There he was again.  Out in the damp, chill November air.   I could see him; he was leaning against the dingy, grime stained brick wall of the abandoned warehouse across the street from my office building.  His cap, a dark blue sports hat, was pulled down low over his forehead, obscuring everything from the nose up.  His jacket was dark gray and stained maroon in places. The collar was turned all the way up against the heavy breeze outside, But I strongly suspected it was for a different reason.  
	He stood just a few yards to the side of a loading dock.  As I stood watching, a delivery truck pulled up.  It hit a pot hole in the poorly maintained asphalt.  It was still filled with water from a recent rain, but the water fell just short of the figure.  He didn't move, didn't flinch as the truck backed up.  The furs in it got out, rolled up the loading dock door and began moving their cargo inside, never acknowledging him, nor he them.  A few minutes went by, and the furs closed the bay doors, hopped back in the cab of the truck, and left.  Still, I stood rooted to the spot, just beyond the the side entrance I used to get to my office.  
	A noise behind me alerted me to the presence of another.  I looked around to see a coworker come outside.  He saw me, and registered some surprise.  “Steven,”  He said to me.  “What are you still doing here?  Didn't you leave an hour ago?”
	“Hour...?”  I replied, mildly confused.  I looked down at my watch, and saw that it had in fact been nearly an hour.  Had I come down here to go home that long ago?  Had I really been standing here, watching for so long?  
	“Are you okay Steven?  You seem...”  He trailed off.  I'm sure he was trying to look concerned, but I knew better.  He had been needling me for some reason under the guise of concern.  Always digging into my business.  I couldn't believe I used to consider him a friend.  “You've seemed different lately.  And you look...  When was the last time you saw a doctor?”
	“I don't need a doctor.” I said shortly, glaring at him.  “I'm fine.”  
	“You've really changed, Steven.  I miss when we used to go to the bar after work.”  He said.  But he got the hint though, and he left, going the opposite way of where I would be heading.  I looked back at the figure, and contemplated him, and our history.
	For the last eleven months, I have been seeing him outside the office whenever I glanced out the break-room window.  It was infrequent at first, being there only on particularly stressful days as if he knew my torment and wanted me to suffer.  But now he was there everyday, rain or shine.  He was always in the exact same spot, and dressed the exact same way.  And every evening, as I left work, he would follow me home.  The soft padding of his pawsteps behind me sending chills down my spine, and making the fur on my tail puff out uncomfortably.  He never spoke to me, nor drew closer, and he never deviated in any way.  He never acknowledged me or anything else.  I never worked up the courage to speak to him either.  I tried running, but he was always just the same distance behind me, and yet he never seemed to move faster.  It felt like a game somehow.  A weird, twisted game.  I had tried pointing him out and asking a few of my coworkers about him, but whenever I did so, he either wouldn't be there, or they would avert their eyes, as if they were intentionally trying not to see him, or couldn't see him.  They kept telling me it was just my imagination, that I was seeing things.  But I knew that wasn't the case.  And now, as I turned the corner and began walking home alone like nothing was wrong as I always do, I could hear him behind me.  I felt a certain conviction that I had to do something different or he would haunt me forever.
	Quickly I walked, leaving the dingy office building behind, pretending as I always did that I had no idea that he was following.  But we both knew at this point it was just a formality.  We both knew and were aware of the other.  Suddenly, I turned down an alleyway, deviating from my normal course and broke into a run, something I hadn't done in months.  I hoped it would throw him off and I could go home in peace.  I stumbled over some trash in the alley; bits of wood and broken appliances, tipped trashcans and the like.  I stumbled a few times, but I somehow managed to keep my paws under me.  At the far end of the alley, I looked back over my shoulder.  He was there, standing still and watching me as I bolted around the corner.
	I could hardly believe that he was just letting me go like that.  He had never not followed me before.  After months of watching me from that spot outside work, months of following me home at night, why this one time was he not following me?  Nevertheless, I continued to run, and always in the general direction of home.  I compulsively looked behind me, just to be sure, but I didn't see him again in my trip back to my home.  I never did stop running though; furs stopped and stared as I ran past them.  They gave me looks as I glanced over my shoulder repeatedly, like I was being hunted.  Even if he wasn't there now, I felt that he somehow still was.
