I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or shut. It was just that dark. And I groaned. That is to say my remains gave off a rattling gasp of some sort as they tried to perform the action of groaning. Even though I couldn't see I knew exactly where I was. Once I had discovered that dying wasn't the end for me I had made provisions in my will to have my corpse placed in a crypt that I had specially modified. I remember the first time I had come back to life. The panic to get out of the coffin, the constant dying and reviving as I used up all my air in my efforts to escape. The pain in my hands as I wore my fingers down to bloody stumps on the coffin lid, only for them to regrow again. But mostly I remember the exquisite pain of waking. Many people assume that waking up from the dead would just be like waking up from a nap. They could not be farther from the truth.

So I Lay in my crypt and waited. I waited with the vain hope that this time would be different, that this time it would be the time I could revive with out the agony. The worst torture is that I know that my hope is in vain. There is nothing to make this time any different from the many times I died before. My escape from the coffin had taught me that much. Every time would be the same. And as I began to feel a mild heartburn, I let go a breath I hadn't realized I had been keeping. It always started like this. This time would be no different than the others. My heart began to ache. The burning spread through my system, filling every fiber of my being. I braced myself, and inserted the gag I insisted on being buried with. The real pain was just getting started.

My Blood felt so hot I was sure it had to be boiling. And then the burning sensation left my blood and spread into the meat of my body. My whole body felt like white hot iron, except where it was damaged. In the areas of damage it felt like someone was sticking together my wounds with a needle and thread made of plasma. All I could do was writhe in agony, my screams barely muffled by the gag in my mouth. 

As the burning left and my blood no longer felt like magma, my heart began to enter what I thought of as the second phase of regeneration. As the meat of my body felt like it was being seared from the inside out, a knot of bitter cold started to form. The hard little knot of coldness made manifest slowly spread its way through my system. I don't know how to describe it in terms that most would be familiar with. The closest I can think of is to say that it felt like my blood had been removed from my body and had been replaced with liquid helium. 

It was a most exquisite torture, having your body being supernaturally hot and supernaturally cold at the same time. The worst part is that instead of canceling each other out, the coldness only served to make the burning seem that much hotter. And then the coldness spread through every inch of my body, just as the burning had. The heat faded as the coolness spread, finally bringing me back to the temperature a living body should be. 

I take this brief respite to catch my breath, panting hard through my nose. I spit out the gag, seeing as how it is useless because I bit through it when I clenched my jaw in pain. And then it comes. The final stage of reviving. It starts at my toes and spreads all the way up to my head, moving its way down my arms and up my tail as it passes them. At first  it is just a little tickle, and then a tingle like when your foot falls asleep.

And it grows from there. Before long it feels like every cell in my body is trying to rip itself free from its neighbors. Every molecule in my being is part of an orchestra of exquisite pain, the likes of which would easily shatter any mortals mind. And I long for the escape that insanity would give me, for madness to take away the pain. But it is not so, just as it has not been every time before. After an eternity of this most agonizing torture, the pain begins to fade upwards from my feet in the same manner in which it spread, leaving behind a slight tingle, like when you pick up a Styrofoam cup of hot coffee just after you wake up. This is the onlly part of the whole process I enjoy, this feeling of tingly freshness. 

After a while the feeling fades and I begin to feel slightly in my stone tomb. I decide its time for me to leave. Lighting the match that I had also had placed in my grave with me, I get my orientation. The mark I made when modifying the crypt tells me that my head is at the north end of the box. I reach up over my head and feel around for the catch. This is the real reason I had insisted on having a crypt prepared. I did not want to have to go through clawing my way out of another coffin and dig my way through six feet of hard packed dirt, repeatedly dying the whole while. 

Once I released the catch, the lid of my stone tomb swung silently sideways on hidden hydraulic actuators. The rest of the crypt was as dark as it was in my coffin, but I knew my way around in here. I had made sure I could find my way out blindfolded before I had been willing to call the project complete. I found the the second switch in the recess of the door frame, and the large stone slab that had sealed the crypt raised into the roof enough for me to duck out under I and into the night before quietly settling back on the ground. As I wandered out of the graveyard, I wondered how I would explain rising from the grave for a second time to the people of the town.