Hunting Love

~ Chapter Three ~

~ Chapter 3 ~

My foot slipped from underneath me, and down I went into the pit below. A piercing scream left my lips as I fell down. Water that’s thick with mud and other organic products is swirling around me. In my pure shock, I stand still in the swirling mess. I feel a strange tugging at my ankles, and I go under.

I flail my arms hopelessly around me, trying to get back up to the surface. The foul substance entered my lungs, and more and more entered when I panicked further and tried to breathe. It felt like my chest was on fire, veins in my head popping from the pressure of being under water for so long. The tugging at my legs seemed to cease suddenly, and when I opened my eyes, I was only waist deep in the substance. I started losing it again. I was completely dry from the waist up. Well, shit. I am no longer sane. What the heck is with this forest? I thought to myself.

Since I was no longer sane, I started laughing hysterically. I have no reason why I did, I just did. It felt like a life time I was standing there in this mud water, laughing at how I had accomplished falling into a pit. A cynical part of my brain kept telling me that falling into the pit was probably going to be the only thing I would accomplish in life apart from dying in this sinkhole.

Sinkhole. I repeated the word over and over in my head, wondering why my brain started working at the sound of the syllables in my mind.

And then it dawned on me why.

Too late to act on it, I felt a tingling at my feet, and my head snapped down to look. I couldn’t see anything through the mud mixed in with water. As the tingling started to travel up my body very slowly, I devised a plan. My eyes caught hold of a sort of vine almost, just a few metres from me. Maybe I could just wade over to it and pull myself up using the vine…

The problem was, I couldn’t move. I tried moving my legs; they wouldn’t budge. They wouldn’t even tense as the tingling continued to soar upwards. I freaked out again. How can this be happening?! I thought frantically. I tried and tried to move my legs, but it wouldn’t work. I then came up with a plan. Maybe I could lean toward the vine. Yes, Ithought. Yes, that would work.

I tried bending over, only to realise that it seemed as though my lower back wouldn’t work either. I drew in quick, short breaths, trying to calm myself down. Panicking wouldn’t help my current situation at all. Dane. What would Dane do?

I focused on the one word; my boyfriend’s name. “Dane! Dane! Help! Someone, help me!” I kept screaming out his name, hanging on to the hope that Dane would come and rescue me. But what if he doesn’t come to your rescue? The cynical part of my brain told me. He told you to get lost. That this was too dangerous. But you didn’t listen. So why would he come now?

I ignored that part of my brain and focused on what I thought was true. Dane was coming for me. He had to. I started to sink more and more, and the panic just kept rushing through me like a current under water. It wouldn’t stop.

I screamed louder and louder. “Dane! Dane!” My voice was gone by the time I had sunk to just below my chest. I couldn’t feel anywhere underneath that area. I wondered if this was going to be permanent. Oh God. How will I pee?

I set that one thought to the back of my mind and summoned a plan from nowhere. I still had my arms. I had kept them above the ‘water’ this whole time. I couldn’t bend anymore, so the plan for the vine ended dramatically. I turned my head around, looking for anything else that might serve as a rescue item from this muck.

There was nothing.

I was going to die.

I went limp, and my arms fell to the mud below me. I was giving up. Calling in the towel, or whatever the saying is. I let out a deep, grunt of a sigh and let my head fall back. I blinked up at the sky, which had started to trickle little rain drops. Tears slid out of my eyes and ran down the curves of my face, dropping into the mud below me. So, this was it. This is what dying felt like. Peaceful, calming, and everything in between until a wolf jumps out of the bushes and into the pit next to you. Wait, what? I thought. I glanced at the source of the heavy grunting and panting. Holy shit it’s a wolf!