	At last, sanctuary.  I saw home, and my front door.  I slowed to a more sedate pace as I approached.  I reached into my pocket and withdrew my keys to let myself in, stopping only long enough to grab the mail.  Just before I closed my door, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.  A blue cap, dark gray coat.  Maroon stains barely visible at this range.  He was coming around the corner onto the street a few houses down.  I slammed the door shut, my heart pounding.  It took several minutes to get control of myself.  In the dark of my home, I stumbled slowly to the kitchen where I grabbed a shot glass and poured myself a stiff drink.  I slammed it back and sputtered, the hard liquid burning its way down.  I took a deep breath, then poured another.  I slammed this one back too.  I grabbed a third, but I resisted the temptation to do the same with this one as I did with the previous two.  
	I looked down at the two envelopes I had grabbed on my way in.  I spread them out so I could see them in the fading light coming in through the kitchen window.  They were both bills, one for the electricity.  I set the power bill aside, intending to pay it tomorrow after work.  The other one was from my doctor.  I stared at it, fearful.  Why?  Why was my doctor tormenting me so?  Ever since my physical he had been calling me, sending me letters demanding I return for blood tests and scans.  Why couldn't he leave me alone?  Why did he want my blood so much?  I trembled uncontrollably, fearing it.  Reaching out hesitantly, I nudged the letter along the counter to the disposal, the nearest thing into which I could discard the abhorrent thing.  Into the hole it went, and I turned it on.  The letter was mulched in seconds, bits of sodden paper being ejected forcibly.  I let it run for a whole minute, until I calmed down.  Fucking doctor, why can't you just leave me alone?  I turned and left the kitchen.
	I could already feel the effects of the first two shots hitting me.  I stumbled to the living room, where I collapsed, exhausted, frustrated and afraid.  I should've known I couldn't escape him.  He knew where I lived.  He had followed me home enough times to know.  I wished I had somewhere else to go,  but I didn't.  Not for the first time did I curse myself for becoming estranged from my family in recent years.  For getting stuck in a dead end job I couldn't escape any more than I could this nameless, speciesless fur.  Not that it would've mattered.  I still would've had to come home sooner or later.  And I had a sneaking suspicion that he would've somehow followed me anywhere, no matter how far I went, or suddenly I left.  
	I stretched myself out on the couch, trying to make myself comfortable.  My headache was starting to come back, so I knocked around on the end table for the Ibuprofen I kept there.  There was a rattle, then a tink as my paw brushed it and it fell over and rolled.  I caught it, and opened the bottle.  It was getting dark, so when I looked into the bottle, I couldn't see really well.  It looked empty.  I tilted it hoping, hoping desperately that there were at least a couple in there.  And to my enormous relief, there was.  Three of the dark red pills fell into my palm.  It was enough, and I wouldn't complain.  I popped them into my mouth and swallowed them with the third shot.  I turned on the TV to catch the tail end of prime-time.  It was just some crappy drama.  I had enough of it in my life.  I flipped channels for over an hour, never settling, lingering more often than not on commercials than shows.  I grew bored, and turned the TV back off.  It was totally dark in the house now.  I could see next to nothing without the ugly light coming from the object of my disinterest.  I got up, and made my way blindly to my bedroom.  I glanced out the window at the moonlit yard.  I couldn't see him, but I knew that he knew that I knew he was still out there.  But even here, in the safety of my home, I continued to play our twisted game.  I was powerless to break free of whatever this spell he had over me was.  I kept the light off, as if that would make him think I wasn't here.  I shucked my clothes, and fell limply, drunkenly into my unkempt bed.  As the dark fingers of sleep clutched at me, I felt ill, knowing that I would wake tomorrow, just to play this game all over again.

	I awoke, the sound of my alarm letting me know I had to get up now if I wanted to get to work on time, and it was imperative that I do so.  I had been late too many times, and it was happening more and more often of late.  I was always tired, and my head throbbed with another of my chronic migraines.  I missed the days where I had energy, and woke up with the sun.  But now, An alarm set to twelve-thirty was the best I could hope for, and even still, it seemed to be becoming more and more unobtainable.  I got up, shuffled about for a clean outfit.  Surely I had some.  I opened my dresser and found it empty.  Didn't I do laundry a few days ago?  I wandered confusedly over to my laundry hamper.  I was surprised to find it full. 
