When she woke up, only a few seconds had passed as far as she could tell, she was still screaming. Her throat was burning and her entire body was aflame with the sensations. She tried to move, gingerly this time, but the pain from her leg and shoulder redoubled and she froze.
Whimpering in pain, she tested her other limbs, trying to avoid moving the injured ones. Her right leg moved sluggishly, but it quickly pressed up against something hard and thin, like a pole. Her other arm moved freely and she used it to explore her environment.
Below her, the cold stone was covered in a thick layer of dust. As she blinked at a speck caught in her eye, she realized that she was in darkness once again. Trembling, she reached out once more, trying to find something. Her fingers found another pole, this one barely a finger's width from her throat. It was cold, almost ice cold. A faint roughness streaked its surface, she guessed it might be rust. Another pole was on the other side of her neck, a hand's width away. It was also lightly rusted.
She reached for her shoulder, carefully exploring her injuries, wincing from the pain that flared up from the movement. Her fingers were shaking when she finally found her shoulder. She slid her fingers along her leather armor, heavily patched and repaired. Her fear grew when she felt a sticky slickness against the surface that she suddenly realized smelled like blood. Whimpering again, she forced herself to find the source of her pain.
Sarisin found it, right before she found the first shard of bone sticking out of her shoulder. Gasping, she fingered it even more, shrieking out as the pain seared even hotter through her nerves. The wound was centered on a pole and she quickly realized that the pole had shattered her shoulder when it pierced it.
Fighting off a wave of dizziness, she pulled her blood-slicked fingers away from her shoulder and blindly explored down her body. She found another pole, a spike from her guess, near her hips, but the one she found after that had gone through her leg, right above the knee. The dizziness refused to leave her as she fingered her pinned leg. Determinedly, she explored it further, trying to find out the scope of the damage. Unlike the shoulder, her knee was not shattered, but the spike caught right against the bone, twisting her hip slightly and cutting through the muscle. It was bleeding heavily and Sarisin realized why she was growing dizzy.
“Blood… got to stop… the bleeding…”
Her voice was harsh from the earlier screaming, but it sounded almost dreamy to her. Feeling another wave of dizziness loosen her muscles, Sarisin struggled to find her pack. It took her a few seconds to remember she had left it behind, to stay mobile in the tunnels. Whimpering in pain, she tried to think of something to stop the bleeding.
Numbness sapped her strength again as she tried to move. The dizziness was growing stronger, to the point she could barely hear anything beyond the pounding in her ears and the rapid panting that took her a few moments longer to realize was her own. Gulping hard, Sarisin struggled to slow her breath and fight against the waves of dizziness.
“No… not shock… I have to…”
Her words were hollow and distant, but helped. Giving her a focus, she remembered a vial of healing potion underneath her chest armor. Wincing against the shooting agony, she worked her one good hand over her armor, unbuckling the straps with shaking fingers and slipping underneath. She found the vial, but groaned in frustration when her fingers came back wet. Shaking fingers found the remains of the cracked vial and pulled it out. Unable to see it in the darkness, Sarisin brought the wetness to her cold lips and licked at it. Most of the healing potion was gone, but she could feel a wavering heat growing out from her tongue.
Sighing, she sucked the last drops of the healing potion from her fingers. Even as she eased her hand back into her armor, to soak them with the last drops, she could feel the sweet warmth of the magical healing spread out to her limbs.
A mixture of numbness and dizziness washed over her, despite the magical healing, and she felt a different type of darkness swallow her up. The dreams that followed were terrifying. In them she couldn't free herself no matter how hard she tried.