It was the wrench of nausea that pulled me from this nightmare. In the violence of the retching, I rolled from beneath the mirror and raised myself to hands and knees. I had knocked over the clock and it shouted up at me--10:05, July 15. Three days! Too long! Too horribly long! * * * * * Slowly I dragged myself to the telephone and pulled it from the stand. I remember nothing else until they brought me here. It's been eight days--eight days away from death, yet I'm closer to it now than ever before. And I can't _think_ of it. The fear has come crashing through and I can't _think_. This thing, this body is too far gone. I won't be able to make it move. I'll just feel it getting away--little by little--ripping apart cell by cell, and then everywhere all at once. I can feel it now. But in that great silence, I could almost hear the tearing--yet there was no sound. The doctors have given up all hope. I can see it in their faces. I could hear them talking among themselves when they brought me in. They had to give it a name. There's a certain safety in a name, you know. I would have told them, but I was afraid they'd laugh. The nurses would laugh and say to each other, "Have you heard what the one in 408 wanted in his case history?" I couldn't stand the laughter now. But that's the way my chart should read--Cause of Death:--_Death!_ End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cause of Death, by Max Tadlock