It stalks you, sneering and with a frightening determination in its many eyes. It watches you; you feel its gaze brushing your shoulders, licking your neck, drilling through your skull. Always. It grips you, its drool drips down onto your head, slides to your feet, burns. Then it leaves you shaking and alone. Tired, angry, and pathetic you wait helpless for the next time it will wrap its massive arms around you. You dread the breathlessness you know will come. It will get you in the end. You can run, but, at last, it will run you over. You will have freedom when sensation is gone. And what then?
Sometimes, though, it stops when you can still feel, letting you experience agony. And sometimes it relents and lets you freeze in ecstasy. You want to hug it, to love it, to hold it forever. You feel blessed and you want to bless it and kiss the hands that had choked you. You meet its eyes and you understand. And then you forget, and you stand scared and small again.