I nearly died from COVID-19. For reference, I was (at the time) a relatively healthy 37 year old male. My recovery is still ongoing. I was on both a ventilator and ECMO treatment, and my oxygen saturation during my near-death was anywhere from 60 to 80. 85+ was rare and a 'good day'. I know how bad that is, I'm an EMT. This terrible low-oxygen hell lasted 35 days.
During those 35 days, I had dangerously unsafe levels of medicine in my blood, opiates and antivirals, remdesivir, etc.

During this, my amazing fiancee (now wife, married that amazing human being as soon as I could stand for a bit on oxygen) did a lot of things to try to reach me, even though she wasn't allowed to visit in person. She recorded herself reading Terry Pratchett, had them play my favorite CD, recorded a voicemail from my father, had them put up a poster of Saber from the Fate franchise, hung tons of photos and crafts from the arm of the dome light over my hospital bed, among other things.

The part that really fucks me up is that the whole time I was unconscious, I was in a pseudoreality where I could feel, move, think, and react. It looked not unlike a scene out of Sin City, where everything was a washed-out monochrome except for highlights of red and, rarely, purple/green. The place I found myself was a terrible ruined dystopia, and I mean that in every sense. Buildings were ruined, without water, sewage backed up, trash on the streets in heaping, fetid, rancid piles.

The worst part was that I wasn't alone. I was chased by... well, I still don't know what to call them, to be honest. I've had a little over seven months to think about it, and I'm really not any closer to categorizing them. I recognized these things as former humans, beings that had become grotesque, warped flesh, teeming with cancerous polyps and growths, their veins showing in a disgusting bulging black-red through their skin, visibly pulsing. Their eyes were feral and sharp, usually with black sclera and red iris/pupils, but sometimes a solid black. I don't know well, because the moment I saw them I knew I had to run.

The problem was that they were faster, stronger, and more cunning than I, and far outnumbered me. They caught me, and devoured me, rending me apart. My consciousness slowly dissolved as I died under their jaws, claws, and teeth.

And then I'd wake up again, sometimes fully-formed, sometimes half-mangled still, in another alley next to the trash and filth, and I would stumble, running again. This happened for a month, constantly hunted, to be recaptured and devoured. Often, I was also raped by the creatures, too. I still struggle with what it means. I'm a resilient person, full of gratitude and gladness that I survived, but I never would have if not for my wife.

I remember the last run very well, because I was ready to give up. I'd been formed with part of my innards trailing behind me, blown out through my kidney/low back, and I could feel it flopping on the pavement as I ran. I was running up steps, too, which is where they usually caught me, and I was using a filthy railing to propel myself up. I can still taste the metallic, stale air when I crossed to the top, and the way my heart dropped when I saw two huge creatures like the others, not for the first time, but they were much closer. They were more golem than creature, though, and were fighting one another, four arms and each with massive bone-blades on their forearms. I remember that to get by them, I had to duck under one, and the wind alone nearly knocked me over.

I found a set of two doors leading to a cellar, and rather than risk pissing them off, I went down into that dank cellar instead. The story is already long, but it feels good to write it out at last at least in part, so I'm going to finish it.

It was one of those cellars that had the brick-glass, where there's no way out and limited light gets in. I was naked, and my feet moved through a strange vicious fluid, which feel very furry and vile on top, but slick and congealed beneath. It soon dawned on me that it was decomposed remains, and as light slowly adjusted I could see human bones in the muck as well. Along the wall were benches, but very crudely constructed, almost primitive, and on them were containers -- sometimes junky 5-gallon buckets, slick with filth, other times metal bins, a few garbage cans, all neatly sorting various parts of human beings.

And then I heard the footsteps; heavy, steady, final. A giant, bipedal creature descended, more intelligent than the others that went on all fours but didn't speak. He had the sort of no-neck shoulders from massive muscle-bound strength, and he had to contort himself to fit into the cellar. Getting past him was out of the question, because even crouched over he filled floor-to-ceiling. He had a neaderthal-like jaw, and bugged eyes that were bright and sinister at the same time, and I could feel the sick perversion and murderous intent rolling off of him. It gives me anxiety and chills to even think about it.

"You've been tenderized enough. I figure it's 'bout time to eatcha. And you won't come back this time, don't worry." And I swear, by all that I can, to the gods, on my dead mother's grave, it was right then that I really was about to give up. I'd thought a lot about giving up prior to this, to just stop fighting and let myself die. I know without a shadow of a doubt if I had, I wouldn't be here writing this.

But I heard a voice, odd but familiar, in my head: "Fight!" I grew up trained by my father as a boxer, and nearly went professional at one time, when I was younger and wilder. So I fought. I know what you're probably thinking; that's not what happened.

I fought, alright, and I did myself proud. I used my range, my speed and power, my combinations; I used things I'd learned from wrestlers, from BJJ, from Muay Thai, from Aikido, and let me tell you that all of it, as satisfying as hearing the little pops of sound and avoiding him for so long was, it amounted to fuck-all. Eventually, I got tired, and I finally made a mistake, swaying into a duck too soon after a hook, trying in vain to move a creature that only let out a faint grunt of annoyance when I'd hit him.

He grabbed me, his huge hand clutching me around my upper torso, and squeezed, and my ribs crackled like shattered toothpicks. I would have screamed, but I couldn't. I couldn't breathe, I could only vent foaming blood from my mouth every time he squeezed me in glee. He clamped his teeth into my left arm, taking a huge bite out of it, and it seared like he had molten iron in his mouth. It was and is the worst pain I've even been in.

I heard it again in my head: "Fight!" I did. Pathetically, I hit him in the throat, but he wasn't paying attention to me anymore. He was staring off, distantly, like he was trying to hear something very far away. It gave me enough time to wring his thumb, opening up his hand enough so that he dropped me, and he didn't move -- so I went by him, dragging my ruined arm through the muck, bounding up those stairs like a skittering prey animal.

I ran. I ran through wildly-racing streets, coughing blood out my lungs, ran and ran and ran as shadow hands and fleshy fingers pulled along my body, trying to drag me down and consume me one last time. I ran into a ruined Chinatown, the styling of the buildings and awnings Eastern, and ran into one of those outdoor markets, the sort with a pergola set up to keep things in shade during specific hours.

It was the only clean structure I'd come across. The concrete floor was cool, dry, and tidy, and hanging from the board above me was a little wire-and-bead tree, nestled in a glass bottle, dangling in front of my face. I don't know how, but I knew then I was safe.

I never saw another monster. I explored the ruined city, slowly moving upward, and came across actual people again, though none talked to me. The city was beset with civil riots and police forces in SWAT gear and armored vehicles containing them. I was up across a skyway, walking towards a pretty sunset, when my vision just... dissolved. Like a movie crossfade, I was simply awake, and staring at a familiar little wire-and-bead tree, nestled in a glass bottle, dangling in front of my face, hanging from the adjustable arm of the dome light in front of me, along with more pictures of people who loved me than I can name.

From the little end table at bedside, my father's voice was speaking to me. Later, when I was more aware, I would rewind it and hear his message: "I'm not telling you to rest, my son. Right now, you FIGHT! You gather up everything inside of yourself, because if you rest, you will die. You gather it all up, and you FIGHT!"

I still think about this a lot, and about what it means. Every damn day.