Trapped

7.

Finally, I saw a light at the end of the tunnel and shortly after that both Jason and I landed in a pool of sticky brown mud.

"Well this is just lovely," I said with sarcasm dripping from my tongue, but Jason didn't answer.

I looked around and noticed that the tube we fell out of was gone and I made a mental note to stay away from anything resembling a slide from then on. The whole area around us was full of mud and roots of trees stuck out everywhere. Some branches hung over the top of the mud pool we were in, but nothing grew past the muddy pool. As I tried to get to my feet, I noticed I was sinking more and more, we were in fact not in a puddle of mud, we were trapped in quicksand.

"Jason, this is quicksand!" I panicked. How were we going to get out of this? I had no idea what to do since I have never been stuck in a situation like this. In the midst of my panic attack, I noticed that Jason hadn't answered me and he wasn't normally the one to keep quiet. I swung around only to see that he was gone. "Jason? Jason!" My arms searched for him under the quicksand, soon after I felt something moving close to where I was, I stretched my arms out under the mud in the direction of the movement and there my hand bumped into what felt like a collarbone. I searched further to find the shoulders linked to the collarbone and when I did I shoved my hands under his arms and pulled it upwards with all my might, making myself sink further while doing so. I was sinking really low until only my shoulders were out of the quicksand.

Finally, after some heavy tugging, Jason's head came up from under the quicksand and he took a massive breath. I sighed in relief and asked him if he was okay, he coughed a few times and then nodded. Once I was sure that Jason was fine I started laughing at his mud covered face and wiped my hands off on the clean bit of my shirt. "What are you laughing at? I almost died!" he complained.

"You would have died if I didn't save you so, thanks are in order," I said teasingly.

"Yeah whatever, this is going to sound weird but could you wipe the mud off of my eyes please? my hands are too muddy," he replied and deep down on the inside I was laughing really hard, but I didn't show him that, I then looked at my hands and when I saw that they were clean enough I wiped his eyes off. He opened his eyes slowly and then he stared at me with anger in his expression. He started cursing some words and mumbling things, clearly he was talking to me but I couldn't hear a word of what he was saying so I just turned around and searched for another root or branch that could save me.

"I'm never gonna hear the end of this from you and I know it, why did I have to get stuck in the mud with you of all people?" he asked and I frowned, I didn't realize that Jason hated me this much. But I shrugged it off and pretended that I didn't care.

"Yeah sure, whatever you say all I know is you are the one with a face full of mud and I'm the one who pulled you out, so maybe you should try being a bit more grateful. But that doesn't matter now, we have more important things to concentrate on than saving your ego, let's try to figure out how to get both of us out of this quicksand, any ideas?" I asked.

"Well the first idea that pops into my head is to get hold of a root from outside and pull ourselves out, that's the only option we have right now," He stated simply, like it was the easiest thing in the world, but I didn't have any better ideas so I just nodded and looked around for something that could work. I looked around the area where we were and saw one root that looked like it was within my grasp. I reached out and stretched myself out until my fingertips met the tip of the root, I couldn't quite grab it so I tried to move my body a bit closer, as I did so I could feel myself sinking deeper into the mud. I reached again and this time I could stretch just enough so that my right hand could grip it tightly.

"I got one!" I shouted at Jason, when I looked back I saw him with his mud covered face concentrating really hard on reaching a branch that he was staring at, he stuck his tongue out a little bit, out of pure focus but immediately retreated when he tasted the mud on his lips, he pulled a grossed out face and made a "eugh" sound. I just laughed and turned my focus back to using the root to pull myself out of this mess, literally.

I started pulling and pulling with all my strength, I could feel that I was slowly getting myself closer to the other edge of the root. After moving about 2 inches the root suddenly broke off and flipped over my head. I gasped and turned around to see where it went and I did so just in time to see it hit Jason on the head, sending his face into the mud once again. I burst out in laughter and stopped myself quickly to see if he was okay, he lifted his head out of the mud, his eyes were squeezed shut and his mouth in the shape of a frown.

"I'm sorry, are you okay?" I apologised immediately, but deep inside I really wanted to laugh until my stomach was sore.

"I can't wait to get out of here so that I can kill you," he said angrily and then focused on getting a hold of a branch again and so did I.

My eyes landed on a dead tree on my right-hand side, the branches were arched and one of them was close enough to the mud so that I could reach it if I stretched, and I would have to turn around in order to do so, that meant I would probably end up to be a little bit deeper in the mud. I had no other choice so I turned around, struggling since I had nothing to hold onto. After almost 15 minutes I could finally reach the branch. I grabbed the branch and started pulling myself out, my energy was spent but something within me just kept reminding me that my friends are all depending on me.

I pulled with all the power I had left and moved up inch by inch, I felt like I could take part in Ninja warrior after I successfully pulled myself all the way out. I was hanging on the branch with only my feet still in the mud. There was a big boulder a couple of inches away from my feet. I pulled my one foot out of the mud and stretched it to stand on the boulder, my toes just reached the boulder and with that, I could pull out my other foot. I realised that there was no way that I was going to be able to put both feet on the boulder and let go of the branch, it was just too far, so I was going to have to swing and jump. I pushed myself away from the boulder with my toes and started swinging and swinging and then I jumped, once again I took a leap of faith.

I landed with my one foot on the boulder and fell forward, my arms flew to my front from shock attempting to protect my face and I ended up landing on my palms. The boulder scraped the back of my forearms until eventually, I fell on my stomach. I yelped and pain shot through my forearms and I immediately turned on my back. I forgot about the bananas in my backpack and I could feel them being squished under the weight of my body but I was in too much pain to care. I looked at my arms, they were completely scraped open and bleeding.

"That's gonna leave a pretty ugly mark," I said, forcing back the tears that were forming in my eyes. I was spent, physically and emotionally. I just lay there under the branches on top of the now ruined bananas in my backpack. No matter how much my brain pleaded me to get up, I just didn't have the energy, my eyes grew heavier and heavier until everything was black.