Fass (Chaos)

"Death was on me; I was certain. I was face-down, eyes clenched. My heart pulsing the last of its seconds, and my lungs burning the last of its air. A sudden nostalgia gripped me. I grasped desperately, for memory, of a storm, just passed, the fumbling pitch of a child's song... yet all these thoughts seemed to steal away from my mind like smoke through a vent. I would die empty. I then became aware of another sensation. Physical. A web of pain, needles itching into my arm. At once I realized: I was alive! Laying in the Bell's shattered seriglass! I groped the ground. Warm stone. The floor of my laboratory. So: I had never left... and so: I had failed. Again. I heard a crunch alongside me. Someone stepping through the shattered glass. With great shame, I gasped and rose my head to face my daughter above me. But as I opened my eyes, it wasn't her. It was me."