually slithered out of my pocket, with seemingly no end. As it reached my face, sweat ran down from my temple to onto its surprisingly dry skin. It hissed at this, and sunk its teeth into me right where its jaws were- my left cheek.

    I screamed in pain, and knew, by no means, that this was a hallucination. The pain was too real. It was all just too real.

    I tasted blood inside my mouth- the long fangs went right through my cheek and into my mouth. I spat onto the floor of my room, and stared at the large red stain it produced. I knew I had to get this thing off me, but how?

    I had no idea. But I had to try. I stood up, and ran hysterically at the wall, slamming into it at full speed, making sure the head of the snake was crushed in the process. I fell heavily onto the ground, feeling the impact of the wall greatly. Strangely, I didn't feel the snake's embrace on me anymore.

    I looked down at my body, to see that the snake had vanished. I felt my cheek with my left hand, and realized that the wound that had been afflicted there was gone- I felt no pain whatsoever in the spot. It had been a hallucination after all...

    But running into the wall hadn't been. I realized the severity of this act only moments after I had the revelation of the snake being a hallucination. My arms and legs were sore- my left arm, the one that hit the wall, was horribly disfigured. It was broken.

    Desperate, I got up and walked back to the bed I had been sitting on, and picked up my cigarettes. I placed one in my mouth, and lit it. My first attempt was with my left hand, like usual, but this proved futile. It hurt horribly to simply pick my lighter up. So, I awkwardly lit it with my right hand.

    Oh, God, I thought to myself. Am I doomed to live like this for eternity? Will I be forced to see hallucination after hallucination, slowly torturing myself into I curl up into a ball and died?

    Only time could tell.

    And then came the next hallucination-9:23 AM on the fourth day. Surely, this was no hallucination, though...