	I dug around inside the laundry, head throbbing, for the least wrinkled and smelly clothes I could find.  A pair of boxers that miraculously didn't stink, pants that weren't stained all to hell with ink, and a button up shirt that was only slightly wrinkly over the only wife-beater that didn't have yellowed pit-stains.  I was lucky to find a pair of clean socks.  I set them aside, then took the laundry to the washer.  I dumped them and dosed it with detergent.  
	I turned around to face the medicine cabinet mirror.  In it, my face looked haggard.  It looked pinched, eyes sunken in, whiskers limp and my fur was dull and matted in places.  My head throbbed, and I reached forward, opening the cabinet.  Inside, I grabbed a bottle of Ibuprofen, popped it open and swallowed a pair of the little pills.  It was still early, and the headache was weak.  I swallowed with a sip of water from the sink.  I closed the cabinet, and saw the shower reflected for a moment as it closed, the angle enough to let me see it for a second.  I turned to the shower.  I hadn't washed in close to a week.  Maybe I should take one today since I hadn't slept through my alarm.
	I found my towel and hung it over the shower door before stepping in.  It was claustrophobic, but it was enough to get cleaned in.  It used to be worse, but I had lost a lot of weight in the last year.  
	I turned on the water.  It didn't feel warm.  I knew it was though, as after a few moments, the glass was fogged with the thick billows of steam wafting up from the stream of water rushing over my fur.  Not for the first time, I wondered at why I couldn't feel the heat like I used to.  No matter.  I turned around, trying not to bump my tail, and reached for the body wash.  I dispensed a healthy amount, and lathered, covering my body in the suds.  I ran my paws through my fur, kneading gently, trying to work the mattes out.  Some were surprisingly large, and I had no idea how they gotten like that.  It took a long time, but I managed to work them all out.  I squeezed the soap from my fur and rinsed.  The suds washed away, along with a copious amount of my coat.  I turned off the water, and shook.  I didn't really have the energy to shake like I used to. But I got some water out.  I wrapped the towel around me to get as much of the remaining water out as I could.  
	I reached for the door to let myself out of the shower cubicle, and the washer buzzed loudly.  My heart jumped weakly, then relaxed, realizing that nothing was actually wrong.  I stepped out, dripping water.  I knelt down and cleaned the drain, filled as it was with my fur.  An entire pawful, and there was still some left behind.  I gathered that last little bit up and threw it all in the basket.  I rose and went to the washer, tossed the clothes into the drier, adding my towel to the mix.
	I went back to my room, dressed, and headed out into the living room.  The large bay window let in the weak late fall sun.  I looked out upon the fallen leaves and reflected  at how miserable life was.  I remained deep in brooding thought until my stomach growled, prompting me to turn to go get breakfast.
	There, on the wall, was a picture.  It was from September of last year, just a little before I fell out with my family.  In it was a twenty-nine year old raccoon.  The black and  gray fur was long, thick, and lustrous.  The eyes were bright, intelligent, and had a questing, searching look to them.  That fur was looking for something, and he was going to find it.  It wasn't me.  Not anymore it wasn't.  
	I walked past it, mechanically grabbed a bowl from the strainer on the counter, and grabbed the milk and cereal.  I ate the bran flakes.  They were as bland and tasteless as I and my life had both become.  Finished, I put my dishes in the sink and looked at the stove clock.  It was one-fifteen.  I should probably get going to work.
	I put on a pair of shoes, and left, stopping only long enough to lock the door behind me.  The walk to work was mildly pleasant.  It was absent my stalker.  He was almost never around when I went to work.  The rare occasion he did were always the days where my head hurt the most.  It was almost like he knew.  Maybe he was drawn to my suffering?  I don't know.  I don't really care.  He wasn't here, and for a little while, I was free, relatively speaking, of the awful monotony.
	The walk wasn't long.  It was maybe two miles, at most.  It was a twenty-five minute walk.  Back when I was a little younger and didn't always feel so tired, I could jog it in a little less than ten.  Quickly, the yards of dying flowers and leafless trees gave way to small brick front stores and shops, then to larger, uglier buildings.  At the same time, the weak sun was overcast by a cloud, then another, and another, until all the sky was just a gray sheet of clouds.  Some of it was smoke from the factories that were only a mile or two away from work, but there were real clouds too.  
