Tunnels

Darkness

     I'm sore and bruised all over...but I can move. My ropes have been cut off, but I still lay in blood from who knows where. It's dark. Only a faded circle of light from the old world remains, as distorted as a picture behind a glass of water.
     A curved blade whose only handle is one side that is rounded, but still the same piece of metal, lies next to me. I pick it up.
"Hello?" I ask foolishly. Who would be here waiting for me to wake up? My bruises scream in pain, wailing for me to stop as I stand slowly to take in my surroundings. It feels like all of my organs are swimming around my beat up body.
I begin slowly sinking one foot in front of the other in the wet mud. The sloshing sound makes me cringe, but I continue on. What else can I do?
Eventually, the mud dries to dust, then cracked soil, and eventually, stone. I feel as though I've been walking for hours, my stomach thinking about jumping straight out of my throat out of hunger.
Days. Weeks. My time alone in the tunnels leaks into itself, giving me only the tips of roots to tide over my stomach. My limbs turn to skin and bone, my bruises get only worse, and I never do find the cut that had left my once ceremoniously white clothes brownish red.
Now I come around a corner and see-miraculously-footprints. Have I been going in circles, you ask. I say no, not this time, only for one reason.
The prints are twice the size of my feet.
So homeless, starving, sickly me takes a chance, because maybe, just maybe, I'm not alone.