MOSAIC

Chapter 12: Crawling Forth

My body was sprawled out on the wet ground, half submerged in swampy mud. Every inch of my form was bathed in a sludgy concoction of filth and muck from the fall; a lump of human mass, rotting and smothered in mud. I did not shift about in the slightest at first. I just lay there, twisted up in a crude and unnatural position, with one arm folded up behind and underneath my body, head sinking backwards into mud. My face was directed towards a clearing in the trees, but I shut my eyes, the familiar oblivion of closed eyelids more comforting than the writhing darkness of a black starless night.

It was evident that I had sank quickly and easily, the sludge devouring my body like a grotesque and ravenous beast. The valley I fell down bottomed out at some sort of semi-dry pond, its boggy ground now consuming me. It was unclear as to how injured I was, but consciousness was a good sign, although it was a strange sort of consciousness. I felt like a festering muddy corpse in a shallow grave, silently decaying, body devoured by the cold grime of the earth.

I wrenched my torso out from the mud, sputtering and shivering as I swiveled my head around loosely, trying to get a bearing of where I was exactly. But there was nothing to be seen apart from darkness, and nothing to be heard apart from the soft, pin-drop patter of drizzling rain. No nearby roads. No lights. Nothing. It was all so abnormal, like I had emerged from a dream and had just entered the world for the first time in my life. Everything was overwhelmingly real and unfamiliar. The intense rawness was stupefying.

Damp air flooded my weak lungs, and I could feel its subtle moisture tickling my airways with each unsteady gulp for air. The first few breaths came easy but my airways tensed up after a few lungful's, retracting from the heavy intake of oxygen. A gentle night breeze licked at my cold, wet skin in a discomforting way that made me shiver and twitch. It was as though I had never felt the sensation of rain before. I surveyed my environment again, sinking a hand into the thick boggy mud to support myself as I swished my waterlogged pants around to turn myself. I had to find my way out from this dark, swampy ravine.

My thoughts trailed off as a minor ripple of pain zipped through my head, accompanied by the unpleasant scent of toasted plastic. I forcefully tried to stand up, but my spine recoiled with painful throbbing, my body failing to comply with the demand for such movement. I gingerly ran my wet fingers along the left side of my head. They felt very raw, the way fingertips become when submerged for too long. But it was my head that felt strange. Throbbing from inside out and engorged with fluid.

Eyes half-closed and fluttering from the walloping throb, I began probing at my head agitatedly, pressing my fingers hard along my forehead only to bring on lightning bolts of pain. I emitted a series of raspy whimpers, the sour taste of vomit stinging my dry, cracked throat. I tried moving again, more erratically this time, and I immediately felt overwhelming nausea. Standing up was not going to happen. I tried to retreat to my original position but collapsed sideways, nearly losing consciousness as my head slapped against the wet slop on the ground. An attempted flexion of my abdominal muscles triggered a harsh locomotion of activity from my gut, and my body contracted violently as I spewed a bitter concoction of liquid from my mouth.

Every muscle in my body shuddered, and only weak moans managed to slither past my shrivelled lips as I lay there, sideways on the ground like a dying dog. My blood vessels pulsated with such aggression that they could have ruptured. I stayed as still as possible for a moment, listening to the rain speckling the muck around me, afraid to move my damaged body again. My mind felt like it was sizzling.

With extreme discomfort and strain I wrestled myself back up to a sitting position and tried to make sense of what was happening, but my head felt too heavy and clogged-up to take account of my bodily function. It was impossible to form a clear thought, or even to take a proper breath. The air was becoming overwhelmingly wet and thin, almost non-breathable. It was like trying to inhale through a heavy sponge. More thick vomit churned in my gut, and I felt myself about to collapse again. A few disjointed words faded off into my head like a distant echo, and I made a failed effort to steady my bleary mind. Producing coherent thoughts seemed to be a complicated task. My facial muscles contorted slightly and a hoarse gurgle bubbled up from my throat as I felt myself about to cry.