Gradually there came a sort of vague beginning of consciousness; then a sense of weariness that was dreadful.

For a time I remembered nothing; but slowly my senses returned. My feet seemed positively racked with pain,

yet I could not move them. They seemed to be numbed. There was an icy feeling at the back of my neck and

all down my spine, and my ears, like my feet, were dead, yet in torment; but there was in my breast a sense

of warmth which was, by comparison, delicious. It was as a nightmare, if one may use such an expression;

 for some heavy weight on my chest made it difficult for me to breathe. This period of semi-lethargy seemed

to remain a long time, and as it faded away I must have slept or swooned. Then came a sort of loathing,

like the first stage of sea-sickness, and a wild desire to be free from something—I knew not what.

A vast stillness enveloped me, as though all the world were asleep or dead—only broken by the low panting

as of some animal close to me. I felt a warm rasping at my throat, then came a consciousness of the awful truth,

which chilled me to the heart and sent the blood surging up through my brain.

 

From Dracula’s Guest

By Bram Stoker