“I felt that same tingly sensation begin in my hand, up my arm, to my chest and it was as if it jump-started my heart.”

“I felt a strange fluttering sensation in my chest. Butterflies, cardiac arrest . . . it was hard to say what exactly.”

“I felt the pulse behind the fire raging now in my chest and realized that I'd found my heart again, just in time to wish I never had. To wish that I'd embraced the blackness while I'd still had the chance. I wanted to raise my arms and claw my chest open and rip the heart from it--anything to get rid of this toture. But I could't feel my arms, couldn't move one vanished finger.”

“I put my hand on my chest, a habit I never quite shook after losing my heart.”

“Holding this soft, small living creature in my lap this way, though, and seeing how it slept with complete trust in me, I felt a warm rush in my chest. I put my hand on the cat's chest and felt his heart beating. The pulse was faint and fast, but his heart, like mine, was ticking off the time allotted to his small body with all the restless earnestness of my own.”

“I had a dream I put my hands inside my chest and held my heart to try to keep it still.”