Ephemeral

Into the Woods Part 1

The sun had set a while ago...

The crickets were the only constant noise that kept flooding though my ears. It made it hard to hear anything else, but the good news was that I hadn't heard anything else. Other than my own footsteps, of course, trudging through the noisy forest floor, which was composed out of loose sticks and fallen, dead leaves.

I hadn't kept track of the descending sun's position in the sky, so it was hard to identify when night had officially started. Although, it was hard to say exactly what time it was now, since I hadn't craned my head up in the sky to find out --

It would have cost me energy to keep darting my head up.

Energy that I didn't have.

Instead, I kept my eyes focused on the next milestone in front of me – it was a simple milestone that I thought was easy to accomplish. Each tree that I managed to get near and successfully touch had counted as another venture gained.

It was an intangible success marker that I could keep in my back pocket.

Each tree that I came across and passed seemed like a small victory for me. It was one of the only positive thoughts that I kept in my head as I was becoming more and more out of breath –expending the energy that I absolutely...did not have...at this point.

I had been hugging each tree that I had come across in the darkness to keep myself standing on my sore feet. The pads of my feet were screaming in complaint – it felt worse than having ran for miles on end. Even that experience that I had held no comparison to the stamina-less, running on fumes body that was being ran into the ground.

The trek to the next tree seemed like a marathon in itself – I had actually run a few marathons before and so...I wasn't at all exaggerating.

I would have preferred a marathon rather than walking forward, aimlessly into the darkness.

My mouth was severely parched, a sign of dehydration, and there was no reliable water source around me that I could hear. It would be taking a high chance with even drinking something that came from a river since there might be bacteria lingering in the water, unseen to the naked human eye.

Sweat ran down the side of my face, and I brought my dirty arm up to my forehead to wipe it away. I could tell that the sweat had turned to runny mud as I could feel it travel down my skin. There was nothing to wipe it with since my clothing was still moist from my initial tumble into the river. 

It would only smear the mud on my face...it would make everything more dirty.

Dirt was everywhere – I could feel it inside of the socks I was wearing.

The slip-proof socks had changed in color instantly. 

They had once been white and now a dark coal black. The socks themselves did very little to help aid me from the elements of the forest floor. Every other step it seemed like I was stepping on a leaf, which had seemingly transformed into a sharp weapon and pierced through the soft material that was meant to serve as some half-ass protection --

I'm sure these socks weren't meant to be traversed through the forest...

I shouldn't even be out here.

The crickets continued to make noise, drowning out my thoughts.

I took another step, putting too much weight on my bad leg. 

It caused me to begin limping as I hopped pathetically to the next tree – the next milestone in front of me. 

I strained my arm out, feeling my fingertips lightly touch the rough texture of the bark. My fingers were the next to spread out, desperately hoping that I would be able to grab onto something that might be able to support my weight since I could no longer to that.