Touch Starved

1

The sun was shining and birds were chirping, that was the only thing I could distinguish with my eyes shut. Usually - when I woke up - sure, I could hear the birds and see some sunlight, but it was never this powerful. Being that it was summer, my ceiling fan was most definitely on, but the hum of the fan didn't grace my ears. Instead it seemed that the sound of leaves rustling were the replacement.

Something wasn't right.

My eyes snapped open, taking in my surroundings. But that did me no good. I squinted, seeing everything in fuzzy, blurry details. My glasses had not been given the luxury to join me.

Wherever this was. I was leaning onto a tree, and I couldn't even begin to comprehend where it ended and the sky began. As well as all the trees behind it. The green and brown blobs blurred together like an unfocused camera as I tried to get my eyes to work. I wanted a better grasp of the scenery I was in. This was just what was to the side of me.

I turned to look in the other direction. Green met blue, so a... field, I presume. Maybe a prairie? I had no idea. I had to be far from home if I was in some place like this. I lived along the coast. The beaches, swamps, forests, sand, and touristic cities mixed between coastal country neighborhoods were what I knew.

This, though? It reminded me dreadfully of a nature documentary. The kind with lions, tigers, and bears - oh, my. My mind began to whirl. How did I get here? Where was here? Was this some elaborate prank? I didn't even have friends that could possibly do this. My three friends lived at a minimum of two hours away. There was no way they'd waste gas money on a prank.

I thought back to yesterday. I woke up late, I watched TV with my dad, I ate lunch, holed myself up in my room, drew on my computer, ate dinner with my family, and went back to my room, and finally went back to sleep. A normal day as a shut-in. What happened?

I stood up, feeling the need to do something and focus on something else. I didn't like this, not one bit. My whole existing in this part of the world just felt wrong. No comparisons, similes, or metaphors. That was how wrong it felt. My mind blanked, one hundred percent emoji.

Is there a civilization here, somewhere? My brain asked me, as if I, of all people, would know. I shook my head in confusion. You tell me, pal.

It felt eerily familiar, as if I'd seen this place once upon a dream. I spun my head around in both directions, twisting my torso accordingly. Squinting helped to see a little better, but where I was was still up in smoke.

I went to dust my pants off, but instead smacked skin. I froze and peered down. I stood in a long pajama shirt and my underwear. Nothing else. Oh, no, wait - my eyes had wandered down to my feet - I had one sock on. Pusheen smiled up at me from my toes. I couldn't smile back.

I was trying to be smart and wait to have my meltdown, but where were my pants? I distinctly remembered going to bed in a tee and shorts. So where were they? And my other sock. Where was that?

I flopped back onto the ground, unceremoniously. A sting greeted my butt as it landed on a tree root. I winced.

I was in no way near another living soul, but it didn't stop me from trying to sit as lady-like as I could, my anxiety at being exposed to even a bug made me feel panicked.

I tried to think about the case of my disappearing pants, and me. My sock was more understandable, I had a thing for yanking those suckers off in my sleep, so maybe I had done that with my pants, I tried to calm myself.

I put my fists to my eyes, and rubbed at them. Maybe I could wipe this away like sleep. I'm just having a lucid dream, this isn't real, how could it? Was it too late to be in the denial stage and not accept the fact that this was occuring?

"Could this day get any worse?" I whined. I knew I shouldn't have said it the moment my brain thought it up. I was only jinxing myself by doing this bull.

And that proved true. My eyes widened as thunder clapped. But the sky was clear. The earth was shaking to match in a perfect time with the thunder. I froze, scooching as close as I could to the tree. My eyes darted around, what in the world was making such a ruckus? I could feel my heart stammering and just knew I was going to die. The thunder seemed to grow louder and soon my heartbeat was thumping to match.

I shimmied again trying to blend in with the bark of the stupid, big ass tree. I gulped my fears, and fought off the urge to pee myself. Dear Lord, I don't want to die. Oh, God - oh, frick. If I died here, would I, like, respawn back home? Would I just stay dead? What would happen to me? Would I go to limbo? Did I enter this weird place because I was dead?

"Answer me, you coward!" I wanted to scream, but no words left my mouth as I peered vainly towards the blue.

The thundering stomps, I'm just now beginning to realize closely resemble footsteps, grew ever closer. They were so close, that their force started to cause me and the small debris on the ground to shake, like a miniature earthquake. I wanted the earthquake to swallow me whole.

My stomach was roiling and it almost lurched into my throat along with my heart as something broke through the tree line - right in front of me. My mouth opened and I shut it quick as I could feel myself about to vomit.

An ungodly sight stood before me. A staggering height, it loomed over me, but it hadn't noticed my presence. It seemed it was preoccupied with something else, as it had merely passed me by and continued running through the forest.

My brain really didn't want to comprehend what it had just seen.

I think denial is never too late. Let's go back to that. I don't want to be here, so I'm not. This is a dream.

A.

Dream.

I watched the blurry figure dash into the tree line, the thundering steps still as loud as ever. And I knew half the shaking I was experiencing was me. The receding figure finally disappeared. I swallowed more bile, thinking about how I could have been the one to get swallowed.

Denial was quickly washing away, but I caked even more on there before refusing to think about it.

Whoops and hollers resounded in the trees above. It almost sounding like a troop of monkeys, but I knew it wasn't. My blanket of disbelief was slipping again as I watched and counted the blurs that flew by.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

They zipped passed me overhead. None must have seen me as they followed through. They were laughing and chattering, but I couldn't make out anything due to their speed. I just watched in silence as my blanket was ripped out from underneath me.

Those were scouts. The thing before? A titan.

It was quiet after everyone had passed, not even the birds chirped anymore. I felt nothing but discomfort in my stomach feeling a ghostly queasiness and something akin to slight pressure at the back of my throat.

This could not be real. I wanted to go home.