Dreaming?

Surely this is a dream. The pain is immense. Like I have never felt before. In the few moments I wake, it is all darkness and ice. It appears I am suspended by the roots of some great tree. I know not how nor where. I am visited by a bedeviled raven. Always a raven. But at least it is not a wolf. The bird appears curious, too curious. And in the times between my waking? Am I waking? That is when the wolves come. Or once, I swear a devil itself, one of the gods of death it seems, all tusks and pale skin. Though it seems to have lost its horns. So maybe not a devil after all, but some poor goat sacrificed to whichever Hel I be entombed. Blessedly, the cold seems to numb the endless searing pain and shock that was visited on me from the lightning lashes that tormented me upon arrival. I pray my tormenters do not return and leave me to my ill-fated doom. If only sleep would bring some respite. Or waking? I must be dreaming. Surely this is a nightmare born of my failure and inadequacy to accomplish so simple a task. Surely, I must be dreaming?