	The front entrance of the building was reserved for customers.  So I went to the side, where the door from which I always entered and exited the building was located.  Inside the door was a stair well the went up to the second and third floors.  I worked on the third.  It was cold in here, just like always.  It didn't matter what time of year it was.  I climbed the stairs, their cold gray indifference lit by a solitary, uncovered bulb hanging at each landing.  I stopped at the second floor and mused grabbing a cup of water before going to my office.  But I decided against it.  My head was starting to pound, the Ibuprofen I took earlier already wearing off.  I marched up the second fight of stairs.  The door was electronically locked.  I punched in my numbers, effectively signing in for the day, and stepped through into the third floor hall.
	Long, dim, dreary halls greeted me, stretching to the far edge of my perception.  It was lined with perfectly identical offices, each with an almost clone-like worker at the desk inside.  These were my coworkers, my friends... And my enemies.  Not for the first time I had the irrational thought that one of them was somehow responsible for my torment.  Was the fur in the hat and jacket that stalked me home each and every night sitting here, right now, working?  Or had hired him?  Perhaps, but I had no proof, even if it was one of them.  And I didn't want the higher ups to think I was paranoid, losing touch with reality.  
	I slogged tiredly down the hall of infinity to my office.  Had this hall always been this dingy, this long?  I wondered.  I couldn't really remember.  Ugly graying paint on the walls, dust collected in every corner, and... There, a shadow!  But no, it was just Stacy returning from the toilet.  Or was she?  I shook my head of the thoughts, and my head hurt.  It pounded, growing worse.  I could feel it in my ears, the way the blood vessels throbbed angrily.  I reached my office.  The textured glass blocked everything but light from traveling through, but I could see movement inside.  Who dared to enter into my office?  I thought, as my skull throbbed particularly strongly.  I opened the door and entered quickly, prepared to chew someone out.  But it was empty inside.  Dingy gray light filtered through the open window, a slight breeze causing the blinds to move gently.  Was that the movement I had seen?  Nah, it couldn't have been.  The movement was too slight.  I closed the door behind me and cautiously walked behind my desk.  I pulled out my chair, but no one was hiding there.  Guess I was just seeing things.
	I sat wearily down at my desk.  Taking a last look around the small room, I opened the bottom drawer.  Inside were many empty bottles of pills.  Headache medication.  Tylenol, Aspirin, more Ibuprofen, even Mydol.  Who would've thought it worked on male migraines?  I picked a bottle more or less at random and popped the cap off.  I poured five of the little white capsules into my paw and tossed them into my muzzle like candy.  I didn't even need water anymore.  I dry swallowed and I could feel them sticking to the inside of my throat, acidic and nasty, but finally they made it all the way down.
	Satisfied that the pounding would soon stop, I pulled a stack of papers towards me from my in-tray.  I looked at the top page, not really seeing the words typed across it.  I didn't need to, they were all the same.  I pulled out my pen and my official stamper, and I started scribbling and stamping across the page.  When I was done, I set it aside, and did the same with the next one.  The black ink of my pen flowed seamlessly from page to page, and the red ink of my stamper stood out like a neon sign from each.  Then I did the next.  And then the next.  And then the next.  It was supremely repetitive, comforting in its banality, its simplicity.  The sound of my pen; scribble scribble, then the stamper; thump.  Scribble scribble, thump.  Scribble scribble, thump.  The turn of the page to the next; shiff.  Scribble scribble thump shiff.  Scribble scribble thump shiff.  It was a cacophony in the silence of my office.  Every repetition grating on my every nerve like sandpaper; and yet, it was a glorious symphony.  Scribble scribble thump shiff- 
	Knock Knock.
	“Who's there?”  I asked, my voice cracking.  I looked up from my work to see a silhouette beyond the textured glass of my door.  There was silence.  I cleared my throat.  “Whose there?”  I asked again, more loudly this time.  
	“Lunch.  You coming?” came the voice of Stacy through the door.  It was muffled, but I could hear her just fine in the oppressive silence that settled over the room in the absence of the scratching of my pen.
	“Okay”  I said slurring slightly.  “I'll be out in a minute.”  I could feel the pain in my skull coming back.  Had it been four hours already?  I opened my drawer again and grabbed another bottle at random.  I popped off the cap and shook out a few more pills.  These ones were red coated tablets.  Whatever.  They would still help.  I swallowed them just like the first batch, hard and dry, and I stood up.  
