Thursday, January 10

Three days prior to the new moon

10:00 A.M.

North of Granite City, Illinois

Her jaw is hurting.

It isn’t the only part of her body that is aching by far, but at the moment, it is in the forefront of her mind. She can tell she has been grinding her teeth. There is no doubt about it, because she always does when she sleeps.

Bruxism, that’s what her dentist calls it. Pain, that’s what she calls it; especially right now. She has a plastic mouth guard she sleeps with that is specially designed just for the affliction, and it helps; but, she knows that considering the amount of pain she is experiencing and the fact that she can’t feel it in her mouth that the appliance must not be here.

Thinking about it doesn’t help much.

She is beginning to take notice of the laundry list of aches plaguing her body. Her head, her chest, her wrists, her ankles… hell, there isn’t an inch of her that doesn’t hurt. There are just some parts that are screaming louder than the others.

She starts to move, then flashes on a distant memory. She’s not supposed to move? She shouldn’t move? She can’t move? She tries anyway and finds that option three is apparently the winner. She doesn’t know why she can’t move, but she decides not to think about it. It just seems easier not too.

It is odd to her that she can remember the word bruxism, but for some unknown reason she can’t recall much else. She has no idea how long she has been here. A day? A week? A month? No clue. But what does it matter? She doesn’t know where ‘here’ is.