I felt my body go limp as another bitter chill rushed through my veins. Thoughts darted through my mind, searching for some seed of hope, but found only a void of pathetic realism. Yet, in that instant of numbness, I felt. For the first time... I felt. It was not a physical feeling; I was incapable of such at the time. It was not even an emotional feeling; I was not angry or afraid or sorrowful.
As I lay there, my heart beating double or triple its typical speed, electricity surging violently through my flesh, I felt metaphysically. Tears ran down my cheeks, but not because of the searing pain I felt as my nerves attempted to perform their natural duties. The tears flowed because they had nowhere else to go – my uncaring soul had abandoned them in its desire to escape. Because they had nothing holding them back, they ran down my cheeks.
I supposed it a natural thing – what else should I have supposed in my limited experience? As each tear fell confidently to the blackened ground and shattered beside me, my pain lessened. Again, I made the naïve supposition that this was natural: a gradual final numbness before my heart would stop or explode or whatever hearts do in such circumstances. But as I closed my eyes – it was not as though I had the desire or ability to see, anyway – I heard a sigh: a sigh of, not regret or submission, but of relief. And the pain left.
My eyes, somewhat against my own will, sprang open, and I saw my attacker, my savior. As I looked up at him, confused, I asked, “Why did you stop?”
With tears in his eyes, he knelt and whispered, as a child uttering his final words, “Over the years, I have become desensitized to the screams of victims. They no longer affect me. You... You were the first to cry.”
First draft, but I kind of edited during the process of writing. Criticism is greatly appreciated.