	Suddenly, my desk phone rang and I stumbled a little, catching on my chair as I attempted to get around it.  I looked down at the phone, at the number on the screen.  It was an outside number, but it seemed familiar somehow and it filled me with dread.  Gingerly, I reached out and picked up the receiver, and placed to my ear, “Hello, Steven Golding's office, Patent attorney.  May I ask who's calling?”
	Good after noon, Mr. Golding.  This is Sharice Williams from the East Hartford Healthcare Group.  I am Dr. Addenstien's secretar-”  
	“Stop calling me!”  I screamed suddenly and fearfully into the phone.  I slammed it back down and looked horrified at it, afraid that it might ring again, heralding another call.  It mercifully remained silent and still as death.  After a moment, when my breathing had returned more or less to normal, I continued my pursuit of lunch. 
	Reaching the door, I opened it, finding Stacy had already left.  Why didn't she wait for me?  Had my screaming caused her to flee?  Whatever.  I exited my office, and walked down that interminable hall until I reached the stairwell that would take me down to the break room.  I could've taken the elevator like everyone else, but I didn't trust elevators.  That closed in space, at the mercy of some unknowable mechanical construct as it lifted or lowered you to your possible doom...
	Halfway down the stairs to the level below, a burst of light in my eyes blinded  me. My foot paw caught on something and I fell.  A brief glimpse of shadow, and down I tumbled, rolling head over heels down to the landing.  
	When I came to a rest at the bottom, my body ached in several places.  My left shoulder had collided hard with the railing, and my butt and tail were numb from sliding down the stairs.  I suppose I should be grateful that I didn't break anything though.  I got up and dusted myself off.  I winced as I moved to the door out of the stairwell.  Putting my mind over my discomfort, and the pain fading fast anyway, I stepped out into another hall, long as the one from whence I had come, but windowed, from end to end.  And out side, one floor down and across the street, I could see him.  He was there, just as he was yesterday.  And the day before.  And before that.  For months.  A red rage filled my vision, like many before it burned through my body like a tidal wave of hate and anger.  Who was this fur, who stood outside, mocking me, stalking me?  And just as quickly, it left me.  It left me sweating and impotent.  I hung my head down low and walked bowed to the canteen to eat another cold, tasteless meal.	
	A half hour later, I was back at my desk, pen in paw, stamper at the ready to make more horrible, awful, repetitive music.  Scribble scribble thump shiff.  Scribble scribble thump shiff.  I was two thirds of the way done with the stack, and when I finished, I could go home.  The stranger was out there, waiting.  Would he be angry at yesterday's deviation from the game?  Would he now do something different because I had done something different?
	I pushed it from my mind even as I continued pushing my pen, slamming my stamper.  I turned the pages, one by one, over and over and over again until suddenly, the desk before me was empty.   
	And now it was time to go.  I opened my drawer one last time and pulled out a bottle of Tylenol.  I didn't normally mix, medicines like this, but today...  Well, who fucking cared?  I could feel the migraine returning, and with a vengeance I don't think I had ever experienced before.  I opened it and poured out four.  It was strong stuff; extra strength.  I considered the pills in my paw, and added three more.  Seven.  Seven of them.  I rolled them around in my palm for a moment, then tossed them back like so many skittles.  And then I left.
	I exited through the same door as always; a gray steel door that opened out on to a side street from the main entrance.  The stranger with the cap and the jacket was on the main road, but he could hear me exit the building.  It wasn't like I made an effort to try and get away unnoticed anymore.  He always knew somehow.
	And that bothered me.  I had already deviated from our game.  Last night I did something totally unexpected.  And somehow he knew.  He knew I would return home.  He didn't follow because somehow, he just fucking KNEW!  The anger I had experienced earlier came back to me.  I was tired of running away.  I was tired of living with the fear.  I was tired of always second guessing and looking back.  
	I walked out of the side street, and onto the main road, but instead of turning and heading home like I normally did, I stopped.  I stopped and stared at him.  And in that moment, I knew I had gone too far.  I had violated the rules, and now I had to pay.  My anger was quenched in a cold dread that left me trembling as his head slowly rose up.  And for the first time, I beheld what was under that dark blue sports cap, what was behind the upturned collar of that maroon stained gray jacket.  And now I knew, and not just guessed that the stain was blood.  For I beheld a face out of a nightmare.  It was rotting, flesh peeled back to expose bone, weeping semi-coagulated blood from both it's empty eye sockets.  Maggots writhed in it's exposed nasal cavity.  The part of it's ruined, disgusting face that still had skin and clumps of fur drew back in a mockery of a grin that revealed a mouth full of fangs.  
	I gasped in horror.  What was this thing?  How could it exist?  By what vile sorcery did this thing live?  I turned and ran screaming from it, fleeing towards home.  In a blind panic, I threw random turns into my path, hoping to escape it.  I didn't bother to look back at it.  I didn't need to.  Unlike yesterday, I could hear it's paws following me, keeping pace.  It was relentless, never slowing unless I did. 
	Home was not far away, and I saw it appear in the distance.  I wanted to head there to escape the terror that followed me, but I knew, somehow, that if I stopped to go inside, It would catch me.  I fled past my house.  Down to the end of the block, and turned a corner, and slipped down an alleyway between two buildings.  At the end of the alley was a fence, and I climbed it desperately.  I made it to the top and down to the other side just as whatever that thing was came around the corner.  I saw it, and it saw me.  It grinned, and I screamed.  I turned to continue running, but I bumped into something.  First thing I noticed was a tremendous stench.  I then noticed that there was a cold, greasy moisture soaked into that cloth.  I couldn't really see anything with my face buried into into it.  I gagged, and stepped back, prepared to yell at this interloper interfering with my escape.
	A dark gray, maroon stained jacket.  It was right in front of me.  I stood staring at it, uncomprehending.  I looked up, and there it was; blank staring sockets in a rotting face, gruesome grin baring it's teeth.  I could feel it's cold, fetid breath against my fur.  The odor was overpowering and disgusting.  It smelled of death; rotting meat and fermenting bodily fluid.  I backed up a step, and it advanced with me.  I took another step, and again it moved with me, like a tango of terror.  I stepped back a third time, and my back met with the fence.  
	I looked away from the face of my assailant.  I couldn't keep looking into those pits, those infinite wells of darkness that pierced my flesh and bored into my soul.  I felt an icy touch on my paw.  I looked down to see it holding it out, a single finger sliding over the back of my hand.  I tried to jerk it away, but it anticipated the movement and gripped it.  It pulled my paw out and away from body, and as it did,  I could feel it wrap it's other arm around my waist.  It pulled us together, mashing our pelvic bones.  I was petrified, horrified, and revolted.  It's slimy fur and flesh touched mine and I could feel the maggots crawling in its fur and through its skin.  It dragged me back a few steps from the fence, then it twirled us.  I was too confused, too overloaded to register what was happening.  A step to the right, then a step to the left, turn, step, turn, step to the left, to the right, twirl.  A coldness spread out into my body as it moved me around.  I was limp, but it didn't seem to care, it just directed me as it willed, and my body, haltingly, obeyed.  And when I faltered, it carried me, rag-doll like through the motions. 
	Finally, it tilted me back, and it leaned in over me.  It continued to grin; it couldn't do anything else.  But it leaned in, coming closer, and closer.  Its rotted muzzle two inches, then one.  Then it touched me.  Its muzzle opened, and clamped over mine in a kiss.  I wanted to vomit, but nothing came up.  Its tongue entered into my mouth and I could feel it, cold, slimy, and disgusting.  Coldness spread outward, filling my face and neck, and a heavy fog began to descend over my mind.  Even as it spread out into my chest, filling my lungs and stomach, I could feel it's tongue, moving, twining with my own, limp and unresisting.  The coldness reached into my fingers, my waist, and one of its rotted paws rose up to caress the back of my head like a lover. Where it touched, I could feel the pressure in my skull.  It grew, rising like pressure in a bike tire.
	I whimpered, scared, into the kiss.  I didn't know what was going on.  Thinking was painful, and I could only see this thing as it stood, muzzle pressed to mine.  The cold reached my feet, and I felt all the strength leave me.  My knees buckled, and I collapsed, and it let me go.  I fell to the ground and closed my eyes.  All there was was cold and pain.  It surrounded me, filled me.  Somewhere inside my head, I felt something give way.  A muted pop, heard as if from a distance, and the pain was gone.  I let out an icy cold breath, and my chest stilled.